Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Darwin, the moderator for this conference. Welcome to the conference call of Route Mobile Limited, arranged by Concept Investor Relations, to discuss its Q3 and nine-month FY 2024 results. We have with us today Mr. Rajdipk umar Gupta, Managing Director and Group CEO, Mr. Gautam Badalia, Group Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Investor Relations Officer, and Mr. Suresh Jankar, Chief Financial Officer. At this moment, all participants are in the listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made in today's earnings call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve a certain risks and uncertainties. Kindly refer to slide number two of the presentation for the detailed disclaimer.
Please note, this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajdipk umar Gupta. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Darwin. Good evening, everyone. In light of the recent global trend of workforce rationalization and cost optimization among large global companies, the broader CPaaS industry has encountered some headwinds, especially in the last two months of the previous quarter. I want to take this opportunity to provide you with a transparent overview of the current situation, as well as our strategic response to these events. While we have registered our best quarterly revenue during the quarter gone by, it was yet a slightly muted performance, considering Q3 is historically a best quarter. This is due to the industry headwinds and delays in couple of our large contract going live. In lieu of the above, we revised our FY 2024 guidance from 20%-25% revenue growth to 15%-17% CAGR revenue growth. These developments, while concerning, are not uncommon in the fast-evolving tech landscape.
The good thing is that our performance during the one-month so far is encouraging, and we are putting a lot of effort to accelerate to go live, bid for some of the large contracts that we have won, and to that, are towards the closure. Some of the notable contracts which should go live during the course of this quarter are: one of the largest e-commerce customer to go live for European destinations. Vodafone Idea contract integration ongoing rapidly. However, the full-fledged impact of this contract will start from April 1st onwards. We have recently onboarded a large e-commerce client from Asia. It should gradually ramp up. We are on the verge of signing a contract with one of the largest private sector bank in India. We are also encouraged by the growing adoption of new communication channels like RCS and WhatsApp Business messaging.
In fact, some of our recent contract wins on these product lines are as big as our monthly revenue on these product lines. The recent shifts in the messaging space are opening up new avenues for communication. We expect to onboard a significant number of new customers to our omnichannel platform, leveraging these changes. This evolution in the market, while bringing these, its challenges, also present us with unprecedented opportunities for growth and expansion. The evolving messaging landscape is creating exciting opportunity for us to welcome numerous new clients to our omnichannel platform. This shift, while challenging, is opening doors to unprecedented growth and development. We are in the process of implementing innovative technological solutions such as Gen AI and to enhance our operational efficiency.
While I won't delve into specifics, I can assure you that these advancements will significantly contribute to optimizing our processes and reducing dependencies, aligning us with the best industry practices. In terms of Proximus deal update, we have secured the most important U.S. approval and are in striking distance of deal closure. A couple of regulatory approvals from the Middle East are awaited anytime soon. Further, we have done a lot of groundwork on the integration effort across the group and have clearly identified synergies across various buckets. Upon the deal closure, we shall immediately action the integration effort, and the synergy should start to reflect in our financial immediately thereafter. In conclusion, while we acknowledge the challenge we face, our outlook remains optimistic.
Our strong foundation, coupled with our strategic initiative, position us well to capitalize our future opportunities and deliver on our promises of innovation and excellence. Thank you for your continued faith in our journey. We are committed to keeping you informed and engaged as we progress towards our shared goal. Now, I will hand over the call to Gautam, who will share more about our financial highlights. Over to you, Gautam.
Thank you. Thank you, Rajdip. Good evening, everyone. Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, 2024. We've already uploaded our quarterly earnings presentation on our website, as well as on the stock exchange website. Hope you had a chance to go through the presentation. I'll quickly summarize, our financial and operating performance during Q3 FY 2024 and nine months FY 2024 before opening the floor for Q&A. I'll start by highlighting the key developments during the quarter gone by. We have registered, as Rajdip highlighted, we have registered our best quarterly revenues during the quarter gone by, yet it was a slightly muted performance due to factors which Rajdip again highlighted, having industry headwinds as most OTTs were in cost saving mode, which affected the ILD traffic in region and delay in certain large contracts going live.
With respect to our margins, we have encountered some one-off expenses. I'll just list out some of those one-off expenses for the quarter one by one. MR Messaging revenue grew by 40% sequentially, but this impacted, but their performance actually was a drag on our EBITDA margin. Adjusted for MRM's EBITDA, we achieved a 13% margin, EBITDA margin. MRM's performance for nine months, FY 2024, was affected largely by geopolitical issues in Europe and industry consolidation. Hence, an exceptional item of INR 150.4 million was booked in Q3 FY 2024, which represents the fair value gain as of December 31, 2023, of the contingent consideration payable towards the acquisition of the 100% equity stake of MR Messaging.
