Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Quick Heal Technologies Limited's Q4 and FY 2024 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 the star then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Purvangi Jain from Valorem Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Good evening, everyone, and a warm welcome to you all. My name is Purvangi Jain from Valorem Advisors. We represent the investor relations of Quick Heal Technologies Limited. On behalf of the company, I would like to thank you all for participating in the company's earnings call for the fourth quarter of the financial year 2024. Before we begin, a quick cautionary statement. Some of the statements made in today's earnings conference call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's belief as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the management. Audiences are cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements in making any investment decisions.
The purpose of today's conference call is purely to educate and bring awareness about the company's fundamental business and financial quarter under review. Now, I would like to introduce you to the management participating with us in today's earnings call and hand it over to them for their opening remarks. We have with us Mr. Vishal Salvi, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Ankit Maheshwari, Chief Financial Officer. Without any delay, I request Mr. Vishal Salvi to give his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you so much, Purvangi, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Vishal Salvi here, CEO of Quick Heal Technologies. Welcome to our year-end FY 2024 earnings call, where we will cover an update on industry landscape, our performance, key milestones, and the road ahead. I'm excited to host you on my first annual earnings call and eager to share the progress that we have made in this year, FY 2024. We have posted a good result of 5% growth in revenue and a remarkable increase in EBITDA to 9x as compared to our last year's financial year. I am pleased with the consistent progress we have made in the past three quarters in the areas of defining our business strategy, firming up our roadmap, strengthening our leadership team, brand building and repositioning our brand, and onboarding of key partners towards our alliance strategy.
Talking about our consumer business, we are the market leaders in the country by very strong footprint of our distribution channel across the country, our digital marketing activities, and strong product. We're also looking at developing innovative adjacent offerings to cater to evolving cybersecurity risks for the consumers. Finally, on the enterprise side of our business, we have solidified our sales machinery through onboarding of our enterprise sales leader and key channel alliance like M. Tech to capture the market at scale. We are gradually moving up the value chain of our customers to capture the mid and the large enterprise market.
We are looking at expanding our current serviceable, operatable market from INR 1,800 crores to INR 4,000 crores in the next three years, by virtue of organic growth or expansion into new and mid and large customer segments, our new products launched, and the government and regulatory enforcement, like the Data Protection Act. We started investing in our Horizon Two solutions, which included EDR, XDR, Zero Trust, data privacy solutions, et cetera, more than three years ago, and these products have started to gain market traction starting from this year. We are happy to state that our board has approved further investment in new solutions and products to further strengthen our portfolio.
Our major focus within Horizon Three solutions would be towards monetizing our rich threat intelligence, GenAI adoption, adjacent offerings in consumer segments, and expanding the use cases and solutions under data privacy and Zero Trust family. We are deeply committed -
Sorry to interrupt, sir. Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there is some static disturbance from your end.
Is it okay now?
Yeah, it's better, sir. Thank you.
Okay. We are deeply committed to collaborative research and strategic partnerships in the field of cybersecurity innovation, and hence, we are pleased to announce partnerships with IIM Nagpur and National Forensic Sciences University for joint cybersecurity research and projects. We are happy to announce collaboration with U.S. government on their NIST Cybersecurity Center of Excellence for Data Classification project, and recently joined the U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium, showcasing India's cybersecurity maturity at the global scale... With three decades of domain expertise and our Make in India success story, unparalleled threat intelligence from Seqrite Labs, strong team, a robust partner and distribution network and local presence, we are primed to seize market opportunities and deliver maximum value to our stakeholders.
We are proud to be a leading cybersecurity product company for India, contributing towards the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat, which is so critical for the sovereignty of the country, especially in the cybersecurity domain. We are well poised to harness this market opportunity with a clear vision and strategy, a solid team, and the right culture and strategic partnership and relentless focus on execution. With this, I would like to invite Ankit, our CFO, to walk you through the financial performance.
Thank you, Vishal, and good evening, everyone. FY 2024 is a key year in the journey of the company. While building a strong foundation for years to come, we also delivered profitable growth.
Sorry to interrupt, sir.
Yeah.
There is a lot of static disturbance from your end.
Is it better now?
No, sir. Still the static sound is coming.
From our end it is okay.
Sir, I'll be just disconnecting your line and reconnecting you, okay?
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you for patiently holding. We have the management line reconnected with us. Thank you.
Thank you.
Do you want me to restart, or we can go with CFO update now?
We can go with CFO update, sir.
Okay. All right.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. FY 2024 is a key year in the journey of the company. While building a strong foundation for years to come, we also delivered profitable growth. The consolidated revenues for the year stood at INR 292 crore, which grew by 5% on a year-on-year basis. While the headwinds in the consumer business still persists, we have taken significant steps to bring it back on track. We are happy to report that we have onboarded over 200 enterprise clients for our new products in FY 2024. With our strategic focus on innovation, we are continuing to spend on our R&D and also parallelly strengthen our sales and marketing team. With our efforts on cost control and management, I am pleased to report that our total expenditure for the year remained flattish and it stood at INR 266 crore.
