Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 FY 2026 result and business update call from Schneider Electric Infrastructure Limited, hosted by Elara Securities India Private Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions. After the presentation concludes, should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero, on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Nemish Sundar from Elara Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah, thank you, Gitesh. Very good morning to everyone present here. On behalf of Elara Securities, we welcome you all for the Q4 and FY 2026 conference call of Schneider Electric Infrastructure. I take this opportunity to welcome the management of Schneider Electric Infrastructure, represented by Mr. Udai Singh, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Omkar Prasad, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Mohit Agarwal, Head Investor Relations. We will begin the call with a brief overview of the management, followed by a Q&A session. I will now hand over the call to Udai, sir, for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Well, thank you so much, and very good morning to all. Thanks again for joining us. I'm sure that you got sufficient time to read the material which we had shared yesterday. As planned, I will actually take you through as to what the company has been. The first thing which I want to start off with, which you see on your page two, is something which we are collectively as a company very proud of, is the, you know, selection and recognition by the IOD in terms of awards which we have got, two in a row. The first one which we got in the later part of last year, which was the Golden Peacock Award for ESG 2025 for excellence in sustainability.
That was something which we got last year in October, November. Then again, we have proven the excellence by winning the Golden Peacock Award for one of the most innovative products and services in 2026. This is for, what we are, very proud of and sharing, is for EcoStruxure XR Operator Advisor. This is a new offer which is one of its type, which is very beneficial to the end users who are maintaining assets at multiple locations of industrial sites in terms of maintaining it in a much better and more efficient and more defined way. Now, I would like to take you and again run you past as to what your company's vision and mission is.
You know, the vision stays as what we are very focused on, is leading the new digitize in the energy world by offering to all of our customers and partners the fully innovated and connected products and solutions which are ready for the then-emerging power distributions' elevated expectations. We do this by using our balanced business models, superior quality and efficient supply chain, which keeps our growth and profitability resilient and sustainable. If you notice, there is a tag which we are talking about now, which is Advancing Energy Tech.
We are now proudly state to all of our customers and stakeholders that we are their energy technology partner wherein we electrify, automate, and digitize each and every industry, any business, homes, driving efficiency and sustainability for all. I would now like your attention on page number four, which is a broad market outlook which we see for the company in times to come, which is, you know, how is India faring, you know, and how because recent times, every one of us is aware of the global headwinds which we have been facing.
How do we see for the company the situation ahead of us? Now, it's a mix of some tailwinds which you read at the top left where the GDP forecast for the country actually still is about 7%. you know, the CapEx planned and which is getting rolled out by the government is about 11.5% higher than what it was last year, which is typically about INR 12.2 lakh crore. The power central utilities have been actually having a lot of declaration on the financial outlay which will be they will be doing in FY 2027, which is roughly up by about 20%.
These all indicators, they open up good avenue for us, for the company. We should be also conscious about certain headwinds which we see, forex fluctuations, you know, the government political uncertainties, and also very importantly, the raw material. If you typically look at the raw material has gone and changed, and it has moved north side quite a bit, just to give you know, it's like copper, aluminum in the last one year, I'm talking about a year which is between April 2025 and March 2026, has seen an upward movement of 30%+ .
So is steel, which is another component which we use, extensively in our, products, which has seen close to 10% increase in the last 12 months. These are certain headwinds which we have to encounter and recognize while we leverage what is the opportunities coming across, which are stipulated by the tailwinds that I said. What we are also trying to do is trying to tell you as to these four segments which we have highlighted, which are namely energy transition, transportation, the digitalization driven by AI, and manufacturing, what does it open for us?
I'll spend some time in terms of explaining to you, to the best of my effort as to what this offers to us. Starting off with energy transition, you know, India is sitting at a very sweet spot. You know, we actually have come to a per capita consumption of about 1.5 units per year, which is likely to almost go up by another about 30% by year 2030, which means that consumption will go up roughly at a CAGR of about 12%-15% in times to come, which means more power, more generation, more distribution, where and these are the two areas where we typically operate.
Now, even if you look at the non-fossil fuel where the country had a target of 500 GW, and I would not be having any hesitation in stating that India is moving at least about eight to nine months ahead of this target, we as we speak, we are close to about 280 GW already done. What also comes alongside is the energy storage system based on batteries, which is typically about one. For the best of the estimates of, industry, this is likely to go up to 200 times, to about 230, 210 by 2030. This offers and as I think you might have read, sometime later, there are slides where we have an offer on the energy storage system also.