There was also a bad debt write-off in Masivian to the tune of INR 46.6 million in nine months, FY 2024, and we have already initiated legal actions for recovery. There was a one-time consultancy and retainer fees paid in Q3 FY 2024 for market expansion in Africa and Latin America, which amounted to INR 29.9 million. In volume terms, we processed 31.2 billion transactions, similar to Q2 FY 2024. Despite Q3 seasonal strength, the muted sentiment across the geographies is reflected in these volumes. India continues to be our largest market by termination, accounting for over 47% of our revenue by termination. The revenues from U.S.-headquartered customers declined owing to reasons highlighted above. You may refer to slide 16 for the same. We are seeing strong momentum in next generation products across multiple geographies.
We witnessed a year-on-year growth of 58% and a quarter-on-quarter growth of 14%. You may refer to slide 10 for the same. Our new product, LTM revenue, is around $25 million. The uptake in new products by enterprises, a few large contracts going live shortly, along with the synergy benefits that will accrue to Route Mobile post the closure, will pave a very strong growth trajectory for FY 2025. With this backdrop, let me walk you through our financial performance. In Q3 FY 2024, revenue from operations grew by 3.9% from 9,857 million INR in Q3 FY 2023 to 10,243 million INR in Q3 FY 2024. There was a sequential growth of 1%.
Billable transactions increased from 27.7 billion in Q3 FY 2023 to 31.2 billion in Q3 FY 2024. Average realization per billable transactions increased to 32.9 paisa in Q3 FY 2024 from 32.4 paisa in Q2 FY 2024. Gross profit margins remained flat on a sequential basis. EBITDA declined marginally owing to certain one-off expenses highlighted earlier. Effective tax rate for the quarter was around 15.4%. Profit after tax, adjusted for exceptional items, grew by 3.5% on a year-over-year basis and 11.6% on a sequential basis. From INR 88.54 million in Q3 FY 2023 and INR 88.4 million in Q2 FY 2024 to INR 98.6 million in Q3 FY 2024.
Tax margin was at 9.6% in Q3 FY 2024, as against 8.7% in Q3 FY 2023 and Q2 FY 2024. The board has recommended an interim dividend of INR 3 per share. For nine months FY 2024, revenue from operations grew by 17.4% from INR 25,606 million in nine months FY 2023 and INR 30,063 million in nine months FY 2024. In terms of certain KPIs, billable transactions increased from 79 billion in nine months FY 2023 to 92 billion in nine months FY 2024. Average realization per billable transaction was INR 0.327 in nine months FY 2024, as compared to INR 0.322 in nine months FY 2023. We had a net revenue retention of 110%.
You may refer to slide 18 for the same. We added over 700 customers, new customers, in nine months FY 2024 across all products. Gross profit margin declined from 22.4% in nine months FY 2023 to 21.3% in nine months FY 2024. EBITDA grew by 15.7%. In terms of operating leverage, EBITDA as a percentage of gross profits stood at 59% in nine months FY 2024. EBITDA margin remains flattish. Effective tax rate was 12.3% in nine months FY 2023, as against 15.7% in nine months FY 2024. Profit after tax, adjusted for exceptional items, grew by 21.6% from INR 2,291 million in nine months FY 2023 to INR 2,786 million in nine months FY 2024.
The tax margin improved from 9%-9.3% during the same period. We onboarded 35 new employees, and twenty-nine employees left us during the same period. Net cash as on December 31, 2023, was INR 4,654 million. Average receivable days was 73 days in nine months FY 2024, versus 73 days in H1 FY 2024. Average payable days reduced marginally to 59 days in nine months FY 2024, versus 64 days in H1 FY 2024. Normalized OCF conversion during nine months FY 2024 was in the range of 50%-75%, guidance range that we had rolled out at the beginning of the year. With these highlights, we open the floor for Q&A.
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 handsets 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 Swapnil Potdukhe from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hey, hi, Rajdip, hi, Gautam. Thanks for the opportunity. First, on your growth trends for this particular year, you mentioned that there has been a significant decline. I mean, there has been a correction in growth year guidance as well. Now, my question is, like, would we be able to recover the lost growth in this particular quarter and the revenue that we have lost in this particular quarter starting Q4? If not, what would the reason be? That would be the first question.
So Swapnil, hi, let me start with this. So, as I said, one of the largest telcos customer is live on our India platform right now. We were hoping to them to start nine other countries, which got delayed, and we are very much hopeful to get those started by this quarter, and we are in constant touch with them to start with U.K. and other countries. So hopefully that will go live. As far as our Vodafone Idea contract is concerned, I think we were expecting to go live by 1st of December, which is now extended to 1st of April as an exclusive partnership deal with Vodafone Idea. We are almost migrating the firewall on our the different circles on our firewall.
