Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Yashaswini, the moderator for this conference. Welcome to the conference call of Route Mobile Limited, arranged by Concept Investor Relations, to discuss its Q1 and FY24 results. We have with us today Mr. Rajdipkumar 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 a 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 earning call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve certain risks and uncertainties. Kindly refer to slide two of the presentation for the detailed disclaimer.
Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajdipkumar Gupta, Managing Director and Group CEO from Route Mobile. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, moderator. Good evening, everyone. Wishing all of you good health and prosperity. Despite Q1 being a seasonally weak quarter, we had an excellent start of financial year FY24, with an exceptional 33% year-on-year growth in Q1 FY24. We are well on track to achieve our revenue growth guidance for 2024. The following are some of the key highlights of quarter gone by. We have signed a direct contract with one of the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing companies for offering CPaaS services across 10 countries, including India. We are in advanced discussion for a few large firewall contracts and shall update during this quarter once such contracts are executed. We continue to gain significant market share in India, our NLD volumes have picked up significantly during the quarter gone by.
The proposed NLD price increase from 1st August should result well for us. We are yet again been ranked as tier one vendor in ROCCO's A2P Market Impact Report 2023 for MNO and enterprise category. In terms of recent development, the promoters and member of promoters group of Route Mobile Limited have entered into a Share Purchase Agreement dated July 17, 2023, with Proximus Opal and Proximus SA. Pursuant to which, Proximus will acquire the entire promoter and promoter group shareholding in the company, representing 57.56% of the expanded voting shares capital. The consumption of SPA would result in Proximus Opal acquiring control over the company and shall attract an obligation on Proximus Opal to make an open offer as required under SEBI regulation.
The acquisition of this majority stake in Route Mobile and the mandatory offer, which followed by a reinvestment of EUR 299.6 million by some of the founding shareholders of Route Mobile, for up to 14.5% of the shares of Proximus Opal. This reinvestment implicitly values Telesign at EUR 1.4 billion. Proximus is a major mobile network operator based out of Belgium, and owns 100% of Telesign, a leading CPaaS company based in USA and which is based in Belgium. I know you may have a several question on the Proximus news, so let me deep dive right away with the strategic rationale. When Proximus expressed their interest in acquiring a majority, 58% plus stake in Route Mobile, a mandatory requirement for their investment, I affirmed our confidence in Route Mobile's immense growth potential, especially in high-opportunity emerging markets.
While I was reluctant giving the majority control, we negotiated an optimal deal structure, wherein EUR 299.6 million of the promoter's cash consideration will be reinvested into the parent Proximus Opal entity. Enabling the Route Mobile founding family to hold 14.5% share in Proximus Opal, with Proximus holding the remaining 85.5%. This aligns the interest and allows us to participate in the value creation upside through the minority stake, while maintaining operational control of Route Mobile to pursue our global growth vision. I am pleased we could agree on the constructive structure that balances both parties' objectivity. I'm thrilled to detail how the Proximus partnership significantly positions Route Mobile for immense growth across multiple high-potential markets.
Firstly, it provides instant access to top enterprise in the US market through Telesign's blue chip customer base, which has been challenging for us to penetrate alone in that market. Telesign's strong relationship with these customers are the perfect synergy to unlock the, unlock this opportunity. These clients generate significant ILDO traffic in India, and this ILDO business currently amounts around INR 2,000 crores. With the recent price increase in India for India termination, together, we can address substantial new messaging traffic by cross-selling our omnichannel and identity verification capabilities to their customer base, particularly in ILDO market side. Secondly, Route Mobile provides unparalleled direct connection with over 280 operators across high-growth regions such as Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. This qualifies a new opportunity to expand their services into these markets.
Our emerging market footprint amplifies their reach and serves the same top customers in other markets. Additionally, by collaborating closely on new products like Route Mobile's solution, digital fraud platform, and Telesign identity solution, we benefit immensely from shared innovation to build market-leading capabilities faster. This product addresses the significant issues of digital fraud in emerging markets. Route Mobile has developed strong in-house capability across omnichannel messaging, which with conversational API for emerging channels like RCS, WhatsApp Business, and Viber. Our partnership provides Telesign immense access to onboard their US enterprise customer onto Route Mobile rich communication stack. This presents a sizable US revenue opportunity for Route Mobile by leveraging Telesign customer relationship. Additionally, our recent acquisition of SendClean email delivery capability complements Telesign's portfolio nicely.