The point which I'm trying to make that energy transition by itself offers quite a good opportunity for your company. The other side which I want to take is transportation. EVs are picking up. The government has a penetration plan of 30% by 2030. We have started moving in that direction, although there are turbulence in between in certain quarters. We are on the path. This alongside Vande Bharat trains, which today we have about less than about close to 100 trains, 80 already running, and then another plan, the overall objective of Government is about 400 trains by 2030.
I am again very proud to say that most of these trains are being run by the equipment which are made by us. Other thing which I also want to speak about is manufacturing. Manufacturing contribution to GDP is going to go up by 5% in five years. This is a huge, huge opportunity for us. There are a lot of schemes which have been rolled out, as you may be aware, the PLI, the rare earth corridors which have been made, the ECMS, the ISM 2.0.
These are all facilitations being carried out by the Government of India, which will give a boost to manufacturing under the Self-Reliance program of the country. Therefore, the manufacturing will enhance. When manufacturing enhances, it requires power distribution and power management. That's where we work upon. The last is, of course, data center. It is a known fact. Data centers are going big. We with the best of industry estimates are sitting close to about 1.5 GW of IT load. There are a set of people who say that we should be close to about 8 GW in by 2030.
This is a reality because, what we understand is there's about 3 GW which have been already in a very advanced stage of sort of getting signed up and, you know, getting rolled out in the next one and a half to two years' time. This is going to be there. Where we see we do a lot in the entire value chain of data centers, and that is where which is a quite a positive thing for us. We have certain actions which we have undertaken how to leverage these tailwinds which you see, these segmental growth and nuances which you notice, and also how do we defend to our level best ability to counter these headwinds which are coming in front of us.
I want you to go to slide six or page six of our presentation, or the deck which we had shared, where we are extensively proud to share as to what we have done in many segments. I start off with our core sectors which are infrastructure, metro, energy, and chemicals and metals, where with our products and solutions, we are present quite at good places.
Like if you see the first tile, which is infrastructure, we are supplying a lot many solutions which are the primary and secondary distribution along with the distance software and stack for one of the smart cities in North India. We speak about metro. These are the full distribution for the entire line which we are doing in a city in Western India. The energy and chemicals is something which has been very close to us, like metals, where we are trying to give transformers and the medium voltage solutions in metals, which is our core.
I want you to turn to page seven, where we are talking about what we are doing in the booming data center range, where we have supplied this in one of very established respected players, where we are trying to do in terms of, you know, either supplying power transformers with fully digitized solution or giving high-end relays which actually make the infrastructure site much resilient and much active, or we are modernizing at many places by, you know, uplifting the technology which the present installed base has.
This is being done because the customer really believes in us and in our solutions and sees the merit which we bring in terms of, modernization which we do in these areas. I would like to take you to as to what we are doing in semiconductors, in, renewables, in manner and other areas which are the future energy segment. Semiconductor and I'm sure I'm not the first one to share with you, but India is at inflection point. This is going to be really driving this industry is really going to drive, in my opinion, in times to come. I'm so happy to share that, you know, in Semicon, we have been engaging with the people who are investing big money in the country.
We have been there right from last two and a half, three years. Our success has been continuing. We have been supplying the equipment, the software, the software which control operation, which gives advisories in this area. The one which you see in the left is something which we have given a digital solution to one of the customers in Central India. We have another success which we have under renewable space, where we have given the substation solutions which are fully automated panels which are given to manage the solar energy, so to say.
Of course, we have another in the manufacturing side where we are trying to do it with, you know, supplying high-end transformers which are fully digitized and sensorized. Having said so, I would now request you to turn to page 10, wherein we just want to share with you as to how our brand has been performing, how is the brand of your company is being perceived by masses, by customers, by all stakeholders, and the efforts which we have undertaken in areas of CSR and sustainability. March end and April 1st week was very busy for us because we participated in the Bharat Electricity Summit in Delhi, which was managed by the Ministry of Power.
This is the place where we actually had displayed the offerings which the company has. This went on, in my opinion, quite great. I was myself there for almost all the days. We had about 1,000+ booth visitors, which comprised about 300+ customers who came, who witnessed, really gave those statements which reinforced our own confidence in us about what solutions have been given them great advantage in terms of maintaining site more seamlessly.
Thereafter, we had another thing which was an innovation summit which we as a company organized in the first week in Delhi, again in Yashobhoomi. This was a larger event which was managed by us, where about 5,000+ attendees came, 40+ CEO-level people came in. We had about another 150+ C-level, C-suite people came in. They saw the entire strength of Schneider, the entire portfolio basket of Schneider, which just proves that how do we have an extensive end-to-end capability of executing projects on time.
There were about 200 government officials which actually came in and saw as to what we can really do for the country in terms of building up infrastructure, which is highly digitized, as I had mentioned in my mission statement. How can we drive that for them is something which was really appreciated. We also called in about 500 students to really see and how do they know as to what companies in India are doing, you know, how they can get equipped for future because they are our future eventually. This went on pretty well. I would also have a slide which is on what we have done on the grid side, you know. This is a case which has been done.