And we believe by end of March, we will be able to complete the entire shift from other firewall to our firewall. So the complete growth in terms of revenue and on the firewall side will be effective from 1st of April. So in terms of, I think, the last quarter, as I said, we are seeing a significant growth in this month already from the customer who lower down their volume last quarter, as we can see, them started again. So we might not give any kind of guidance, but in terms of revenue guidance, I think we are very much confident that between 15%-17% is something what we will achieve this financial year.
So just to extend that point, you mentioned 17% at the upper end of the guidance. So that effectively tells us that you're guiding for 15% of the sequential growth Q and Q. And historically, 4Q has is typically tapered compared to 3Q. So this time around, it will be the other way around. Yeah.
If you see our last year, also the Q4 was better than the Q3. We believe that this year's Q4 will be better than Q3.
Got it. And if I were to just extrapolate a few things and ask you about FY 25, what would be the incremental revenue potential that you are looking at from all the deals that you just mentioned, and things starting as in the Vodafone deal also comes in from 1st of April?
So apart from Vodafone and other deals, I think the synergy between the Telesign and BICS as a Proximus deal. So we are expecting that deal to be get closed very soon. If those deals also, those synergies come along with Route Mobile, I think we have a very high number to achieve. Right now we are assessing the whole value. We might not able to give you the exact growth trajectory for the next year, but very soon we will definitely share that.
Okay. One thing on your gross margins. You just mentioned that your, you know, RCS and WhatsApp revenue has been doing well, but that does not seem to be reflecting in your gross margins. In fact, if I see from a YY perspective, you are down significantly. QoQ perspective also, you are flattish. Where, when exactly should we start seeing these margins to inch up, get some benefits from the new product lines?
So Swapnil, you need to also understand, when we talk about, say, INR 25 million for the yearly basis revenue against INR 4,000 crore revenue, so it will always be very small. I think as I, Gautam mentioned, some of the contracts which we have won recently and some of the contracts which we're working on, are very large contracts, and as soon as we scale this entire revenue to around INR 300 crore-INR 400 crore, only INR 500 crore a year, probably you can see the impact of that in our GP, you know. But, we are working very hard, to onboard and focus more on omnichannel potential, which we see right now. So that's the current status. Gautam, if you want to add to this?
Yeah. So, hi, Swapnil. So we just. I think we mentioned in our remarks also, I think, MRM, I think, while, while I think they have not had the best nine months, but I think last quarter, I think they did exceedingly well in terms of growing the revenue sequentially by 40%. But in terms of growth and EBITDA margin, I mean, it was a drag on our overall financials. So adjusted for the MRM's growth and EBITDA margin, I mean, our margins would have expanded significantly. I mean, sure, it would have been closer to last year's gross margin.
Got it, Gautam. Just one last question on your employee expenses. Right now they are hovering around INR 55 crore on a quarterly basis. Is there any impact of any price hikes or something or, sorry, the salary hikes, or something, in this particular quarter, or like, that comes in later? If you can just guide some how things we should forecast.
No, for some of the subsidiaries, they also have a January to December kind of cycle, so there are some bonus payouts and all that happen typically at the end of December. So some of those things have happened during the course of last quarter.
Fair to assume INR 55 crore is the run rate in the near term, next one or two quarters?
Yeah, in that vicinity. That's right.
Okay, cool. Cool. Thank you.
Thank you, Rajdip, and thanks.
Thanks. Thanks, Abhinav.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Dipesh. Couple of questions. First about if I look to vertical mix which we provide in terms of which segment is driven growth, digital native, and aggregator seems to be weak. So if you can provide some colors, what is playing out? So CPaaS partner, as well as digital native, some weakness is evident. Second question is about some of the comment you made in delaying large contract ramp up. So if I look, your PPT indicated Vodafone, where we are already live, and in record time we implemented and stuff like that. So what led to delay in conversion to revenue, or maybe billing? If you can provide some sense. And third question is about the gross margin trajectory.
I understand new product is not significant, but if I go to, let's say, year, two year back and overall consistent narrative about gross margin expansion plan over a period of time, some of it is not evident in the numbers. So if you can provide what led to some kind of miss, not for this quarter particularly, but broader, let's say nine months or something like that. So thanks.
Gautam, I'll start with the second question, and probably you can answer the first question, too.
Sure.
Dipesh, in Vodafone, we went live on 1st of December with our hub, which is like a record implementation in Vodafone Idea. Then there's a current partner who has a firewall deployed in all the various circle of Vodafone Idea, which is a very tedious job to transfer the entire traffic from one circle, one firewall to another firewall. And that is why now we have started from the January to moving the traffic from one firewall to our firewall. That process has been started. We cannot move all the traffic in one shot because we have to test, we have to make sure everything working fine from firewall A to firewall B.