It allows them to expand their product scope to email services for their US customers on top of existing text messaging and identity verification offerings. The large US email solution market presents another avenue for revenue growth through this partnership. In summary, this partnership strategically aligns with Route Mobile's vision to become a leading international CPaaS player. By combining complementary strengths, we can scale faster, enter high-potential new markets together, and build better products through collaboration. I'm optimistic that this transformational union will unlock immense shareholder value as we embark on the next stage of our hyper-growth journey. Thank you once again for your faith in Route Mobile. Finally, based on our good performance in Q1 FY24, the Board of Directors has recommended an interim dividend of INR 3 per share. With this, I will now turn it over to Gautam to take us through the financials.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you, Rajdip. Good evening, everyone. We have already uploaded our quarterly earnings presentation on our website, as well as on the stock exchange's website. Hope you had a chance to go through the presentation. I'll quickly summarize our financial and operating performance during the quarter gone by and the recent development thereafter, before opening the floor for Q&A. The key takeaway from our financial performance in Q1 FY24 has been the strong revenue growth momentum. Revenue growth of 33% and EBITDA grew by 43.8% on a YoY basis, coupled with expansion of margins. EBITDA margin expanded by 100 basis points on a YoY basis. As highlighted earlier, Q1 is traditionally not our strongest quarter, and yet we have delivered an industry-leading growth.
In volume terms, we processed over 29.5 billion transactions in Q1, which is again the highest quarterly billable volumes processed by our team today. Such exemplary financial performance in Q1 FY24, a large global deals win across 10 geographies, and a few large firewall deals in the pipeline, builds a very strong foundation for a superlative FY24. With the recent announcement regarding Proximus, I want to highlight a few key aspects besides what Rajdip just spoke about. This transaction is intended to create value for both Route Mobile and Telesign, and for all stakeholders, be it existing and future shareholders of Route Mobile, as well as for Proximus shareholders. Synergies will be derived from both revenue based on expanding geographical footprint and complementary product capabilities and cost. By cost, I'm alluding to direct costs and the operating costs as well.
The transaction will allow Route Mobile to have access to markets outside of its current main geographical footprint, and to benefit from the digital identity expertise of Telesign. Rajdip will run the overarching CPaaS business on a large scale, with the scale benefits coming along with it. As we speak, we are already working out the synergy blueprint with a transition team made of representatives of Telesign, Route Mobile, and Proximus groups, along with an esteemed global consulting firm. With respect to geographical alignment between Route Mobile and Telesign, the transaction has just been announced, and we are already working through in terms of the GTM. However, we expect both companies to operate in the global market space and further capitalize on the growing CPaaS and digital identity markets. However, we expect there to be minimal synergies on both revenue and cost.
We do not have an exact view of what revenues will flow through which platform, but plan to take advantage of the complementary geographies, capabilities, and unique platforms of both companies, which will allow us to deliver accelerated top-line growth across both businesses. With respect to the cost synergies, it was announced that approximately 75% of synergies will come from reducing costs. This will be achieved by optimizing the joint cost base of both companies, including taking advantage of scale cost benefits, as well as geographical labor consolidation. These synergies are an estimate based on a preliminary assessment performed during the due diligence phase conducted by both the parties, and we will further, further elaborate the exact nature in due course....
With respect to the commercial licensing agreements for digital identity and CPaaS products, we expect to take advantage of the unique platforms that Route Mobile and Telesign have, to deliver on a global growth strategy. At this point in time, we have not reached that point of or level of planning. Again, we'll elaborate in due course. In the event that commercial agreements or licensing agreements would be put in place, this will be done at arm's length, and we will aim at optimizing the cross-selling of DI, which is digital identity, and CPaaS solutions in their respective geographies, where each company has a leading footprint. With this backdrop, let me walk you through our financial performance. In terms of Q1 FY24 performance, revenue from operations grew by 33% on a YoY basis.
There was a sequential de-growth of 4%, largely accountable due to sharp devaluation of Naira as a currency in Nigeria, and decline in traffic of few CPaaS players, which were acquired during the last quarter. In terms of certain KPIs, billable transactions increased from 24.8 billion in Q1 FY23, and 27.4 billion in Q4 FY23, to 29.5 billion in Q1 FY24. This increase in billable transactions was largely on account of our increased penetration in the domestic market in India. Our domestic volumes in India witnessed a double-digit growth on a sequential basis. Average realization per billable transaction reduced to INR 0.33, compared to INR 0.37 last quarter. Again, owing to increase in domestic enterprise business, which is apparently at a lower, much lower realization. We had a net revenue retention of 122%.
We added over 100 new customers in Q1 FY24 across all products. Gross profit margin expanded marginally from 21.3% in Q4 FY23 to 21.4% in Q1 FY24. EBITDA for the quarter increased by 44% YoY to INR 1,237 million. EBITDA margin improved from 11.8% in Q1 FY23 to 12.8% in Q1 FY24. effective tax rate for the quarter was 16.82%. Adjusted profit for tax grew by 23% on a YoY basis, and tax margin stood at 11.1%. With this, 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. We'll take our first question from the line of Vikas Jain from Financial Quotient. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, Gautam, congratulations for a good set of numbers on YoY basis, at least. I have two questions. One in relation to our upcoming merger with Telesign. What kind of margin profile would Route Mobile shareholders will have post-merger with Telesign? Currently, we are in 10 or 12, 20%. How does it impact our operating profit margins once the financials gets merged along with?