You can find this video in YouTube also, where we have done in Tata Power Odisha, which is actually, the West, Odisha. There are two of them. There's a West, and there's another one. This is something which came out where the customer testimony states that the Schneider solutions, which were proposed, supplied, implemented, and what benefit this actually is bringing to Tata Power as such in the state of Odisha. I would like to take you to another slide, which is the page number 13, which just to share as to how we have been progressing on a charter which we have rolled out for ourselves in areas of ESG.
If you see, there are certain tiles which you have captured which are very relevant and pertinent to the ESG journey of any corporation. The CO2 emission has come down by 83% in last year, 83% reduction we have been able to manage. I'm so happy to share that 100% electricity source from renewables, everything is renewable, either by on-site solar or buying REC bonds. There has been zero incident in four factories which we are running at the company. The gender diversity, we are strongly believed on gender diversity.
We have been able to take it to about close to 20%. That is by far, I would say, that is one of the highest in our peer industry group. Skill development, we have I think you may be aware, but I we are again so happy to share that we have 11 skill development centers in government which are state-run, ITI centers, where we have been training youth. We have trained 1,000+ youth in last year. We have also gone ahead in this area in terms of electrifying communities. We have distributed upwards of 3,000 portable solar lamps, which were given in areas where there was scarcity of power.
Of course, as I mentioned before, we got recognized because of these efforts which we undertook. We are also awarded the Golden Peacock Award for ESG in 2025. I would like to give you an update. There are three pages which will speak about as to what we are doing new because we realize that we need to improvise ourselves by bringing in innovation which are focusing on making customer site management better and improved. The first one which we are talking about, and I would like to take your attention to page number 15, is the a dry-type transformer.
Dry-type transformer, just for a simple explanation, it is a transformer which is cast. We have a design which is a global design which is called Trihal. That is something which we do up to 33 kV class. We have actually supplied close to 170,000 units worldwide across 100 countries. What specifically which this brings in is, if you notice, is E4, C4, F1 class, which is one of the most stringent, more robust endurance class made in dry-type transformers. That is what we are going to bring in in Vadodara. We will start catering to especially areas like data centers, areas like metros, areas like, you know, commercial building, residential complex, hospitals, hotels, you know, those areas.
Another important element which I want to point out, and there are other things which are pretty technical, is that the compliance which this transformer has around seismic. India is a complex country. When you travel from north to south, east to west, there are various seismic zones. I do not want to make it and sound it more technical. There are various levels to which the equipment and installations have to comply with. This transformer by far complies to the highest standard. I would like to take you to this another page, which is page 16 on your deck.
This is another element which India needs. This is something which we showcase, and it sought a lot of attention in the innovation hub which I just described some time ago, which is something which we call as One Digital Grid. Now, in very simple layman terms, you know, this is a tool which advises, guides, and interacts with the DISCOMs in terms of telling them how do they make the grid work most efficiently. What it actually does using AI is it not only captures as to where the fault is, how do you bring it back, you know, what is the least cost of bringing it back, you know, where which asset geographically is placed where, how to attack it.
Then all of this which actually does the planning, how do we do, how do we modify, how do we scale up, how do we scale down. The operations and the asset management, which is very important for keeping the SAIFI SAIDI down, is something which is done very well on this. This is as if flexibility. This is available on cloud as well as on-premise, as we call it. This comes up with a deep AI-based modeling. It also differentiates itself in terms of having a chatbot.
If some operator and this is extremely unique, the point which you see, which we are calling as Grid AI Assistant, wherein, you know, if you like ChatGPT, if somebody wants to really pose a question to the software or the system, they can just ask and get answer to the best of breed answers which can come out. It can advise the operator who is not perhaps as conversant as he ought to be. I would also like to take you to the last of the offers which were launched, which are energy storage for smarter energy future.
This one thing which you remember I discussed some time ago, where we are sitting close to about 1 GWh, and we are expected to go by 2030 to at least about 210 and about 240 GWh by 2032 as per the plan and issue and the government quantification. Now, what we have done, if you look at this, what we have done, We are trying to bring in all solutions from Schneider side, which are either power distribution, power management, software, the structure, the design. We are trying to give a combination of this.
We are working especially with all those clients who are really looking for a one of the best of the best solutions, fully automated, fully connected, which can actually help them to unlock the peak shavings and the time of use of utilization, improvision of power quality, and of course, give them a power backup. This is something which we are trying to do. A new offer which is being launched, we are trying to see as to now, how do we secure business in this because demand is just going up. At this point in time, I'll stop. I'll request my colleague, and our CFO, Mr. Omkar Prasad, to take you through the financials of the company. Over to you, Omkar.
Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Myself, Omkar Prasad, CFO of your company, Schneider Electric Infrastructure Limited. I would like to give you the brief update on the financial performance for the 12-month and the fourth quarter four. I would like to bring your attention on page number 19, where we give in the summary of the financial performance of the key three KPI, which is orders, sales, and profit before tax.
As we see in the historical quarters, the orders, growth was actually consistently very strong. We've grown year-to-year growth of 27.4%. The sales, we have grown 9.6% year-to-year. The profit has for the year is 10.1%. Bringing to your attention to quarter four, before that, I want to give you the external perspective, which you know better than me, that the Q4 was not normal quarter. It was completely unprecedented in terms of, you know, the external geopolitical regions and also due to the commodity market because of the such a dependency on the, you know, geopolitical happened.
In spite of that, the orders, we continue to saw rhythm. That's why, if you look at last year, the growth was good. Then we continue to at least keep the momentum on. We maintained the growth while very moderated around 1.4%. We, you know, the together, we tried to make sure that we should not degrowth. That's why, if you look at the order overall, the backlog, which is there, is around 50% up from the last year. That's so the complete robustness in terms of the what we have on the hand to execute in the upcoming quarters. Sales was quite modest.
We were able to have the flat sales in spite of so much dependency on the customer. Our product goes to the company who actually have a CapEx-intensive engineering company. They also had a dependency. They had an impact because of this geopolitical crisis. There are many orders we've seen in our Q4 execution that the customer intentionally, or you can say, because of dependency on the LPG, dependency on the other, you know, their processes, they are asking us to hold the dispatches and shift to the next quarter. In spite of that, we were able to have INR 590 crore of sales in this quarter and profit 6%.
I will give you the more brief in the next slide. I'll give you that what the actually the lever which impacted our profit in this quarter. I want to move to the slide number 20, where you have the P&L for the 12-month. We discuss about the sales, coming to the gross margin. The gross margin, when you look at, it's, you know, slightly dropped. If you look at in terms of margin, it is close to 1.06%, 1.5% drop. Ideally in these two things, one is the drop is coming completely because of the externally, commodity impact.
There our company also got impacted. As we know, remember the last quarter, we discussed that we had an inventory hold. Q3 was not impacted much. Q4, we see good impact on the because of the commodity. Also, we the mix of the revenue, what we the way we have the service mix, then we have a transitional standard product. We have a projects and equipment supplies. That mix also has impacted the gross margin. Other expense, I will talk about them more. Employee, while you see the growth of expense in 11.6% against the sales of 9.6% in both way.
I just want to say that employee cost 11.6% is the two-part. One is from operation, which is close to 9% increase. We also have increase in headcount because of the some, you know, technical engineering staff's been deployed to support global. We don't keep this cost here. We recharge. 11.6% is not exactly looking from your 9%, you know, like-to-like sales. There's some recharge happening here. Only employee cost has increased 9% like-to-likes. In other expense, 11.5%, while you see this number percentage-wise.
If you look at overall percentage to sale, 12.2% versus 12.4%. If you follow the last year's financials, there was a, you know, the impact in earlier year on account of the ECL in the, you know, bad debts and all, which we covered last year, very good. That was a help us in other expense. This year, we also realized we are not impacting any bad debts. That's a good news. The realization in terms of the what we had bad debts in earlier year in the last year, which is this year, there's a delta. We can't, you know, there's no provision. We can't realize more than provision.
That's why you see in other expense, like-to-like little bit increase in this year, which is more, I will say. It was a one-off last year. Rest, I will not, you know, brief because it's more in line with our, planning in terms of CapEx depreciation and finance cost. Exceptional cost, just want to bring your attention. In Q3, when we updated you that there was a labor code impact. We restructured, you know, the salary and all done in the month of December. That was more on basis of draft code.
The impact was taken in Q3 was around INR 24 crore. When we restructured the complete the right final, the impact is coming only INR 14 crore. The INR 14 crore in exceptional item, what you see here is because of the labor code. Last year, INR 18 crore gain is coming because of a reversal of the direct tax litigation, where we moved and opted Vivad Se Vishwas . There was a reversal of interest cost in the exceptional item.
I want to move into the slide number 21, where you will see the Q4 performance. We discuss about the sales and margin. Margin, largely, as we said, that's largely impacting because of the commodity. Almost 2.5% is coming from commodity and rest is coming from the sales mix. This quarter, what is happening because sales and then also, there's overheads. There's a phasing impact. When I say phasing impact, throughout the year, what you saw in the previous slide, while it is showing the right trend, but Q4, because of, you know, the phasing, the certain, you know, Q4, we do all the other costs booked in YTD basis.