So that transition period is a longer, that is why it will take another, I think it takes, another 20, sorry, two months more, and that is what we expect, and that is why we're talking about 1st of April as a go live as a. And we will become the exclusive also from 1st of April, which means that all the traffic from 1st of April onwards will flow through our firewall. Gautam?
Just adding on this part. So earlier, when we indicated it to contribute revenue from Q4 onwards, whether we over-optimistically assumed transition will be very short duration kind of transition?
Yeah. So, I think it was little bit miscalculation from our side, and probably that was one of the reason we were always calculated, I think Vodafone Idea yet to go live from January. But because of the shift taking more time, but we already started the process, and that's why we are not considering the revenue of that in this quarter. But now the shift is already started. We have already moved three circles to our firewall now, and remaining are going bit by bit. Keeping that in mind, I think 1st of April is a tentative date where we will be exclusive on Vodafone Idea.
Gautam?
Sure. Sure. So, Dipesh, your first question was on digital native and CPaaS. So you are absolutely right. I think those two segments have witnessed some headwinds, and that's largely an industry-wide phenomena and not specific to mobile per se. So, some of these CPaaS players, I mean, who are also our partners, they service a lot of large global enterprises. And we've seen that trend pretty much play out across, I mean, most of these large global enterprises during the second half of, I mean, during the last two months of the last quarter, previous quarter. Hopefully, I think things are coming back. I mean, with some of these enterprises now doing their budgeting and stuff, so things I think should come back, at least, and it should steady now.
So from that aspect, I think we are cautiously optimistic about that, this both these segments. And as Rajdip said, I mean, once Vodafone goes live, I mean, we'll definitely be able to increase our wallet share with each of these clients. So Dipesh, your third query was on new products, right? I mean, the ramp up. So I think we are very, very enthused with the kind of ramp up that we are looking.
No, it was on gross margin.
Yeah, on the gross margin. Okay, the expansion that you are saying.
That's right. Let's say if I go to two-year back.
Can you just repeat the question?
Sure. So let's say if I go to your two-year back narrative about gross margin trajectory, one year back also, same narrative: We expect gross margin trajectory to improve over a period of time, and it will be consistent, steady kind of improvement. Now, if I look actual delivery, the trajectory seems to be different. Now, we will explain A, B, C reason why it is not happening, but if I look trajectory perspective, in 2022, we were at 21% gross margin. Today, we are not different. So I just want to understand whether one should expect 21 is a reasonable number to expect for medium term, or you think 25, and because at one point of time, you indicated it can go as high as 30. So we are way below those kind of numbers, so I just want to get sense.
Because so as I said, our other line of business and our omnichannel business is growing, I think, every single quarter. Okay? And, I think we are at a run rate of $25 million as of now, and we are expecting this to grow, I think, at least, very high as comparable as SMS fee. But again, I think we are, as soon as it increases to INR 500 crore revenue run rate, I think that is where you can start looking at those margin gains increase in overall. Gautam, if you want to add to this.
Yeah, and just to give you a perspective, I think we have given a clear perspective of margin expansion, and that's a fair observation. I think some of that has kind of got a little diluted because of, I think, ILD aside, I mean, MR Messaging margin was a drag, right? If you adjust for that, I mean, there is some bit of margin expansion that's played out, but notwithstanding that, I think the important thing is, I think this year, as we said, I think this would be an inflection year for the new products. I mean, at this point in time, I mean, they're working on few contracts where our monthly run rate of the new products revenue, I mean, some of the contract sizes that we are winning are greater than that. So some of those validations are happening.
I think, let this new products work stream gather some critical mass. At that point in time, I think this should definitely play out, I mean, from an expansion standpoint.
Fair point. And last question from my side. Now, if I look at your Q4 guidance right, I am looking sequential perspective implies roughly around 7%-14% quarter-on-quarter growth. Now, Vodafone is likely to ramp up from April, which. so it should not contribute. So what we are building, because from seasonality perspective, typically volume is not showing any material growth, if I look last few years of our performance. So what we are building here, if you can help us understand?
I think some of the segments which are now coming back, essentially the CPaaS, that had actually kind of dwindled down quite a bit during last quarter. I think some of those things are now coming back. And I think last year, if you look at the trajectory, on a sequential basis, we were able to demonstrate a growth, I mean, in Q4 versus Q3. Plus, we are assuming that some of these contracts that we have won, I mean the e-commerce client in Asia that we have won, I mean, already started the throughput, and that should meaningfully ramp up. We are also assuming that one of the largest e-commerce clients, I mean, they will start the European traffic during the course of this quarter. So some of these things are building to the expectation.
Last year, growth was partly driven by acquisition. Interteleco was not there in Q3, and that's why some growth happened. If I adjust for it, your growth was not there sequentially, which is a usual pattern, and that's why I try to. But you said these three, four reasons are sufficient for us to build that confidence.