Sure. Hi, Vikas. I think, in terms of a presentation that was already uploaded post the confirmation or signing of the deal, the aspiration is to kind of, have an EBITDA margin profile of between 30% to 15%.
Okay. How about revenue sharing that we have with Telesign? Does Telesign overpower the Route Mobile financials or we are neck to neck with them?
As I said, I think some of these, fine prints are actually being worked upon through our transition team. Once we have more clarity in terms of the entire work stream, I think we'll be able to kind of give you a, a more clearer perspective on this. As I said, I think both businesses will tend to benefit because of the complementarity in terms of geography and, and the product, capabilities.
Thank you so much for answering my question, Gautam, and I wish Route Mobile and the shareholders all the best along with management. To conclude, I just have one feedback. You know, as a shareholder of Route Mobile, I would, and I think other shareholders would expect the same, to for the Route Mobile to be little more proactive in terms of communication. I think, we as a shareholder got an update and more insights from Guillaume Boutin before my management team could have responded. In today's media and social platform era, I don't think that reaching out to shareholder is that much difficult. It just brings in more confidence and transparency in the management and shareholder relationship. Thank you.
Thanks, Vikas Jain.
Yeah.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Sanjay Pranesh from Banyan Tree Advisors Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for this opportunity. I wanted to understand, by when would we see the synergy start flowing in, into Route Mobile, from the transaction itself?
Vasant, you want to start with this, and then I can-
Yeah, sorry, Sanjay, you, you, are you alluding to, like, when will it start to flow?
Yes.
Okay. I think, as I said, I think we are already, we already have a transition team kind of working on this closely. Some of these things I think will, will, kind of be, be, we'll be able to kind of give you a clearer picture once, once we have a little more in-depth, kind of a review of, of, of the work stream. I mean, just to kind of share from a conservative standpoint, I think towards the time of closing, I think we would be in an action mode, where, a lot of these synergies will start to kind of flow, immediately from closing. That is within six to nine months.
Yes, you're right.
Okay, great. Thanks. One more question I have for Rajdip, sir. In your transaction with Proximus Opal, are there any conditions on which you may have to sell your stake back to Proximus, or you, or Proximus may have a right to buy your stake once the second stage of the transaction is done? Are there any put options or call options that are there?
Vasant, you want to answer this?
Yeah, yeah, sure. Sanjay, the way I think, with the way that is structured, as I, as Rajdip said, he wants to be associated with this business and drive the CPaaS leg of the business. He is committed to this business for 5 years. There is a contractual lock-in of the shares for up to 4 years, and at only at the end of fifth year, either the shares are kind of swapped back into Route Mobile or swapped into Proximus, or they are kind of cashed out at the fair market value then. The fair market value would be completed at the end of fifth year, and this is that it could be either of the 3 options or a mix and match of the 3.
Got it. That's very helpful. Thanks a lot.
Sanjay, just to add another point out here, like, you know, like, I'm also going to.
Sure.
-add the combined CPaaS business of both the companies, you know, with my experience of last 25 years, 20 years in this domain, I think the next 5 years, what I'm going to build as a 2 company is 1 large force together. The potential of the emerging market, which I see in CPaaS, is going to grow multi-fold in the next 5 years for sure. That is the reason I think I want to highlight out clear about why I wanted to have this deal, because the potential what Telesign can bring or the Proximus Group can bring to Route Mobile is immense. End of the day, I believe that it will create more value for Route Mobile shareholders.
Got it, sir. That's very helpful. Thank you so much. Wish you the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Nikhil Chakravarthy from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Uh, thanks for the opportunity. Uh, uh, this is a question for, uh, Rajdip. So Rajdip, uh, uh, while I understand, uh, the logic of Telesign or Proximus in acquiring Route Mobile, we are, we are faster in company in a developing economy, with this trend is going very fast. Also, one of the most profitable company in CPaaS universe. I want to understand, what was your thinking in, you know, selling the stake in, uh, Route Mobile? Even though you will be investing half of the proceed in the combined holding company, but ultimately the diluted holding in Route Mobile will be a fraction of what you had, uh, in terms of your current ownership. So just wanted to understand, uh, what was, uh, your thinking behind it?
It was very clear, Nikhil, you know, like when any CPaaS company in this current scenario want to grow bigger and give to next 5 years, they should have the US market as their one of the large market. You know, in last so many years, I have tried to establish a base in U.S. Almost 6 years, we hired multiple people, we had all operated in those markets for the last 6 years. We failed miserably in, like, every single attempt we tried to, because that is the market where once you are already having enterprise customer, and somebody coming from out is very tough to crack those kind of customer, right? For my future growth of Route Mobile, I need to have some partner who has that base of enterprise customer in that market.