As a result, our EBITDA stood at INR 18 crore and the FY 2024 margin expanded to 6% as against less than 1% in the previous year. Speaking about the quarter four, FY 2024, revenues stood at INR 80 crore and EBITDA at INR 10 crore. The Q4 revenue is flattish due to some of the government deals getting deferred to quarter two of FY 2025 because of general elections code of conduct. We have proposed a dividend of INR 3 per share, in line with our dividend distribution policy, subject to approval by the shareholders. We are a zero-debt company, and our balance sheet is strong with a cash and cash equivalent of INR 226 crore, which has increased by 45 crore after paying a dividend of INR 13 crore in August last year.
As a socially responsible company, we continue to give back to the society and did impact over 13 lakh lives in FY 2024 through our CSR initiatives, focusing on youth development, cybersecurity awareness throughout the year. With this, I would like to open the call for question-and-answer session.
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 their touchtone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Vimal Gohil from Alchemy Capital Management. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on a very successful FY 2024. So my first question was on the enterprise business, where while you alluded that this was a bit slow. What gives us the confidence that the couple of government deals that we spoke about will come in the next two quarters? What - if you could just help us with some - what is the degree of confidence there, and what's the traction that we are getting in the private SMEs? That's question number one. The second question is on the higher operating expenses that we have experienced in this particular quarter. If I observe, the OpEx has gone up from about 12 odd crores to 14, 14 crores, quarter-on-quarter. What rate would you do you see this sustaining at, going forward? Thanks.
Thank you, Vimal, for that question. See, basically, you know, the way the deal cycles are, you know, and when you look at government deals specifically on your question, you would be working on such deals anything between, six months to a 9-month cycle. And, and of course, you know, we had some of those deals in that process, and that's when, you know, when we had the general elections, you know, we, you know, the, the decision can swing, and once it gets into the, zone of code of conduct, they get deferred. So we feel very confident that all the, all the things which have got deferred are still in the play as far as that deal cycle is concerned, and they will get resurrected the moment, the code of conduct is over.
So, to answer your question, I think we feel confident that, you know, we will be able to, you know, get those deals, in our favor, as we would do for any other deals, without a code of conduct. As far as the question on, SMB traction is concerned, look, we are already, you know, you know, market leader as far as SMB market is concerned for cybersecurity. And, and that is our, sweet spot, right? Because, you know, we, we have a very strong, network of partners, which we leverage for that, and it is well established for many decades of partnership that we have, and we've been leveraging that. So we just want to make sure that we continue to consolidate and continue to grow in that space.
So that is, that is really where we are as far as SMB business is concerned. Now, on the question of the operating expenditure, I will hand it over to Ankit, and he will give you some color on that.
Thank you, Vishal. So overall expenses are in line. If you see, it is in the range of INR 68 crore for both the quarters, quarter three and quarter four. However, there is a general administration expenses, which have gone up by about INR 1.5 crore. This is primarily due to accounting and standard provisions. We have to make a provision for bad debts of about INR 1.5 crore in this quarter, so you are seeing that increase on account of that. There are no bad debts in the current year as such. However, since the accounting effect says that we have to make provisions as per the ECL methodology, we had made some provisions. Hope this helps, Vimal.
Right. And, sir, if just one more question on margins. How do you, given the fact that you are experiencing very good growth across the government deals will come back, SMBs are seeing good traction, where do you see your margins for FY 2025? What's the sweet spot that you're considering here?
Vimal, we are in an investment phase, so it will be difficult to give a particular number at this point of time. But of course, as the revenue will grow, the expenses will not grow in the same proportion, so you will see significant movement here, but difficult to give a particular number.
Well, that helps. Thank you so much, and all the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mihir Manohar from Carnelian Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah, go ahead, Mihir.
Sorry. Thanks for giving the opportunity. And-
Mihir, sir, sorry to interrupt. There's a lot of echo from your end.
Yeah, I think I will come back. Thank you. Yep, sorry.
The current participant line has been disconnected. The next question is from Jatinder Agarwal from Relax Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello?
Hello.
Yeah. Hi, Jatinder, you are audible.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Hi, Vishal. Hi, Ankit.
Hi, good evening.
So I have two questions. When I look at one of your presentations where you exactly mentioned that we are increasing the addressable market from INR 1,800-odd crores to INR 4,000-odd crores, and this is happening over FY 2027, is this what the board approval for in terms of the new expenses to build those products?
So, Jatinder, basically, one of the levers for us to go into the new SOM or create, extend our SOM is that approval from the board. Okay?
Okay.
But that is not the only reason why our SOM will grow. There were other levers as well.