No. So Dipesh, I think Interteleco acquisition happened in December 2021, not last year.
Okay, fair.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nikhil Choudhary from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. First question is regarding the decline we have seen in the volume number. While one argument you have given that there is cut in spending in ILD by global enterprises, volume clearly, you know, is driven by in the past, right? So ILD is only a small portion of overall volume, and decline in, on Q2 basis, more or less showing that even on an ILD side, there is at least some pressure. We have heard from your competitors last quarter that there are challenges from other players who are not passing on the increased costs. So anything to highlight there in terms of volume?
Yeah, Nikhil. So in terms of volume, what has actually transpired is I think there was a significant drop in volume for Mexico. While I think that their volumes dropped by 10%, their revenues increased by 15%. So they were able to kind of do a lot of solution selling, I mean, which are inherently larger ticket sizes solutions that they were able to sell. So I think that way, I think they've done really well in terms of the margin expansion and in terms of the gross margins.
So if they've done margin expansion this quarter, Masivian, and there is a, you know, jump driven by realization, then Route's organic performance is even inferior, right? Relatively basic.
No, no. So that I think we, we did call out, right? Digital Native and CPaaS, I think those two segments got impacted during February, during November and December. So that, that led to, kind of a slightly muted performance from Route Mobile on an organic basis.
Sure. And can you highlight the legal claim which you initiated against Masivian? Any more color will be helpful.
Sorry, sorry. Come again?
The one-time cost against Masivian,
Yeah. So this actually happened, a part of it happened in Q2, and large part of it happened in Q3. So this was pertaining to one, I think, solution that they sold to kind of a Masivian enterprise, but ultimately, the Masivian enterprise was not able to realize it. I mean, it's more to do with the industry than anything else. So we've kind of already started a litigation proceeding against them. So we are hopeful that we'll be able to recover.
This, this, amount that there is a loss.
Sure. Just last point here, well, a few question asked by earlier regarding the, you know, required growth rate of 7%-14% in fourth quarter. How much will be driven by, you know, increasing volume or pricing of more or less our existing business, and how much is it driven by incremental revenue coming from, our, one of the top clients starting in Europe?
So I think, honestly, Nikhil, we can't quantify at this point of time, but we believe that the, knowing their pattern of spending on various nine to 10 countries, if we get all of them as a part of our platform, we believe that it will add easily $3 million-$4 million additional dollars to our revenue.
Okay. INR 3-4 million, approximately that, yeah. So, the remaining portion you are saying that's going to come organically?
Yeah, yeah. As I said, as I said, I think the volume for this particular month has been, we have seen a growth. Whatever the distance we have seen from those large OTT players in the month of November and December, we start seeing the traffic coming back to our platform, and we see a decent growth for this particular month. And we presume that the same growth will continue for the next two months as well, and we will easily reach to our guidance of 15%-17% year-on-year basis.
Sure. Understood. Very helpful. Thank you. Good luck for quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, sir. Sir, my first question is on the ILD part of our business, wherein in the past we have seen multiple price hikes on the IL, on the ILD side. So is it fair to assume that because the ILD revenue is being dominated by, say, like, I know, five, six large clients, so maybe the higher pricing of ILD is forcing them to shift to some other modes of communication and now with RCS becoming preferred mode. Okay, so-
No.
Can we see, you know, the shift from ILD to RCS because the pricing differential is very high?
No.
So, because if I see, you know, the sharp drop in the top line revenue for us in this quarter, so this is also indicating, you know, to some extent that, you know, the top client is not, you know, using the ILD channel as it was using, say, a quarter back.
Not exactly, yes. First of all, let me just clarify that RCS is no way allowed to send OTPs for OTT partners. RCS in India has been governed by Vodafone Idea as their hub, and it is definitely not allowed to use that channel to send OTP. So I think that's a misleading information has been passed in the market. It is not correct. And we have not seen a single drop because of RCS being used for OTP. Okay? It was not only for India, but I think OTT player like Google or Facebook or many others have reduced their volume, not for India, from multiple destinations in those quarters. So it is not just for India and ILD business.
No, no, so I agree to that, it's not for OTP messages, but mostly for the promotional part and.
Even, even.
For the promotional part of the messages.
Even for the promotional part of the messages, I think, we serve one of the largest e-commerce customers right now in India, and we have seen massive growth in their volume on the SMS side. I think that there are lots of grey routes available in the market, and that was due to the traffic. Now, most of these large brands, they are aware that their people are using their routes to terminate the messages, and we in return getting more traffic, more assurance from these brands that they want to work with the people who have legitimate route to terminate the traffic. First of all, that is something which we have got some confirmation for this month, and that is why we see growth in our ILD traffic for this month.