There was one trigger point, which was very critical for me to have. If I really want to be a large global CPaaS player, and U.S. is not just being a part of my portfolio, I'm not going to grow as the market is going to grow, especially the U.S.-based companies in CPaaS. I really need to be neck to neck with those companies and to be and to bring Route Mobile on a global map. That was the main trigger point for me to have this deal.
ood. Second thing about the valuation of Telesign, which you mentioned as €1.4 billion. Sir, if you do the math in terms of valuation built on TTM, it is valued more than 3 times of its last year's sale, which is even higher than 3 or higher than Route Mobile, right? They tried to list about 1.5 years back through NFCT, right? At that time, they were valued €1.3 billion. That was at the height of, you know, where the valuation of most of CPaaS companies were much higher. So what was the logic of, you know, giving much higher valuation to Telesign compared to this?
Yes, yes, Nikhil, I think honestly, there is two way to see it, right? First of all, I always knew, they're going to demand a high valuation based on their sticky customer base, especially large OTT players and most of... Telesign is completely enterprise-focused company. They don't, they don't work like other CPaaS player in the market, where they do trading between each other. I think Telesign is the only CPaaS company in the entire world who just operates with, work with enterprise, and they don't buy from aggregator, like, like a trader. First point, I think they definitely want, have asked for a higher valuation, which I agreed to for a betterment of Route Mobile because of the future growth. See, that is one answer I can give, which I thought about.
I may not have any rationale of giving that valuation, reasonable valuation, maybe. Maybe the only option is to, like, I need to have this partnership, and they demanded higher valuation, and we agreed to that.
Sure, sir. Very, very helpful. Just last question to Gautam. Gautam, just, the deal which you signed with Amazon, or the largest e-commerce or, data explorer company, just want to understand what will be the dynamic, changing dynamics and impact on our financial? Will the overall volume will start to flow right away or will it take a quarter or so?
You can expect this revenue in this quarter. That's what I can... We are in the stage of integration as of now, and we hope to start getting volume and revenue from month of August.
Sure, sir. Very helpful. Thanks for that. My question, good luck with your expanded growth update. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Nikhil.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Swapnil Potdukhe from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Rajdip. Hi, Gautam. Thanks for the opportunity. Just pushing you on the previous participant's question. The compression that you had to get into this deal appears a bit, you know. The way I look at it is like, the potential in India is significantly high, right? A growth opportunity. You're growing at a significantly high rate, gaining market share. Your operating performance has been robust in the past. Stock valuations are also decent. I mean, what was... What I'm trying to say, what was the compelling reason, end of the day?
Swapnil, Swapnil, let me cut you. Yeah. I'm here for I need to build a story, a vision for Route Mobile for next 5 to 10 years, right? Let's talk about market like India, or let's talk market like Africa. We are very well established in this market, okay? If I really want to give a guidance to my shareholder for next 5 years, that I will grow by 25% or 20% year-on-year basis, and I can be a $1 billion revenue as a standalone, that is one reason you cannot achieve in this market, because the margin mix is also very critical for us, because event-based customer, I think event-based CPaaS is a higher margin as compared to emerging country markets. This, I think I can answer you with this only, because this is the only trigger point I had in my mind.
I need to build Route Mobile for future. I need to make Route Mobile ready for the future by increasing the guidance which I have given to my shareholders, and to make sure I create higher EBITDA margin along with the GP margin. There is a lots of cross-sell, upsell opportunity between both the organizations, and this will create value for both the shareholder of Route Mobile.
Got it. In the press release, Proximus, there was a quote from you saying that Route will, Route's revenue would get accelerate. Route will become a billion-dollar revenue company in an accelerated mode versus your previous guidance following this deal. Can you elaborate more on that? Like, what, what would be the levers for that acceleration?
Some of the deals are just shared with you, right? I'm talking about India market growth.
I mean, can, can you, can you please quantify, in some, some form or the other?
I mean, how do I quantify? I can only share with you some of the contracts I can win. I'm talking about large firewall deals in some markets, which is more than a $100 million kind of a deal. I cannot quantify in this call. Probably as and when it comes in, I definitely be the first person to announce in public domain.
Sure.
Swapnil, if I can just add here, I think, so if you look at. I think the way to look at Telesign is, I mean, they, they are, I mean, the quality of revenue that they, that they do, right? It comes from all large US or large enterprises, where we believe, I mean, most of those enterprises are hyperscalers, and if they were to kind of scale their businesses into emerging markets, Route Mobile could become the de facto or the preferred partner. We believe, I think from, from that perspective, if a lot of those customers were to use Telesign, where Route Mobile is not directly kind of, partnered with such enterprises, Route Mobile will be the, the, the support arm for Telesign for all that traffic that will terminate into emerging markets.
That is what will accelerate the growth for Route Mobile and hence, hence that statement of achieving that $1 billion revenue, I mean, sooner than what we had targeted earlier.