Okay. So from the existing product basket, right? That is the INR 1,800 crore market that you are addressing. Correct, if I'm not wrong?
Yeah, you're right. You are right.
From the new products that you will go for, so you will develop going forward, that on which it seems like a horizon of three years, that will increase your addressable market, right?
You're right, Jatinder. And if I have to just give you some additional color to that... So you're right. One is, of course, you know, the fact that we will continue to invest and add adjacency in terms of our product mix, and that's the reason why we are going to additionally invest and build new solutions that we talked about. But apart from that, we are also looking at our market segmentation and adjusting our go-to market to target the new segments like mid-market and maybe some large enterprises. So that is another way of looking at it. The third is the organic growth. The fact that, you know, the threat landscape is growing, the challenges are there, so there's a demand, general demand for cyber, so there is an organic growth.
And the fourth lever is basically, you know, the push coming from regulations, from government on expectations and making corporates more accountable to cybersecurity and privacy, right?
Okay.
So all of this, and therefore, when we are looking at investments and new products, we are also looking at trying to build solutions which will address that new requirements which will come up.
Perfect. That is helpful. And, my second question is related to the DPDP Act, whatever, for data privacy. What is the TAM? So is that TAM already included in INR 1,800 or that is additional over and above INR 1,800?
So, see, DPDP is not included in 1800 because it is yet to be really enforceable, right? So it is something which is going to create a new TAM for us. When you look at FY 2025-
Okay. Sorry.
When you look at FY 2025, Jatinder. You can expect that, you know, we would start, you know, India specifically will start looking at a new TAM because the, you know, DPDP will be enforceable. And so corporates will start looking at strengthening their privacy and therefore the underlying layer of cybersecurity. Okay?
Okay.
That's the, that's the way you should look at it.
Any idea on how big this TAM is?
Yeah. It's very difficult to give you exact number. We have a rough estimate, but it's not something that we want to make public. But I think what I can tell you is that, it is going to be applicable for every organization in the country. And there are severe penalties if people do not comply or have cybersecurity or privacy breaches against that law.
So just to continue this, one is that we have enterprise revenues of INR 120 crores. So as of date, there are no revenues, from this product in the INR 120 crores, correct? Is it, is it correct understanding?
Yeah, that's correct.
Could you give some broad idea in terms of who are the competitors in this space?
Yeah. So that's a great question. See, basically, this is a completely new segment. And so if you look at all our other products, we would have a standard competition, which is there, but for this is a completely niche area. So you would typically have a competition, which is a single product, kind of a vendor. But in India, we have very small, one or two very small players, if at all. There are global competition, which is like a OneTrust, you know, which is a global company. But yeah, I mean, as far as Make in India is concerned, you know, we have very less number of people who are operating in this space. Yeah.
That is very helpful. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Jatinder.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Singh from Robo Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. About the research and development expenses, do we have a broad outline, broad plan as to how much are we going to expense in the coming four quarters and for FY 2026?
Yeah. So, Aditya, we have a plan, but as you can see, we have been investing on R&D in last couple of years, and every year we have seen an increase. However, and yesterday only, we have taken approval from the board to invest on new products.
With all that, this number will go up dramatically. However, we will not be able to give you a particular number here. The only confidence we can give is that in the proportion in which the revenue will go up, it's going to be in the lesser to that percentage.
So the other way also to say this, Aditya, is that we will, we—I think we have said this in past, and we want to say it again, that we are, we are continuously going to be in a investment space because cybersecurity opportunities are many, and we want to make sure that we start investing and adding more adjacency to our product, product portfolio. Okay?
Okay.
With the fact that given the way we are looking at it and given the confidence of our board as well, we feel more confident that we will now be able to continue to invest. If you look at it, for example, if you take back our investments in the last six-seven years horizon on the enterprise products, has yielded us to get to a 37% market, you know, revenue mix as far as our overall portfolio is concerned. So that is giving confidence to us, to the board, that we want to continue to invest and grow that, because we have to, you know, as we are working on Horizon two, we have to also work on Horizon three.
So while we do that, and based on what Ankit is saying, is that we will still continue to make sure that we continue to have a balance between our revenue and margins, and we will not lose focus on the margins. But, but, but definitely we will skew more towards, you know, growth and investments.
Understood. Okay. Thank you. That was my question.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mihir Manohar from Carnelian Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for giving the opportunity. Am I audible now?
Yeah, Mihir, go ahead.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for giving the opportunity. So largely wanted to understand, you know, we have on boarded M. Tech, as one of our national distributor, and you also mentioned that you are looking to address the market at scale here. Can you throw some light on, you know, what kind of customers, what kind of user base, number of users, customer could be M. Tech be targeting? What scale are we looking at with M. Tech? That will be helpful. Second thing was on this, you have got the first in-only Indian cybersecurity company, working with U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Consortium. So how to understand the importance of this and how to understand the commercial relevance? And third question was on this investments that you're talking about.