Sales, we've grown only at CapEx. That's why you see only a phasing impact. It's very temporary. When you look at overall year, it gets catch-up. It's not something we've, you know, increased the cost. That's not the case. It is the cost is like-to-like in absolute number. If you look at it's not significantly lift. If you look at percentage, yes, because sales has not grown in that way because of the external market conditions. Rest is all in line that we plan. The depreciation, if you look at increase in Q4, is largely the you all approved the CapEx, you know, to invest. We started capitalizing from Q4, end of the Q4. Then impacting depreciation is coming. That's all. I now hand over to our moderator to open for the Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. A reminder to all the participants, please restrict yourself to two questions per participant. The first question is from the line of Sukrit D. Patil from Eyesight Fintrade Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I have two questions. My first question to Mr. Singh is, he wants to understand the power guidance on what type of strategic levers are you prioritizing in FY 2027 to expand Schneider's footprint in smart grid and digitalization solutions, and to accelerate renewable integration and manage risk from regulatory transactions and global supply chain volatility. That's my first question. I'll ask my second question after this. Thank you.
Thank you for asking this. You know, I don't know whether you are aware. I think the first solution, which is towards modernization of grid in the country is by Yas, which has been running in one of the south states since 2012. I think, what we see, as where India is moving to is driving robustness and modernizing grid. That also has become very pertinent and important now because the amount of integration of renewable power is likely to happen on a grid which has been conventionally very robust in the country.
The second aspect, which is extremely important, where we have a right solution, is the multidirectional flow of power or energy between multiple widespread sources. The scheme which has been launched by people are putting solar rooftop solars and other things which are eventually leading them to behave like what we call prosumer, which buy and sell power both. We have softwares which we call as microgrid solutions, which actually takes care of that flow.
It is nothing but it really showcases you the physical flow of power and how do you manage it. That's one solution which we have. Another solution we have on the software, which I was explaining you, if you might have understood, is the One DG platform, which integrates three, four elements which comes together on the grid solutionizing, which is primarily a SCADA or a ADMS solution. We have a DERMS solution.
DERMS is nothing but how do you manage it, distributed energy resource, and the outage management system and a maintenance system. All this actually is likely to happen. As a matter of fact, government by itself is trying to set up now training centers in the country where the intention is to train the DISCOM people as to how to perhaps upskill themselves in terms of using the grid and the tools to manage the grid more efficiently. We are also in process of setting up one of the such skill center in North India to which will be used by PFC to train people.
Thanks. My second question to Mr., Prasad is, again, a forward-looking one. I just want to understand what type of capital allocation and risk management frameworks have been applied in 2027 to balance dividend payout with funding for grid, modernization projects, any hedge against, forex and commodity volatility, and any liquidity buffers, that will be put into place to sustain, for the large-scale infrastructure contracts. Thank you.
Yes. Yes, sir. Two things, I think. I will take first, coverage against the hedging of forex and commodity. We have both. As a policy, we have a certain policy. No one covers 100%. Commodity hedging is completely covered, up to the 50%-60%. Foreign forex hedging for any dependency on the import, we do two types of hedging. One is also the PO hedging, particularly on order by order. We also have a net AR and AP, forex hedging. That is covered. What you see, the impact here in the P&L, and that's why I see that impact is lesser in our P&L because the hedge benefits also has given some good positive in the GM.
Otherwise, impact would have been, more in the quarter four. The second thing you were asking about more on, large infrastructure projects, mostly what we try to do, the large infrastructure project, which is more than six-month, [GMP] period, we always negotiate with the customer with some variable contract. It means what it means, we make sure that we give the price today. If price there go up, we try to negotiate that differential has to be recovered from the customer. That add on the most of the these apply in the large infrastructure project, which takes more than, you know, a year and all.
That's process already there. What you see here, if you look at in terms of our contracts, it's a mix. We do have we call, you know, big projects more than one-year execution period. That's there. The impact which you see here, it's more the contract which was supposed to be delivered and booked in somewhere in the Q2, and we have to deliver in this quarter. That impact is more, which was the delivery period is less than six months.
Thank you.
I hope I answered it, please, Mr. Sukrit.
Yes, yes. Thank you very much. Best wishes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mahesh Bendre from LIC Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Sir, during the quarter, the revenue growth was almost flat, I think, in terms of around 1% growth. In the presentation, we have mentioned that delivery difference and external factors impacted the quarterly sales. Could it be possible to share more details on this?