Got it, Gautam. Is there a possibility there that there will be some shift in your some of your business to the competition, because the hangover of the deal that is there, you know, during the temp... There could be a period of uncertainty in between?
Most of our agreements are service level agreements. As long as the customers are not impacted because of the service quality, I don't think there would be, because of deal overhang, a switch from one service provider to another.
Right. just as the last-
In fact, we have seen a higher volume from our customer post this deal.
... Okay. Just a last one, you did allude to the fact that, because of some M&As in this, in this space, you had some revenue loss, in the this particular quarter, or opportunity loss. Let's put it that way, not revenue loss, but opportunity loss. Will it be the same for your competition going ahead once this deal is concluded?
Yes. Yeah. It should be 100%.
Okay, got it, got it. Thanks a lot, guys. All the best.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Mohit Motwani from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Two questions from my end. One is, can you talk about, you know, the growth that you're seeing in your top client base? Has there been any soreness? Because the top client revenue seems to be growth seems to be tapering down. Because as you can see, the contribution has come down. Is it because India volumes have increased, or there is some reduced spending by the top clients? Can you give some color on that?
Mohit, the way to look at this business, I mean, I think there is some seasonality to the business as well, right? On a Q1 basis, if you were to compare it, I think Q4 versus Q1 may not necessarily reflect the kind of throughput from clients, right? I mean, that is not apples to apples comparison, so to say. If you look at it from on a YOY basis, I think we have demonstrated a 32% growth, here again, I mean, we are talking apples to apple, because all the acquisitions were accounted for in Q1 FY23 as well.
On that front, I think we're pretty comfortable with the way the, the, each of our clients are ramping up. There was some impact because of, as I said, some of the acquisitions that have played out in the space. Some, some clients were impacted. Some CPaaS clients were impacted. Other than that, I don't think there is any cause for concern for any of our large clients. I mean, in terms of the volume that, that's being serviced by all.
Yeah, exactly. Actually, I was pointing out to that only. Have you seen any, you know, wallet share loss in our top client accounts? That's what I just wanted to understand.
Nothing, nothing, I mean, that warrants a kind of paying attention, I mean. We are, as I said, we are comfortable with the way, each of our clients are shaping up. Even some of these clients, or rather one of our large clients, we are servicing indirectly, but now we have contracts across 10 countries. We believe the throughput and the margins should improve for, for that particular client.
Sure. Can you just, you know, 1 quick question. Can you, let us know, you know, what is the contribution of messaging and MR messaging for the quarter?
Sure. Messaging was in INR terms, it was about INR 57 odd crores for the quarter. MR messaging was about INR 145-146 odd crores for the quarter. One of the CPaaS clients that got impacted was, I mean, a client of MR messaging.
Okay, sure. That's very helpful, Gautam. Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, and thanks for the opportunity. My question is on how the whole scheme will work on post the, like, merger with Telesign also, if you can, you know, throw some light in terms of how the, you know, revenue structure for Telesign, in terms of how much of around EUR 500 million revenue that they have, how much is on a CPaaS and how much is products? How the revenue flow will happen from Telesign to Route. These two will be, you know, like, separate companies, right? They, you know, like, they will operate as a separate company. In terms of saying the, like, you know, the terminations what, like, Telesign is giving to other players, those terminations will shift from other players to Route Mobile.
Is it how it's going to work, and how fast this can happen? Or it will happen immediately or post the, like, merger is complete?
Amit, at this point in time, I think some of these things are being worked upon. I think, as I said, I mean, there is already a transition team already working on this, along with one very esteemed, large global consulting firm. Some of these things, I think once we have a little more color, once things are kind of formalized, we will definitely come back and give you some comprehensive perspective of how things will pan out. Having said that, from whatever I think we've kind of discussed, in principle between all the parties, everything will happen at arm's length. To that extent, I think both companies should benefit, by, by this construct while they are separate legal entities.
What I'm trying to understand is that, you know, as you mentioned, that, you know, I know the CPaaS, you know, the CPaaS business of both Telesign and Route will be led by a single CEO. How that, you know, will function? Is he going to be CEO for both the companies, or is the CPaaS business will be carved out from Telesign and merge into Route Mobile or something of that sort? How that will function?
This is premature for us to comment at this point in time, but we kind of have made a note of this, and we'll definitely come back to you once we have a concrete answer on this.
Amit, just to add out here, I think the combined revenue of CPaaS business between Telesign and Route Mobile is about $9.50 million. I think about $50 million comes from the DI business, which is digital identity, if I'm not wrong.
Okay. Okay. Also, I know the whole premise last 2 years for Route Mobile has been based on, and obviously the organic growth has been there, but also we have been aggressive on acquisitions, right? We have been seeing a lot of consolidation happening in the CPaaS space. How do we see the acquisition strategy panning out post the whole, you know, change in structure? Is it going to be, I know, more organic growth from here on, or is it?