I mean, is there any threshold EBITDA that we have kept in mind, you know, or certain threshold EBITDA that we want to target, that will be helpful?
Yeah. Thank you, Mihir. So look, I think the M. Tech partnership is extremely strategic for us. And as you know, M. Tech is a leading national distributor in the country for technology and more specifically for cybersecurity, and has got multiple cybersecurity products under their portfolio. And for them to choose Quick Heal and Seqrite as their partner, is giving us confidence about, you know, how we can actually position ourselves in the mid-market and to enterprises. So that's number one.
Number two, when we have looked at this strategic partnership, we have agreed on a joint go-to-market, where we will be enabling and training the M. Tech team and their services arm, to empower them to use Seqrite solutions, for their customers and, and make sure that, you know, they are able to go and penetrate their customers through our products. Number three, you know, they already have access to a lot of customers, and, and they see a definite fit in terms of the value proposition that we bring, to their services and portfolio, through our product portfolio. So I think, you know, this three-pronged approach is gonna help us in terms of driving, you know, the deployment of Seqrite solutions to their customers and their connects.
So that's the thinking as far as the strategy is concerned. And, and, you know, we are, deeply thankful to this partnership for M. Tech leadership, and also look forward to a, a good partnership together with them from this year on. On the question related to AI consortium, basically, apart from, you know, running the business, we are deeply committed to being innovative. You know, innovation is, in the heart of our strategy. And innovation can only happen with, working with, partners, academics, government bodies, standards, and participate with them on deep research and exchange of thoughts and ideas. So, this AI consortium is one more example of that, where we will participate and share our experience of working on large, massive scale, signals coming from, different devices that we manage on threats.
Our understanding of how some of the AI, ML models work around that, and then how we can work closely with these different government international bodies, so that we can share our thought leadership, and we can learn from them to make our products more robust and successful. So that's the whole idea of this partnership. And as far as the threshold for EBITDA is concerned, like I said, I think, what we are really focused on is to create a very strong Make in India cybersecurity product portfolio, and really make a very strong foothold into Indian and global enterprises as far as our products are concerned. So that is our aim, and if it means investing more in R&D to deliver that, we will do that.
And so we don't really set some thresholds on EBITDA, but then, you know, we want to make sure that we don't take it for granted. So that's really how we look at our strategy as far as, you know, managing EBITDA is concerned.
For sure. For sure. Is there any separate amount that, for this particularly, new investments, that we are looking at?
Yeah, so there was a, there was a proposal that we made in terms of what we wanted to achieve, and, and that proposal had a specific objective, and we have an in-principle approval, and now it's all about how we want to execute on what we want to achieve.
Sure. And just one last extension to the M. Tech part. I mean, should we expect that M. Tech will take us to Fortune 100 companies of India?
See, it's, it's again, something which we cannot define in terms of timelines, and we take it year, one year at a time. So we have defined our goals, joint goals together, in terms of what we want to achieve for FY 2025. And our immediate aim is to make sure that we are able to deliver that. And once we kind of come close to delivering that, then of course, we will define the ambition of what we want to do in subsequent years.
There are more than 20 parties in the conference. There are more than 20 parties in the conference.
Purvangi, are you there?
Participants who wish to ask question, may please press star and one at this time. Participants who wish to ask question, may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Jatinder Agarwal from Relax Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Sorry to come back. Just a follow-up on this M. Tech, sir. Obviously, my understanding is at zero level. So could you explain what is the type of corporate clients that M. Tech would target for you? So, like, we are already in SMBs, right? So is it to enhance the SMB coverage, or is it actually to a different set of clients, which will probably be larger in mid and large corporate? Thank you.
Hey, thank you for that question, Jatinder. So think of M. Tech as our national distributor. So, basically, we will use them for all our business when it comes to mid-market and large enterprises. And the, M. Tech is a large, national distributor, but has their own, clients and services arm, through which they support, multiple OEMs like us, and now we are part of their portfolio. So they will, for the, for the problems that their customers have related to the solutions that we have, they will be actually taking our solutions to them. So that's really how it is. So it is going to be a new, segment of customers that we have not targeted so far, and they will help us to get access to that, segment of customers, which is beyond SMB right now, Jatinder.
Okay. Most of their existing tie-ups would be with the international cybersecurity companies, is it?
That's right. Because if you look at it, most of the cybersecurity product companies in the world are anyway mostly from Silicon Valley. I would say that, you know, we would be the really first Indian cybersecurity player who are part of that portfolio.
Got it. That is helpful. Thank you.
Participants who wish to ask a question may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Sampath Nayak from Tiger Assets. Please go ahead.
Hello, hi, this is Sampath Nayak. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is on, regarding our alliance with JioBook. Like, are we exclusive AV providers for JioBook, or we are one of the AV providers?