Sure, sir. If you look at revenue, as you said, you see our backlog was very strong. It was not a challenge in making the delivery just to customer push and get the hit in the quarter. Okay. We are trying to, first of all, deliver wherever we have a material ready. Second, the customer is also willing to pay and take the delivery in this quarter. What we observed, many of the customers who had a dependency on their end customer ultimate use, they also started saying that because of the other dependency and they also got impacted with this crisis, they are asking us to hold the deliveries.
That's why the revenue has been moved from this quarter to next quarter. When I say external factor, that was very cautious because we also don't want to take every hit in this quarter. We're only prioritizing the customer delivery where the material and everything is ready and with the all impact, which can impact less rather than, you know, get all the deliveries made and then get the higher impact. That was the idea. The team has done in the company, I think, very well to manage their customer expectation and trust at the same time, making sure that we get minimum dent in this quarter.
The delay, I mean, from an end-consumer point, are they private companies, or is it that they were public-sector undertakings or SEBs?
Sir, in earlier call, I think we clarified in terms of GTM. We have a different GTM. If I am going through the EPC or if I'm going to the event to the large infrastructure in another company, both states are impacted. Largely, it's the EPC because we go to EPC, and EPC has an end customer. There, I have a larger dependency.
Okay. Do you think that will get rectified in this quarter?
Finger crossed, sir. I think that's why we are looking at. I heard the news yesterday again that there's some, again, some crisis going to come from the U.S. and Israel. I don't know. That's why let's keep the finger crossed that all these essential, you know, LPG, copper issues are getting resolved. I hope that we'll recover it in Q1.
Sir, last question from mind. Sir, Udai Sir just mentioned about the solution in battery storage energy that segment. Do we have that technology, or is it that we will get it from the parent? I mean, how are we placed in that?
It's a, you know, good question, sir. Thank you for asking this. You know, we do not make batteries, okay? But the rest of the items, either we make by ourselves or we are trying to partner with somebody who can give a piece of it. Essentially, battery is, you know, I would say battery is something which is also, you know, the technology has been evolving. You know, the advanced chemistry cell technology has been actually being worked also.
We are not a master in making batteries by ourselves for such large-scale stationary usage. The entire portfolio which you see, which comprises of many things, which is AC and DC power equipment, and alongside it, which was a software-led arrangement which manages this flow of power, is something which is done, which is inherently our own to a large extent.
There is some alliances and partnership which is happening on some convergent systems to make the entire offering done. Long and short answer, we are making the entire system. We are getting batteries from somebody who's actually good in making batteries because battery is not our forte. The rest of it is primarily ours. The entire solution design is Schneider.
Sure. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anirudh Agarwal from ValueQuest Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. A couple of questions from me. First is on the data center opportunity, right? You spoke about the multiple products that we now have which go into data centers. If you could give us some sense of the kind of opportunity that you see from data centers in quantitative terms with all the products that we have. We obviously also mentioned that, you know, 3 GW of capacity is kind of getting signed up for the next couple of years. What sort of revenue uplift or order uplift, whatever, you know, you can share on that will help us quantify the opportunity better for the company?
See, data center is something which is going to be, you know, incremental to us because of the rate at which it is going to go up. Now, depending on the location, depending on the arrangement, depending on the class, depending on the redundancy level of data center, you know, the volume of equipment which we can supply to a data center typically varies. Now, we can supply the equipment right from the receipt of power at 132 kV and then go down to a level to what we call as a low voltage level, which is 415 V. Anything in distribution at multiple flows physically, we can do it.
Now, to answer you whether it's A or B is actually difficult, you know, because the design of these hyperscalers which they want to implement and roll out in India typically is different. The level at which they want to make redundancy, as they call it, is also different. The requirements coming up by colos who make keeping in mind some arrangements which they tie up with these hyperscalers is actually dependent mostly on the hyperscaler design. It is nothing which can be quantified because of one basic fundamental reason that they are not alike. What it promises is that in different formats, we will have something or the other for the company to really supply and leverage this data center boom.
Right, sir. Sir, if you could help us with, you know, of the current order backlog that we have, what percentage would be from data centers?
Maybe if under control of my CFO, maybe typically about 10%-12%.
10%-12%.
Yeah. This percentage, you know, how do you see that kind of moving with the sort of action that we are seeing on the ground over the next couple of years?
Should go up.
All right. Got it, sir. Sir, final thing, if you could broadly quantify, do you know the amount of orders that have got shifted for delivery from Q4 to further quarters? What is the broad quantum of the delivery deference that we've seen in this quarter?
About 10%-12%.