It is definitely. See, there is no change in DNA, all right? I'm going to be the CEO of Route Mobile. My vision and roadmap is the same. As I said, we will look for a company for tuck-in investment, as we speak, we might have some companies to acquire in some product space. There's nothing changed from our vision and the DNA for this.
Okay. Just one last clarification that last year we had been aggressive on the India strategy, and we have been focusing a lot on the ILDO business in India. Also, we have done some acquisitions to expand our global reach. Now it seems that we are focusing more on the international, on a part of the business rather than India. Is that the correct way this, no?
Not at all. Not at all. Not at all, Amit. Our India focus is definitely going to be more aggressive and more focused. As I said, this is last quarter, our volume and revenue increased in India market. There are some announcements which we are going to make very soon. Probably you will come to know our focus in India market and emerging markets are going to be the same. We believe that emerging market and especially India market has a huge potential, and we are definitely going to define a strategy to make sure our international growth along with India growth goes hand on hand.
Okay. There are also, you know, in terms of India market, the NLD business. We have seen price hikes, also in NLD, price hikes have been there in NLD. Also, there has been, you know, a lot of talks about the anti-phishing platform. How do you do that? We have also launched a platform for anti-phishing. What is the progress on that part, so the competitor?
The only thing, the only thing I can share with you right now, we are on track. We are in talks with operators. As soon as there is some kind of material information, we agree from operator, we will definitely share in public domain. Yes, we are working towards. We are working with some operators, and I think very soon we might announce something on that.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congrats for the transaction. Couple of questions. First, about FY 2024 outlook. I think, if you can give what now we are expecting for full year. Considering we are now having benefit from-
The voice is not very clear.
Is it better now?
Yeah.
Considering the, I just want to get update about FY24 outlook. Considering two, three things. First, about the NLD rate hike, which is imminent. Second thing is potential synergy benefit from the relationships or partnerships with Proximus Group now. If you can provide how we expect FY24 to play out. Second question is about the contract which you suggested with a leading e-commerce company, about 10 country kind of presence. Where we are today and how this is incremental? If you can give some sense, because I think that is yet not clear. Third thing is about the new product.
If I look, let's say, last 2, 3 years since listing, new product was one of the key thing which we always used to highlight, and we, we expected it to be, let's say, 10% of revenue and significant faster growth. If you look at last few quarters, it is growing slower than company. Even this quarter, their growth is 20% versus company, which is 30% plus. If you can provide some sense, where, what is entering the growth? Last is OCF. If you can provide the operating cash generated during the quarter. Thank you.
Dipesh, I think, I think the deal closure is about eight to nine months long, right? What I can tell you, whatever guidance we have given, the beginning of the year, I think we want to stick with the same thing. I think the 20% growth guidance, what we have given already, we want to stick with the same thing. With the certain deals which we are going to sign, I think in past also, I have revised my guidance 2 times last year, and probably this year also we might revise our guidance based on the certain deals once it is materialized. As of now, we want to stick with 20% growth guidance, what we have already given to the market.
I, I can assure my shareholders this is definitely going to be revised based on certain deals which we have signed and some of the deals which we are signing very soon. Welcome to you.
Yeah. In terms of, Rajdip, you want to take that, the new contract that we signed?
Yeah, yes, sorry.
Yeah.
Can you just repeat the question, Dipesh, what exactly he tried to do?
We mentioned about 10 country kind of presence with a leading e-com company. Now, just want to get where we are today, how this will expand our relationship and.
Yeah, I've already share, shared, but, we are at the last stage of integration, and we are hoping to start getting volume on these countries from the month of August.
No, the question rather is, right now, we are in how many countries? Whether we are in 1 country, 6 country, we don't know. If you can give-
Right now, right now we are in only for India through a third partner. Okay, with this 9 countries, it's a totally new addition to our portfolio.
Can you give some sense about what will be the potential, revenue, maybe in 2-3 year time period?
Probably next quarter, I can give you that. Let the integration to be done, and let the volume to flow through our platform, because, it, it's 1 or 2 months time of testing, you know, like. It is not that I will start getting the entire traffic on day 1. Probably the next quarter, end of this quarter, or next earning call, I might give you some brief on that.
Thank you, sir. Thanks. Other questions?
Yeah. Based on new products, I think, we making some progress. I think some of the... I mean, if you look at the entire gen IT machines and stuff, right, as it is generating AI, a lot of things are now getting revolutionized, and some of those work things are being worked upon. I believe once, once those things are formalized, made more enterprise-ready, we will be able to kind of garner good, good traction. We've already deployed our robot, which is a conversation bot platform with some element of generative AI, with one of the client, and now we're doing that with a lot of other clients. We believe, I think the traction will pick up there.
I agree with your point. rate has kind of been muted than the portfolio growth rate. But we are fairly confident, I think, and this year, as I said, I think in the previous call as well, will be the inflection point where I think some of these new products will achieve scale, and that will necessarily take us towards that 10% revenue contribution. I think this year will be a very important year from the new product standpoint. There are incentives being rolled out to the employees to hark and focus on these new product work stream. So I think the interest from the management continues to be very high on new products.