Second, RCS, you might refer to some of the transactions happening on WhatsApp for Amazon, which is totally not accounted transaction in our revenue model. So we still see the growth of whatever the traffic which is coming for traffic companies like Amazon, we still see the positive impact with that.
Okay. And sir, you know, recently, Apple also mentioned that, they are going live with RCS, you know, like, globally, because RCS is only on Android right now. So with Apple going live on RCS and RCS being a cheaper mode of communication as compared to ILD, which is, INR 5 can, obviously it's an opportunity for, like, newer clients. But the existing clients can be, can this be a risk, as they shift to volumes which are, you know, like role, like, lower on realization?
Amit, RCS is live in almost now 95-100 countries as of today. The local, the biggest threat between WhatsApp and RCS is to understand, it is not an SMS size. So if you talk about the conversational messaging, which is happening on RCS as compared to conversational messaging, which is happening on WhatsApp, WhatsApp is INR 0.25 in India and RCS is about INR 0.25-0.20 in India. So we see lots of shift is happening from WhatsApp to RCS. That is a real shift, and that is something which we see, we have seen a trend. As a company, we are doing reasonably well on RCS side and reasonably well on WhatsApp side.
As an omnichannel provider, we have not seen that trend of RCS or WhatsApp being used for the SMS channel, but I think there's a biggest gap we see between WhatsApp Business messaging and RCS. And we see people adopting RCS more to replace WhatsApp Business messaging. So that is a trend we have seen from last few months, and that is happening. And because of the cost, and because of that, it is governed by the operator ecosystem by GSMA and the data residing within the country, RCS is preferred two-way communication channel over WhatsApp. This is a trend we have seen in last few months.
Okay. So, you mentioned that most of the ILD large ILD spenders, they are like, you know, they have not spent what they have intended to in the last two months. So, the drop in the spending on ILD is because of the higher pricing in ILD, because they are finding alternate channels or this is more linked to macroeconomic conditions that are available?
It is more linked to macroeconomic condition. There are India is just a $0.05 market right now, but there are various markets where SMS being charged to $0.20-$0.25 also. It is not just India as one market which is charging $0.05. If you go to Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, I think it is priced as expensive as about 13-20 cents range. I think it's overall different various other countries by all the omnichannel. It is a common to the macroeconomic condition which led them to withdraw some of the traffic, which they believe is not critical, and they stick to critical traffic. But again, from month of January, we see those traffic coming back.
Okay. And, sir, on the Vodafone Idea deal, sorry, the Vi deal, you mentioned that it will start from April onwards. So, you know, the revenue commitment or the revenues that you are building in, that remains the same or is there any change in scope of, you know, the project?
It will remain as same whatever the guidance we have given, before.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks.
Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may please press star and one. Our next question is from the line of Swapnil Potdukhe from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hey, hi. Thanks for the opportunity again. I just wanted to confirm one, the question that I had earlier asked, with respect to the gross margin. So, you mentioned that, MRM is something which has, impacted, the margins over there. Now, as we understand, the MRM margins are, significantly better than our, standalone margins. And is that understanding correct? And, if that is so, then, should.
So, Swapnil, it was historically, I mean, what you're saying is right, but I think last quarter. So if you remember, I mean, the first half for MRM was significantly kind of muted in terms of revenues, right? But they are doing good in terms of margins. I think this quarter they've changed revenue growth, and compromised the margins a little bit. So, so that has actually diluted our margins for the quarter.
Okay. And, secondly, now, do these numbers that we reported for this quarter include any trials that you are doing with Telesign? I remember you saying, I think, a couple of quarters ago that-
No, no, no, no.
There was some.
There is nothing that we are doing right now because we're not—I mean, because of the competition, commissions and other aspects, we can't do. I mean, so some of these would be tantamount to gun jumping. So, I think we're working independently as two entities right now. Once the deal closes, at that point in time, the throughput would start.
Okay. And, one more thing, as you consolidate with Telesign at some point of time, your volumes consolidate, is it possible that the enterprises may not be, may have a challenge, because due to higher concentration coming from just one particular CPaaS player? Because ultimately, Telesign and Route will be considered as one by an enterprise, and that may lead to some of the enterprise trying to diversify their exposure to some other CPaaS players, reduce their concentration.
Yeah.
So Swapnil, there are many customer what Telesign has, we don't have, okay? Just give some example. Classic example is like, Spotify or Netflix or other, right? So these customers we don't have, we don't serve them. And there are a few large we serve, but we both serve them fine. But there are many of them, the U.S.-based, we don't serve them directly. And that is an opportunity we see in long term, where we will get as a one combined team to serve all the customers, whether of U.S., as a single entity or a partnership.