I'm not sure we can take the numbers in this call. I think a couple of orders we can consider.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I'll check for me.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashish Ajit Golechha from Bee Ventures LLP Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Sir, are you able to hear me?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. My first question is, your gross margin have deteriorated consistently from 39.1% in FY 2025 to 37.5% in FY 2026. Now, it is 36.6% in Q4. Multiple calls, the management has said mix improvement will drive margins. If you see, services have gone from 12%- 15% of the revenue books. If 300 basis points improvement can happen in services, what produces this 160 basis points deterioration in gross margins? Can you tell that when will actual margin recovery thesis happen? This is my first question. Second question, I'll ask when the first question is completed. Thank you.
Okay. The Q4, I'd suggest that don't benchmark with the usual gross margin because that was largely impacted because of many factors. If you look at drop in the margin in FY 2026 versus FY 2025, when you talk about the mix and services while growing. In services also, sir, we have a three-component. We have a spare, and then we have a recurring revenue like AMC. We also have a modernization project where we say that either more on revamp where there's a group of brownfield projects. Mostly, what happened, the third category is growing compared to other two.
Other than two, has better margin than third one, which is modernization and revamp. Unfortunately, the last one, the renewal and brownfield projects also go as a CapEx model of many of the industry. They, again, go for L1. Okay? There's a competition happening even in that segment, is not based on, you know, the, you can say, margin very intensive. They are also the penny inducers. In the company, decide based on the, you know, the L1 or what you call the CapEx model.
There, while revenue is increasing of service, when you look at a mix of even service within modernization, as actually margin-wise, it's dropping. If look at the whole story, in the whole story, I think the revenue we are trying to capture, then when we are improving the margin, we are working on all three ways. I think this, if you look at it in this year, which were unprecedented in terms of the commodity market because this, if you discount it, okay, if you remove that, we are not drop the margin.
That's why we gained a reason that when commodity, even in this year, almost if you close to 1% is just because of the commodity, which cannot be benchmarked like to like. If you remove that factor, the margin initiatives from the company side that we are focusing how to improvise and further bring some efficiency in terms of design and in terms of the how we serve customer and negotiation from the customer. Like to like is not there, sir. That's why I say.
Okay. Sir, second question is, you always position SEIL as a premium technology differentiated player in EcoStruxure, GMA, digital SCADA best. Udai Sir was saying that we have also basically launched new products in the PPT, dry type transformer, every other thing.
Sorry to interrupt, sir.
Yeah.
Your voice is.
Electrical segment revenue share in the addressable market has not visibly expanded. Can you tell us how would we basically go about basically winning the market share, and how are we going about basically translating this into commercials? Your commercials are not reflecting. Even my colleague who was asking questions on data center from ValueQuest, the management answers were very opaque. Sir, it has been now nearly two to three years. The management is giving [Non-English content] answers. We accept from the investor community, we expect some clarity and some answers which are very straightforward. Thank you.
Point noted, sir. To whatever I could hear, I mean, you are unfortunately not absolutely clear. You know, we try to tell as to what is seemingly possible and directionally. If we are not in a position to really quote an absolute and an exact number in percentage because the dynamics keeps evolving, we keep on deciding things which are in favor of the company. Like, for example, you said that there's a market share, and this is the market.
How much market share will it come? We may decide in certain areas, in certain operations, and certain solutions not to chase the market because we are trying to also maintain the point which you pointed out in your question one. We are absolutely and equally sensitive about profitability. We are not chasing. We are selective in certain areas.
We try to chase and be the market leader in certain areas. There's a combination, and that's what we do by managing product mix, which also you mentioned in your question one. I and my colleagues from the management hear you, but unfortunately, we will not be able to give you an absolute percentage number as what you have been asking.
Ashish Sir, please rejoin the queue for more questions as we are not able to hear you. The next question is from the line of Deekshant DB Wealth. Also a reminder, participants, please restrict yourself for one question.
Hi, management.
I'm sorry to interrupt, sir. Your voice is very low.
Hi, management. Am I audible?
Yes, sir. You are audible now. You can go ahead. Thank you.
Firstly, we understand that the commodity prices is not on our hand, and we are trying to do our best on profitability and operating leverage will take effect if commodities are going up. Sir, last quarter was a really good order inflow. Going forward, what do you think we can do on our operating leverage, which will be also our margins?
The whole year this year, one thing that makes us wonder is our sales growth for the whole year except for the December quarter wasn't single digits on a Y-on- Y basis. December was a good quarter where we were hoping that now we will see an acceleration, but it doesn't seem to be. Can you just highlight what is now the next growth catalyst for us that the company is positioning itself towards? We clearly are really good at what we are doing. Customers are loving us. That's why they're rewarding us. Could you give us some clarity?