Sampath, we are exclusive AV providers for JioBook.
So, sir, what kind of revenue or, you know, or TAM do you expect, with our alliance with JioBook?
Yeah, we don't disclose, you know, deal by deal or partnership by partnership revenues. We don't disclose those figures. But I think this partnership is more, you know, strategic, you know, in terms of how both the brands can come together and, you know, how we can help safeguard their infrastructure.
Okay. So my second question is on, like, what would be the future revenue contribution from enterprise segments, maybe in 2-3 years? Where do we see our contribution from enterprise segment?
So if you, if you had been, you know, looking at our presentation and our growth as far as enterprise is concerned, you would see that, you know, couple of years back when we were at 20%, we have now reached a space where we are at 37%, right? So there is a gradual increase, as, you know, as a revenue split between consumer and enterprise. And this is what you can expect, it will continue to rise and grow in years to come. So, you know, you, you know that basically the enterprise cybersecurity segment is growing at a much faster CAGR as compared to the consumer.
So by just looking at that, those trends, you can expect that, you know, this is how it will grow, and eventually, the enterprise business would become much larger than our consumer business.
Sir, can you give a number on the growth, like, CAGR growth of enterprises, enterprise versus consumer segment, industry level? Hello?
Yeah. So see, basically, you know, industry growth, as far as enterprise is concerned, is between 11%-12%, on a CAGR basis, right? And you know, while obviously this year we have grown at a similar rate, but generally we would expect that we will go little, little higher than the industry rate as far as enterprise is concerned. But as far as the consumer is concerned, you know, obviously there are a lot of headwinds, and so it is something which is more, you know, while the industry is degrowing, you know, through various efforts and interventions, we have either maintained or grown marginally as far as the consumer business. And we believe we will continue to do that marginal growth as well, from our perspective on the consumer business.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rusmik Oza from 9rays Equiresearch . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Enterprise now accounts for 37%, and as you, you said that the industry is growing at 11%. Does it mean that at 37% it should grow at, say, double-digit between 11%-15%? And does it again lead to around same 5%-6% growth for FY 2025, or are you aiming or targeting to reach at least double-digit revenue growth in FY 2025? That's my first question, sir.
Yeah, you know, we are, we don't give guidance, and we would not be able to exactly pinpoint and tell you exactly, you know, what we think we are going to grow this year. But you know, I've given you an indication that we will definitely grow faster as compared to the industry, and we feel very confident about that. That is something which I can tell you. But I think, you know, we don't right now give guidance around how, what is that rate going to be.
Okay. Okay. That's helpful, sir. My second question, sir: last two quarters, you know, our run rate of EBITDA has been improved. It's now between 12.6% in Q3 and now 14.2% or something. Do we see this going up beyond this 13%-14% in FY 2023? Or some goalpost around this number could be helpful, sir.
So, like Ankit mentioned, right, see, we feel confident that overall our EBITDA will show a gradual sign of increase, and that's because our... The way we see it, our rate of growth of our revenue and business is gonna be higher than our rate of growth of our expenses, right? And basis that, we believe that we will continue to have a marginal growth in our EBITDA on a year-on-year basis.
Okay . Does it imply that it'll be better than what we have done in the last two quarters, sir, just a broad implication?
So, giving a guidance to a particular quarter is difficult, but there is a seasonality also involved in the business. So if you have seen, Q1 was negative 30%, so all that stuff, actually we should refer only the annualized numbers, and this is what was referred by Vishal earlier.
Okay, that is helpful. Thanks for the clarification, sir. Thank you so much, and best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rishabh Shah from Individual Investors. Please go ahead.
Hello, good evening, everyone. Am I audible?
Yeah, Rishabh, please go ahead.
Hi, Rishabh.
I wanted to ask, if you are looking for any inorganic opportunity, opportunities in like next 3-5 years. And if yes, like, what will be the portfolio that you might be looking for?
Yeah, thank you for that question, Rishabh. See, we are always open for looking at inorganic opportunities, and internally we have broadly thought about, if at all we would look at it, then what are those areas or segments that we will work on? Yeah, so, you know, something like, for example, something on cloud security, something on, you know, building a DLP or a DLP engine into our solutions. So these are some of the areas where, you know, it could be a good sort of complementary addition to our existing portfolio.
So we are always open, and in case there is something which comes up the way and it fits into our strategy, then we will be, you know, obviously looking at how, you know, it in with more interest to see whether it makes sense for us to go ahead in for that.
Thank you. That was my only question.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mihir Manohar from Carnelian Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, thanks for giving the follow-up. Sir, I wanted to understand, you know, we have mentioned this evolution of the overall market, currently the INR 1,800 crore market for us, and that we are trying to increase it to INR 4,000 crore, over the next three years, because of which, I mean, we have approved certain investments. Could you throw, I mean, which are, you throw light on which are these areas in each of the years, FY 2025, 2026 and 2027? And what will be your right to win? Because making investments is one thing, but, you know, just to understand, what will be your right to win in those areas, because there would be some other players who would already be there.