And Swapnil, just to add to what Radjip said, so I mean, as part of the integration exercise, I mean, we have done exhaustive work on all this along with a global consulting firm. So at this point in time, there is no, I mean, we don't believe that we run any concentration risk per se. I mean, if at all, I mean, we both complement each other rather than, I mean, kind of creating any concentration risk per se.
So I think that is again a very positive kind of outcome that we have been able to kind of at least from a hypothesis standpoint been able to formalize.
Right. But just to, for clarity's sake, would you guys be able to give us what would be the total overlap of revenue between Telesign and Group today? I do understand you very, very clearly mentioned that there are a few other clients so which you do not serve at all.
At this point in time, it will be premature for us to kind of divulge some of the information concerning [crosstalk]
[crosstalk] Okay, okay. Got it. Got it. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Two questions. First, about one, in last quarter, we announced large e-commerce client deal, and in that, you broadly indicated India is roughly half, half is from around eight, nine countries outside of India. So can you provide some update? I think partly you touched upon, but if you can provide more clarity on it. Second question is, now if, let's say, one look at it, some of the challenges which we face in Q3, Q4, or maybe Q3 particularly. Now it has some implication in Q4, some kind of a quarter kind of delay in one large deal. So base effect is supportive for FY 2025 growth trajectory, plus some of the action which you highlighted in terms of new product growth, what we are witnessing.
Do we expect our FY 25 growth trajectory will be much better than what you might have anticipated at the end of Q2? If you can provide qualitative comment around it. Thanks.
Dipesh, honestly, this is some of these deals which you're talking about, if they all materialize on time, plus the Vodafone deal, plus the Telesign synergy, right? This will definitely lead to a much better revenue guidance for next fiscal.
Rajdip, sorry to interrupt, but your voice is breaking. I can't hear you clearly.
Yeah. As I said, the Vodafone deal, plus all this new. I think we got a new large e-commerce giant based in Asia. I think that is also a big deal for us right now. There are lots of banks we are working right now. There is definitely this large e-commerce company for nine countries which will come. Vodafone deal, plus the synergies between Telesign, Route Mobile and the Proximus will definitely add much, much higher revenue potential for the next financial year. Right now, we might not be able to give any kind of a guidance. We are still at very early stage, but definitely we see a huge growth and potential of this partnership in next financial year.
Understood. So I understand qualitative 25. Just want the update on this deal. You said there is some delay even in the e-commerce kind of client.
There is no.
What delay?
There is, there was. So first of all, their entire system was frozen in the month of December. Now, in January, they all are back, and we started the communication to start doing testing, and I think the testing is over. We may start getting traffic very soon. It will start by country by country, not just all countries together. So it's a process at their end, which may take some time, but even one country adding to our platform, as I said, there is even three to four countries we start within this quarter may lead to about $3 million-$4 million additional revenue to our portfolio.
Understood. So broadly, this will be fully ramped up somewhere in Q1. That is right understanding?
Yes. Q1 next year. Yeah.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. We have the next question from the line of Ronak Chheda from Awriga Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, am I audible?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Hi, hi, Ronak. Hi, Ronak.
Hi. Hi, hi, Gautam. Couple of questions. One is on this global scenario, just going back to this ILDs, what we've seen in the quarter and what we've seen that the fungible volumes have been dragged up, and not just for India, but globally. So how. Now, when you're thinking about, let's say, two, three years down the line, as a CPaaS business of the entire group entity, how do you see the competitive intensity? And in your view, do we see this as a structural trend where the volumes will keep on coming down on the ILD, is not just in India, but in all the markets where we, you know, operate, where the fungible volumes will shift to other platforms? Just your thoughts on this.
We are very clear in terms of the, as a platform company, we have all the channels available between our offering. And if the customer is looking out to change from platform A to platform B, the anything is possible from our end. But as far as the messaging trend is concerned, there is a huge adoption and the growth in the SMS side also. On ILD business, we have not seen that kind of a reverse. It was just one time, I think, most of the OTT players, they wanted to reduce the cost for those particular months, and that is a trend we have seen. And as far as I know, there are markets where prices are almost $0.25, and still, all the OTT players are using those countries and networks and paying that much amount.
So I don't think there's any change we can see, but there is definitely different channels may be used by these OTT channel players to have OTP for one channel and promotional for other channels. So that is possible. But it all depends on the regulatory matters also, because there are various regulatory aspects is linked to this kind of traffic to be terminated between the countries.
And, just an extension to this question, where, for the Vodafone deal, we have certain business assumptions baked in, right? And there's some commitment also. So just, if the channel changes or shifts, the OTT player shifts between the channels, do you see a risk to the $100 million business annual contract that we've baked in?
No, that is the minimum we have baked in, and the potential is much higher. Considering all the parameters, we believe that $ 100 million is minimum we can achieve out of that.
Understood. Just lastly on, Rajdip, you had mentioned in the last call that there were some deals on the MNO side, which we were hoping to close this quarter.