I think said two questions. I think you asked about the Q4 order intake. The Q4 order intake, because of uncertainty in commodity market, we were very, very selective. We were only selecting the orders where we can get certain leverage in terms of whether I can realize the price even if the price increase. Variable clause. These are certain controls we put into when we book the order with the customer and negotiate with the customer. In Q4, when we booking the order, many customers were not very keen to pay based on the variability and all. Okay. That's the reason that we took that call, "Okay, let's hold it." Okay.
That's the reason you say that selectivity made the reasoning to have a low order booking in the Q4. Operating leverage, sir, obviously, this Q4 is pure seasonality, I can tell you. If you will look at in terms of the numbers, I'm talking the absolute number. If you look at, it's not that significantly increased as we are looking in terms of the percentage. If you look at if my, obviously, sales grow at this operating leverage, it's a seasonality. Over the year, 12 months, you saw that it's making sense in terms of the percentage. That's only I can just want to clarify on the operating leverage.
On sales side, you were saying about the single digit in the three quarters, quarter four was in double digit. This is, again, we said in the earlier ordering calls, it depends on the customer prioritizations. Since our projects are more engineering-based, customer FAT clearance, and depending on there to give clarity and to dispatch. Many things what happened in things are getting deferred, while we have a very strong pipeline. We also depends more on the customer side to give the clearance to dispatches. As far as if you ask me that as far as the order is there, we will definitely execute it.
It's just the customer giving credit. I just also want to tell you that even sales, we are also very careful in terms of not only clearance, but also with the cash. We don't want to give open credit all the customers. We are very mindful that when we dispatch, we have only a credential-based customer where we did give the open credit.
Otherwise, we always try to make and secure the cash. The cash, sometimes the customer delay in making the payment. That's why we try to hold the auto deliveries. Those all actions we take make sure that in the safeguarding the interest of the company that while we make profit, but also we should not lose cash. Sometimes, we should also keeping momentum on the revenues and all.
Deekshant Sir, your voice is not audible. I would request you to please rejoin the queue for more questions. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Singh. Thank you. From Systematix, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope I'm audible.
Yeah, you are.
Sir, what are our product offerings in the BESS side? I mean, we explained briefly. Just to get more clarity. Apart from the battery in the BESS, apart from that, do we manufacture anything else? It is localized also? We source from global as well?
It's a combination, sir. For example, the entire structure will be made in India. The switchgear will be made mostly here. Then the few which we do not make, especially in the DC range, we will get it from other sides. It's a combination. Actually, it depends on the sizing of BESS system, the modularity of the BESS system, and the way we are going to combine them together. That will quantify the amount of work which will be done by us here and amount of work which will be asked but will be sourcing it from outside.
Right, sir. Depending on what is our scope in our BESS project, let's say for INR 100 project, what is our addressable market in BESS?
Sir, not a very straightforward answer because there are various, as I think Omkar was mentioning about it. The best go-to-market is slightly different. There are people who actually have been buying on CapEx model. There have been people who have been buying on the OpEx model. We are trying to see as to which fits us best and to which customer do we supply so that the continuity and eventually, the cash is secured in terms of getting it on time.
It's very difficult to quantify the market. What I can again say, that in times to come, there will be a great need of BESS. There are so many people who will start making BESS. We are trying to create a niche for us by giving something which is two notches more than what actually is given by a normal BESS integrator or a supplier.
Sir, exactly. That is what I was trying to understand because there are a number of players who are talking about BESS capability and integration capability. How competitive would we be in comparison to those players? There are 20, 30 players talking about the presence in BESS in manufacturing or software. It is really hard to assess the competitive advantage that we have. That is what the question was aiming at. Sir, are we looking at exports also for data center products? Have we already done it already? Have we backed some kind of order for data center and exports?
We are exploring about the export piece. In terms of competitiveness, we are not the best, of course. We are not the cost leaders because we really retain and deliver quality. The certain USPs which we drive is consistent quality and backed up by an advisory software which makes the best system operate and run more efficiently for a longer duration of time. Out of those 15, 20, 25 players, we are not stacked in top in terms of cost competitiveness. There are many customers who really come to us because of the other merits which they see what is coming from SEIL.
Thank you. In the interest of time, that was the last question for the day. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nemish Sundar for closing comments.
He do host this call. He would also like to thank all the investors and analysts for joining this call. Udai sir, would you like to give any closing remarks to the investors?
Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for really coming and asking these questions which we love to clarify. You can understand that we at times are not able to really answer all your questions and cite you some numbers which perhaps you are interested in knowing because we ourselves are perhaps not in a position to really give you an accurate number, so to say.
What we tell you is a directional number which your company actually is trying to work along and make it happen. Thank you so much for being with us in this call and hearing us out, asking questions which were very pertinent and important, which gives us direction and also sort of gives a cue as to which are the areas which perhaps you are very inquisitive about. Thank you. All the best for times to come. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Elara Securities India Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.