Yeah. So the areas that we are broadly looking at investments are in the space of ZTNA, or, you know, zero trust technologies, and adding additional features, functionality into our product folio as, portfolio as far as, zero trust, solutions are concerned. The second area is about looking at, data privacy and, you know, all the full life cycle of that. So we did mention to you earlier also that we are, we have built a solution, but we don't want to stop there, and we want to look at it, up the value chain, down the value chain, to make sure that the product meets all the requirements that the customers will look for when DPDP Act is, applicable.
The third area is in the space of any adjacency that we would want to look at as far as our consumer business is concerned. Look, we have actually done multiple amount of innovations in the last three decades as far as our consumer product, product portfolio is concerned. We believe it's one of the best in the world. And we have got multiple validations of that work that we have done and the product that we have. So what we are looking at is saying that, what can we do and what more can we do to address the evolving threats that the consumer is facing beyond just, you know, how we look at antivirus?
So those are some of the areas where we are. We will be researching, and, you know, finding out what needs to be done. The fourth area is basically, you know, we have so much of signals, and data that we get into our lab. We have one of the largest labs in the country, and we do a lot of processing of those threats, information, indicators of compromise, attacks, and other things. So how do we sort of process it and monetize it through a product, through threat intelligence services, malware, reverse engineering solutions, and so on and so forth? So there is, again, a lot of research work required to really put together all of these together and bring it as a package solution to customers. These are the four broad areas that we are looking at.
And then, you know, on top of that, you know, we have to also ensure that everything has been powered by AI and GenAI as an interface. So we have been using ML and AI models and data science for many years now. And our platform is called GoDeep.AI. So we want to really now come out with a GoDeep.AI 2.0, which will be powering all our technologies into the future. So those are some of the places where we are looking at doing these investments, Mihir. And as far as our, as far as our right to win is concerned, look, I think, you know, one of the biggest advantage that we have is that we are the largest cybersecurity product company in the country, you know, by, by a very large margin, right? As compared to anybody else in India.
We want to make sure that, you know, we double down on that. Make in India is our one very strong element of right to win. But, you know, the fact that the CEO of the product management team is sitting here in India, and you can reach out to them and give them deep feedback around what you want in your solutions, and we are here to, you know, develop and customize them so that we are actually solving and getting the job done, actually is another advantage for us. The largest cybersecurity lab in India is again a big right to win for us. The approach that we are taking in terms of integrated and platformized approach is our right to win.
The fact that we have withstood this whole industry of cybersecurity for 30 years is our right to win, to give confidence to our customers that we are here to stay and here to solve your problems. And of course, you know, the fact that we are able to see so many signals, we have so many endpoints, we have good visibility and data in terms of what's happening around. And so if anything is happening anywhere in the threat space, we will be the first one to know. And that's really how the cybersecurity product system works. And so all of these, Mihir, are basically things that we have, which gives us that right to win, yeah.
Sure, sir, that's helpful. Just last thing. I mean, what is the amount that we have approved for this new investments, or is it going to be a part of regular investments, let's say?
Yeah. So Mihir, we are not disclosing that, you know, in terms of the actual... But what I can, I answered this question earlier as well in the call, that we are going to, you know, we have an in-principle approval, and now we'll get into execution, and we will do the right things which are required now to make sure that we are able to strengthen our portfolio. So this is, this is the vision that we have, and now we will, we will do, you know, get into that execution phase. But we don't disclose these amounts, you know, and we don't make it public.
Sure, sir. Sure. Yeah, best of luck, and thanks for the, thanks for the time.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jatinder Agarwal from Relax Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for letting me in again. So just a very stupid question on accounting. So like in consumer business, it is all annuities, right? One year, three year, whatever. But in the enterprise business, is there this thing where you also get lump sum paid out, payouts or something? Or is it only annuity again in the consumer, sorry, the enterprise business?
It is same. We have got 1-year, 3-year plans for enterprise as well. There are no lump sum payments that come, because so let's assume you do a project for the government of India or any corporate. You don't get paid in lump sum for the specific task or whatever, is it? We paid, we got paid lump sum, Jatinder Ji.
Sorry?
So it's a product, and we got paid in lump sum. If it is a antivirus or EPS we got paid lump sum upfront for a 1-year or 3-year contract.
So let me explain to you, Jatinder. Basically, because we are a product company, you know, that's the way the consumer products work, it works the same way in enterprise also. So nothing different.
So hypothetically, let's assume like the G20 or the Chandrayaan, whatever, is a project which the government or the government-related entities have executed. So will you have a 3-year contract or just a 1-year, is what I'm trying to ask?