On the MNO side, we had certain deals in pipeline,
Yeah.
On the firewall side of the business. And you mentioned in the call that we were hoping to sign, but we don't see that. So just an update there, is this delayed or are we out of, you know, the. We will announce something in this quarter that is that also got delayed because of the network freeze in various country due to last month. So we might get some kind of announcement in this quarter for our firewall win.
Understood. Lastly, on this competition, globally, how is the pricing right now? Because we see some pressure on the margins as well. How is the pricing and how is the competitive scenario, which you are seeing today?
So as I said, like, Route Mobile is a unique company based out of India. We are definitely not offering one country to all the different companies. We are offering multiple countries, and there are very few limited number of players right now in the market who have this kind of coverage and potential. And I think if you see, there are five or six companies only who serve the customers for global termination, and we are one of them. And if there is a pricing challenge, but there's a. What I see normally is a channel shift, and we see lots of use cases for WhatsApp and lots of use cases for RCS.
These are all new use cases, and that's the potential we see from CPaaS industry, because the growth on RCS and WhatsApp are totally new use cases. It is not somehow, you know, like killing the SMS volume as such. Because the two-way communication, the conversational chat, which is like is a new thing right now, and we see a growth on that as part of the business, and it will be continuous. So most of the companies, most of the enterprises, are now looking out to engage their customer with the various mode of communication, and RCS and WhatsApp is one of them, including SMS right now. So we are very bullish about the growth of CPaaS and omnichannel in coming years down the line.
Understood. Thank you so much for your time. This was really helpful, Rajdip.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sarang Sanil from RW Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, sir. Happy New Year, the entire team. My first question is, is it possible to give volume growth in NLD and ILD for the quarter?
Gautam, if you have.
Guys, we don't share that level of details right now.
Sure. So, was there a de- growth in.
I can tell you India, India, the volume growth was around 2%.
My second question is, since there was a guarantee in volume given to Vodafone Idea, the firewall deal, so is that part affected or renegotiated as you are planning to go live with a three-month delay now?
We cannot share those kind of detail right now. There is a definite agreement between Vodafone Idea. We have a certain agreement, but we may not be able to share on this call.
Okay. Okay. My third question would be, what are the margin levers going forward? Since RCS, WhatsApp would take, you know, the new products would take time to scale to the INR 400-500 crore range, what would be the levers in the next couple of years?
The levers will be the omnichannel, right? So email, WhatsApp, RCS and voice will be the levers for the next coming year. And we are placed well, and our platforms are working well. We are one of the top five partners with Google on RCS, and I think we're doing fairly well on RCS right now. And on WhatsApp, I think we are now one of the premium partners as well. And I think things are going really well for Route Mobile on omnichannel, and things are going good, and we believe that in coming quarters this will keep on growing.
All right. The final question would be: What is the effective tax rate for this year, and the next couple of years?
Yeah, 18%-20%.
18%-20%.
Okay.
Yeah. Thank you, and all the best for you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Suresh, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hi. Greetings, everybody. Just want to understand what the revised guidance is for the current year, and then as in the past, we spoke about a billion-dollar revenue, two to three years. Has anything changed on the long-term outlook, both on the margins as well as revenue? And what is the revised guidance for this and next year, if you may?
Got it. Yeah, so in terms of guidance, I think we revised this year, financial year guidance from the 25%, down to 15%-17%, and that's largely to do with the industry headwind. Considering, I mean, some of these large contracts which should go live during the course of this quarter, we'll see the full year benefit of that play out. And there are, as Rajdip said, some large MNO deals also that we are working on, which are firewall deals across multiple operators. So some of these things I think will help us accelerate.
Then for next year, I think, the way, as I think, somebody had kind of highlighted the base effect, I think next year we're looking at a very strong year from a growth standpoint. And then the billion-dollar revenue over three to four years, I think that stands valid even today. I think. And especially with this Proximus deal, we believe it will open a lot of avenues across the developed markets, which will be a catalyst to drive the core business.
Thanks for that. In one of the television interviews, Rajdip mentioned that combined entity, Telesign and Route Mobile, targeting a $2 billion revenue in like three, four years. I know this probably, this merger is probably evaluated to both organizations, but want to check if that's still the case forward?
That's still intact. I think if you see, combined revenue of both the companies is over $1 billion already. So we definitely stick to the $2 billion, and we believe we can overachieve also.
Amazing. Amazing. Awesome. Thank you. Congrats to you. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as our last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Rajdipkumar Gupta for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining this call, and we're looking forward to the strong quarter, this one, and we are working very hard to get more contracts and likely to work on our existing contract to go live. Thank you for joining this call. Thank you, and have a nice evening.
Thank you. On behalf of Route Mobile Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.