I think this year, definitely we'll have some, some degree of traction. I think we should be able to demonstrate towards the end of the year.
Deepak, just to add, we have onboarded some of large customers whose integration on this new channels are finished now, and probably we can start seeing traffic on from those customers very soon. Maybe we, we can see some kind of jump in our revenue in this new channel of communication, probably in this quarter.
Last is OCI, if you can give some data.
Mr. Mehta, can I request you to join back the queue, please? Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Kshitiz Sara from Trust Investments. Go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to know, after the merger with Telesign, how are Route Mobile and Telesign combined, thinking about new product offerings? We have CPaaS and we have digital identity, and there have been mentions of moving up the value chain in terms of focusing more on the service side of things. Could you share some light on how you plan to share these responsibilities, where the R&D engine would be across the two companies? Are you thinking about any other service lines apart from digital identity and CPaaS, so to say?
Kshitiz, I think, probably, we will try to focus most of the R&D from India, probably from Bangalore and Mumbai. There are certainly, definitely some of the product which we are working right now on customer experience platform, which we are launching on ninth of August, in Mumbai. I think as a Route Mobile, we are working towards give a better insight to our customer using our platform. I think the customer experience platform which we are building will directly going to help Telesign also to give more insight about different channels they use. Probably on ninth August, we can share more detail about this product, but on ninth of August, we are launching this product in Mumbai. What was the second question?
Yeah. I think broadly, this was it, in terms of new product, basically, whatever you could share. Yeah.
Yes, sir. On R&D side, as you mentioned, I think probably R&D will be completely focused on, Bangalore and Mumbai for both the companies.
That's helpful. Thanks a lot.
Yes, sure.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Rajiv Malhotra from HCPL Parts Company. Please go ahead.
Good evening, guys. Great results. I'm a new investor. There is one question. The question is, everybody on the call is terming the transaction as a merger. What we understand it, it is buyout, right? The question which arises is, is the Route Mobile going to stay an listed company in India?
Yes.
What's going to happen is, based on the acquisition of the shares of the promoters and the open offer, a technical situation will arise where you, where the acquirer will most probably cross 75%. Are they wanting to delist or sell back or?
Sure. So at this point in time, I think, the DPS is already out. The intent is not to delist. So if in an eventual scenario where the open offer is completely subscribed, the shareholding will, as you rightly said, will surpass the minimum public shareholding threshold. I think, then the regulation.
... warrants that we have to reduce it back to the minimum public shareholding threshold within a year's timeframe. That is, what I think, will be complied with if we happen to, get a, complete subscription in the open offer.
Okay. That, that's the first part. That the thought is that within a year you will stay listed. That's the, that's the idea. Right?
That's correct. That's correct. We'll stay listed. That's right.
Secondly, my observation about why is everybody calling this a merger?
You, you're right. I mean, while, while, I mean, the optics of this will look like a merger, but it's not essentially a merger, it's a buyout and then an investment into the holding company for, of Telesign and Route Mobile by, by the founding, some of the founding members of Route Mobile.
Okay. Okay. That's fine. Thank you. That answers my question. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Anil Nahata, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello. Rajdip, a very bold move, if I may say so. Most of our shareholders are probably not able to grasp why Route Mobile did in the first place. Your explanation of being present in the US market makes a lot of sense to me. Definitely, that is our largest market by far. China market is not accessible to most. If you leave out the China market, US is the biggest market and probably accounts for as much as many, many markets put together. That makes a lot of sense to me. However, my question is: how does Route Mobile, by...
At a group level, definitely you will have a play in the US market, but Route as an entity, how does this US presence now help Route to be able to give some platform, by giving a platform out now, but otherwise, how does it help you?
Good question, Anil. Let me just answer this question. As I mentioned in my commentary also, that let's talk about India as a market, especially ILDO, right? Most of the ILDO traffic is originating from companies based out of US, and a company like Telesign has a direct access of all those customer base out of US. That routing directly coming to our platform from Telesign to Route Mobile will directly benefit Route Mobile. If you see, most of the tech giants based out of US, their main market is emerging countries, whether it's Africa, India or Asia or Middle East, including Latin, right? We are a champion of emerging markets, where we already established direct partnership with operators, and with this connectivity can be directly used by Telesign and whatever.
Right now, let's say they are using 3rd aggregator, maybe some based in India, some based out of India or in US. That whole traffic can be routed through Route Mobile platform, because we are very much aligned with having the connectivity all across the globe now. Indirectly, that routing will directly move to Route Mobile. Route Mobile will definitely benefit out of that. That is 1 I can answer.
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, Rajdip, in fact, because it, it increases the profile of Route Mobile without having to go across.
Yeah.
[crosstalk]
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I'm sorry. What is the typical termination margin that is available in the marketplace?