Yeah. So, Jatinder, basically, your question is on product or service? Because when you talk about contract and three-year contract, you know, it can be a product contract or it could be a services. So when it comes to product, it is upfront.
Right.
Okay? Majority of the work that we do is all on product. We are an OEM company.
Right. So but there will be a services component. So like what you're saying is there will be a services component, but that will be specific for that event or that project?
Exactly. So now let me answer your services question. So we obviously are building our capabilities on services because large projects, large deals would require you to also provide services and stitch all of this together. Majority of that will be our products.
Okay.
As you know, we have hired a head of delivery to build those capabilities, right? So services is basically as we deliver, so as we, you know, execute and deliver the outcome and milestone. So you can have two types of service models. One could be, you know, T&M model model, where as you consume, you, based on time sheet, you are able to charge, and other is based on milestones. So as you deliver a particular milestone as a part of services, you will charge.
These are not a material part of your current revenue line, right?
They are not. They are not.
Okay. Over what time will this build up? 3-5 years?
Yeah, I mean, that is the, that is the vision that we have. That over a period of 3-5 years, you know, we would, we, we have a vision to build, the services component as well.
So when I look at the industry breakup, like when we discussed last time, you said it is broadly split as 50 revenue, 50 in terms of solutions and 50 in terms of services. So this is like a new business segment that will get added, right, over a period of time?
It will, it will get added. We are, you know, it's like I said, it's a vision for us, right? Right now, we remain, I mean, a product company, right? Majority of our business is product. But yeah, we see a huge opportunity in terms of working on large deals where we could, you know, add services element as well, and so we are building the capability. Similarly, we had mentioned about we have launched our managed detection and response service.
Okay.
That's also a service. We have had few customers already onboarded on that. So that's also a service part, right? Where, you know, as you deliver the service, you know, you charge the customer.
Okay. Perfect. I think that is helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tej Patel from Niveshaay. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Tej.
Yeah, yeah. So pardon me, you know, I'm like new to understanding this industry as a whole, so pardon me if there are some repetitive questions from this call or previous calls. So just a basic understanding, what I get it, sir, like, we are into a space where the problem is very highly competitive, right? There are international players and as well as, you know, some national players into it. So just wanted to get an idea into how do we carve, you know, carve out our space into such a competitive space, given this, you know, various companies are having their own inbuilt, you know, now, antivirus system, like, like consider Windows Defender, then how do we see growth in the retail segment, given, you know, this various hardware companies having their own software, right?
I mean, various operating system having their own, you know, antivirus system. Plus, more was on the distribution side, and how do we make sure... Because, correct me if I'm wrong, we do not have an exclusive—like, no distributor with an exclusive, distribution rights for our company, right? They might be selling this, antiviruses for different companies too. So how do we make sure that our products get pushed, you know, vis-à-vis other companies? And a lot of companies, you know, lot of OEM companies, and other companies, are providing, antivirus software for other companies, you know, as a free product, let's say for one year or so. So I just want to make sure, I just want to understand how are we positioning ourselves in, this competitive space, especially the retail side?
That is the first question.
Yeah, I think, Tej, that's a good question. See, if you look at it, we are in the business for last three decades, and there are many antivirus companies which have come and gone. Also there has been a significant amount of consolidation which has happened, wherein there are very few players which are left in the market, which have the credibility that we have, right? So you need to understand that, in the antivirus business specifically, there is a very significant entry barrier, because you need the malware research lab and capability to ensure that you are able to look at the avalanche of these threats which are coming on a daily basis, and you're able to process it, and you're able to protect all your customers. So it's not something that anybody can come, start a startup and actually create it.
So there's a huge entry barrier, and given the fact that we have the legacy for the last, you know, so many years, it is something which is making sure that, you know, we are well-established in that. So that's number one. Number two is that, you know, the, if you look at the paid antivirus, right? So India right now has a 22% penetration as far as paid antivirus is concerned. But if you look at mature markets, that penetration goes up to 40%, 48%, 50%. So we have an opportunity. We believe that India has a latent opportunity, whereas India becomes more aspirational, as India becomes more digital, there is gonna be an uptake, and we hope that that uptake will happen in terms of people actually buying paid antivirus, right?
So that's the other piece which is there. And you know, and the third thing which is there is that, you know, we have a very strong distribution network of partners, and a lot of the things that we do is basically based on what our partners are actually able to maintain the relationship with our customers, okay? And distribution channel is something which cannot be, you know, built overnight. So if there is anybody who has built a software and is giving it free, but unless there is a distribution network and way to go and sell to the customer, you know, nobody can build that access to that channel overnight. And Quick Heal obviously can pride by talking about the partner network that we have through which we deliver our software. So that's the third element which is there.
There are many other examples, but in a way, we and that's why I said, right, that while there is a degrowth which is happening, especially when it comes to India, we have been able to maintain a positive momentum and, you know, we are growing in that space. And of course, we have reached a stage where we are at 35% market share, and year-over-year, that market share is growing. So that gives us the confidence that we will be able to address those headwinds by our strategy and our GTM. I hope that answers your question, Tej.
Yes, sir, you know, greatly answers my questions. And so what would be the margin difference between the retail business and the enterprise business?
I will obviously ask Ankit to get into more details, but let me sort of give you a color, okay? It's basically finally a product, right? And if you look at it, you know, the consumer business, of course, is commoditized, deeply commoditized business. And the enterprise business is, you know, deeply, you know, more customized, more bespoke, and addressing a particular problem. And so it's, you go by deal by deal and look at deal by deal profitability. Okay?
Okay.
Therefore, from that point of view, it is chalk and cheese. Of course, we don't right now disclose these numbers specifically i n terms of what is the margin that we get from consumer and what is the margin that we get from enterprise. But it is obviously very easy for you to guess that given that our consumer business is more mature, more established, we would obviously be getting more margins from there as compared to the newer business model of enterprise, where we are new entrants and, you know, want to make an entry, and so we would more focus on growth rather than margins there.
Just where it's a volume game, so when we do an enterprise deal, it's many customers in one, many users, many endpoints in one go. You actually get better off in terms of the overall contribution margin. Hope that helps.
Yeah, yeah. Got it. Got it, sir. Sir, sir, one question was on the distribution side. So, you know, I think you... Correct me if I'm wrong....
The next question is from the line of Nitish from ChrysCapital . Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Hope I'm audible.
Yeah, Nitish, go ahead.
Hi. So, you know, reading a few news articles, also there are MNC cybersecurity players have also set up servers in India, to comply with the DPDP Act and, you know, also, tap the growing cybersecurity market in India. So just wanted to understand when there are these MNCs also coming into, India, focusing on India and also, you know, complying with, the regulations and the, upcoming DPDP Act, how does our product portfolio, kind of stand up to these MNCs? Wanted to understand why would a large enterprise, you know, choose a Quick Heal over these MNC players like CrowdStrike or, any of these, Palo Alto Networks, et cetera? That's my first one.
Yeah. Thanks, Nitish. I think if you're specifically talking about DPDP, then, you know, whether it's Palo Alto or CrowdStrike, they would not be really our competition because they don't have a data privacy and data protection kind of a solution. Over there, like I said, the competition is someone like a OneTrust, right? So that's number one. Number two is, when we look at the data privacy solution, you're right, there are some certain customers who may want to not go onto cloud and want to actually maintain and control that personal identifiable information on-prem. When we are building our solutions, our solutions will work on both cloud as well as on-prem, so it will meet the requirements of both the requirements which are there.
As far as the ability for us to stand and face the competition, look, we have done it, right? We are the market leaders in the consumer segment in Quick Heal, where we are competing with MNCs like Norton or McAfee, and we are beating them big time as far as India is concerned. So we have proven that we have products which are able to compete with global players, and we remain confident that we'll be able to do that for the solutions that we're creating for enterprise business as well.
And our products stack up well with OneTrust, the example you mentioned?
Yes.
Okay. And, also one of our catalysts in enterprise segment is to grow the SME category. So just wanted to also get a sense from you, are the, you know, in the SME categories, you know, which are these SMEs who are adopting cybersecurity solutions for the first time, or are we gaining market share from other players like Sophos, ESET, eScan, you know, players in this field?
I think it's a bit of both, because we are able to also go to, in SMB, some customers who are adopting these solutions for the first time, especially the newer solutions that we have developed. But as far as other solutions like, antivirus, is concerned, then, you know, it, it becomes a replacement.
Okay. Okay. I might have missed this. When we, in our strategic partnership with M. Tech, you mentioned that we are the only Indian cybersecurity partner, right?
Yeah. I think right now our partnership and our focus is India. But, you know, in future we would want to... M. Tech is obviously a global company, Singapore headquartered. So, you know, once we have made some progress and success in India, we could look at global aspirations as well.
So for M. Tech, are we the only cybersecurity solutions partner in India, or they have others also tied up, such as Quick Heal, for you know, cybersecurity solutions for?
Yeah. So our tie-up with M. Tech is for the Seqrite brand, the enterprise security brand of Quick Heal. And we are not exclusive because, you know, they have multiple solutions. But then when it comes to our portfolio, we would be unique. There may be one or two other products that may be similar, but their focus, of course, will be to work on our product portfolio and, you know, promote that to their customers.
Okay. Okay. Thank you so much . That's all from my side.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I now hand the conference over to management from Quick Heal Technologies Limited for closing comments. Thank you.
Hey, thank you everyone for a very engaging session and, you know, deep questions from all of you. I hope we have been able to give the right responses to your questions and your requirements have been addressed. Now I'll hand it back to the moderator to do the closing.
Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Quick Heal Technologies Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.