I'll just give you simple example of India, right? Now India has $0.05 for ILDO traffic. There are various market in emerging countries like India, Bangladesh, where termination cost is over $0.16. Countries like Indonesia, $0.23, country like Sri Lanka, now $0.23. It's a very high-margin, market.
My question was on the gross margin.
Hello? Hello.
I'm sorry, your voice is breaking.
Anil, your voice is breaking.
I am sorry for that. My question: Is this margin higher than 15% on this? Is the rate...
Indeed, yes. There are the high-margin customer base in the US, and the combined, as Dr. has already mentioned, I can give a guidance of EBITDA margin around 13%-15% in coming years down the line, and that is the kind of thing we believe. As far as the US customer is concerned, I think the gross profit on US customer base is around 25%-35% range, as compared to the emerging market, where it is between 18%-22% market.
Thanks for that answer. My next question. We have been reading commentaries across all players, market reports, that Indian market is going to grow at a CAGR of 30%, 35% something. Somehow, over the past couple of years, I see somehow that, at an industry level, that growth is not materializing in this last 5, 10 years. Rajdip, what is your view about how will India achieve this 30% kind of a CAGR?
India is definitely a very large market, Anil. I'll just give you classic example of UPI usage, right? Even as of today, people pay INR 5 also using the UPI wallet, whether it's Google Pay or Amazon Pay or you name it. That transaction is growing multiple every single quarter, right? I think potential of India in coming days, the moment this kind of channel is available for tier three, tier four cities, we will see more traction and more volume generation on these kind of applications.
Based on that, because of internet quality is getting better in India, thanks to operator like Jio, we can have more access of digital platform in remote, tier 3, tier 4 cities, which lead to more transaction over digital platform. I believe in the next two to three years downright, India is a very large market in people's, usage of CPaaS channel to be used.
Anil, just to add with the consolidation that's playing out, I think, in the industry right now, a lot of traffic will move from un, the unsegmented or segmented players to, to now evolved players, and that's where all the large players will benefit.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Mohana Kumar, an investor. Please go ahead.
Congrats on a good set of numbers. I just have a couple of questions, lastly, to do with the deal as expected, you know, this coming as no surprise right now, given the number of questions I had today. The first question was, with one of the public interviews that Guillaume Boutin had done, he mentioned that there is a possibility that he might take, might delist Route, after the...
No, no, no.
He mentioned that.
No, no, no.
Just to clarify.
No, no, no. No, no, I think you just need to go through that interview once again. It is very clear that he has no intent of delisting the company.
Okay. The second question was with respect to, again, the tender price. The tender price is about INR 1,620-ish, and we expect the deal to close nine months down the line. Are there any odds of that number getting revised, given that it's still very far away from that, and there's a good chance that the share price may not be anywhere close to that number?
No, the MTO price is INR 1,626, and that's again, governed by the SEBI regulations. At this point in time, that stays put. The 6-9 month timeframe is largely because of some of these regulatory approvals that are warranted for this transaction. Once those regulatory approvals are in place, it can be sooner than the 6-9 months as well. Once they are in place, I think the MTO should go through, and we should be able to achieve a closure of the transaction.
Got it. A non-deal related question that I have is, this time the revenues were little soft in your countries to a large extent during opening the markets. I'm just trying to get a sense of, are we expecting a lot of this to flow back in the next quarter? Or is it something that's gonna take a little longer to kind of come through with, you know, the new deals that you have acquired?
So from our-
Yeah, go ahead.
From our perspective, we are not changing our guidance on this. I think, as Rajdip said, we are reasonably confident of 20%, and maybe at a point in time, we may come and revise the guidance, of course. I think there is nothing, I mean, which is making us nervous right now. And, I think we are fairly confident of meeting our revenue guidance, and maybe at a point in time, subject to some of these deals that Rajiv talked about, if they were to subsidize, we'll definitely come and upper revise the guidance.
If the guidance of 20%, if you just maintain the Q4 revenue of last year, given that Q1 and Q2 numbers are pretty soft, without any effort, you kind of get to that 20%. I'm just trying to figure out, is there any quarterly cadence that we can expect? Because 20% seems like really low. It seems like a number that, if you just maintain the Q4 numbers, given Q1 and Q2 last year were soft, you hit that without any quarterly growth.
I think teams also see our last year's guidance, right? We started 40%, and we ended with 70%. We need to just believe in us, and I think we are very much committed. Like I said, happy to come again and revise our guidance supports.
Got it. Got it. Sounds good. As you mentioned earlier, you, you will be giving probably more clarity regarding how things, the structure of the new company and how things are likely to flow once the deal has been inked out, right?
Right.
Got it.
Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Gautam Badalia for closing comments. Over to you.
Thank you everyone for joining the call. Please, please feel free to reach out to us for any further information clarification. We'd be more than happy to answer your queries. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Route Mobile Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.