Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Q4 FY 2024 earnings conference call of Tanla Platforms 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 Ms. Ritu Mehta, Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you.
Good evening, and welcome to our Q4 earnings call. Joining with us today are Uday Reddy, Founder, Chairman, and CEO; Deepak Goyal, Executive Director and Chief Business Officer; and Aravind Viswanathan, CFO. Before we start the call, let me draw your attention to the fact that today's discussion may feature statements that are forward-looking in nature. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking in nature. Such statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. A detailed disclosure in this regard is mentioned in the results presentation that is uploaded on our website. Audio recording and transcript will be available on the website soon. Hope everybody got a chance to go through our investor presentation and shareholder letter. The management team will be happy to answer any questions.
We now request the operator to open the floor for Q&A.
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 touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking your question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. The first question is from the line of Amit Agarwal from Leeway. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. My question is regarding the presentation is showing that in the fourth quarter, we have platform business is growing by the rate of 10%. Previously, it was growing at a higher rate, so is this the new normal and any particular reason that it has slowed down in the fourth quarter?
Yeah. Thanks, Amit. So, Amit, if you remember, we had talked about, you know, exiting one of the deals on the firewall deals with Vodafone some time back, and this quarter-
Yes.
S howed a portion of that impact, right? If you normalize for it, the gross margin of the platform business actually grew 35%, right? So in many ways, we've been having-
Yeah.
that impact, and we have overcome it, right? So, so I, I would say the momentum of the business is very much intact. If anything, you know, we, we, we're doing quite well there. We onboarded first commercial customer on ATP. We started seeing revenues flowing, so we're quite bullish. I, I definitely, I... You know, 10% is not the new normal. Thirty-five percent. That's, that's the number I've already mentioned, right? So we, we, we're kind of seeing a very, very strong growth, and I think as the other platforms, particularly the newer ones, scale up, Amit, you will see this go back to the growth rates that we've seen before.
So, would you see the jump in the next quarter immediately or after two or three quarters?
So, Amit, I, we, we don't really want to give a guidance, but let me put it this way: you know, definitely as we look out for the year ahead, we are quite bullish on the platform business. So let me leave it at that.
My second and last question is, like, if you read the newspaper, the UPI transaction-
Amit, sorry to interrupt you. Your audio is a little breaking. Can you please check if you have proper reception?
If you see the, if you read the newspaper, the UPI transaction is growing at the rate of 40% or 50%. But that doesn't show in our... And we are, I think that be proportionate to UPI transactions, but our business is not growing at that rate. Any particular reason?
Deepak, do you want to answer that?
Deepak, sir, may I request you to unmute your line, please?
Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Okay. Yeah, is this question pertaining to the UPI transaction you're talking about?
Yes.
Yes.
The question is, UPI transaction is growing very fast, and how is that, you know, reflected in our, growth rate given our share? That's the question.
Yeah, right. So, yeah, the UPI transactions are growing, you know, growing, but, you know, what has happened is that, banks are, are not sending, you know, notifications, or messages on each and every transaction. So they are, curtailing that. Though that is, you know, and this is under discussion. So, I mean, let's say some banks have, not sending, messages for, let's say, up to INR 100 of transactions, right? So not everything is actually resulting into, you know, messaging business for us.
So, that's a disappointment or, in the future, that would directly proportionate to our growth rate?
No. So, how we see it is that, you know, the discussions are going on, even, you know, and the banks are talking to the regulator and all that is going on right now. And I would see that, you know, that should, in the future, you know, the transactions would start coming. I mean, notifications will start going for those messages as well.
Okay. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. Next question is from the line of Anil from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Good evening, management team. Congratulations on good results for the quarter. I have two questions. One is that if you could give details about OTT revenue as a percentage of total revenue in the fourth quarter and similar percentage for the fiscal 2024. So that is one question. Second is that if you could throw some more light on ATP, we were expecting more licensing deals to happen this quarter. So if you could give an update regarding where ATP is based on expectations, what has been the performance? Thank you.
So, let me give a view on the first question that you asked, Anil. For the quarter, the OTT contribution was around 18% of our total consolidated revenues, right? For the full year it was about 12.5%, and for FY 2023, that number was about 4%. So it kind of indicates to you the kind of shift that we have done and the kind of pivot that we have done to scale our business from an OTT standpoint. On ATP, Uday? So on ATP, you know, I think. See, anytime you are launching a platform which is greenfield without competition in the market, right? The process of price discovery, process of sale is always trickier and longer. The sales cycles are longer.
Now, we've got our first kind of signed client in January, right? When we disclosed to the market. So we are having multiple talks, and definitely there is a lot more definitive traction because there is one, you know, proof of the pudding is there in terms of, you know, one deal. So that is happening. And we, I think Uday mentioned it last quarter, I mentioned it this quarter, you know, obviously the pace is a little slower than what we would like because the problem is real, the solution addresses this problem. But I still see a good amount of funnel and interesting traction as far as this is concerned.
Okay. I had a couple follow-on questions. One was regarding ATP itself. In this, I mean, earlier on, we have articulated a vision of achieving INR 100 crores gross profit in each of the segments of Wisely. So, would we be able to achieve this INR 100 crore gross profit in the case of ATP Wisely in the coming year? That was one follow-on question. The second follow-on question is, if you could also break out, what was the SMS revenue last year, full year, this year, full year, last year, fourth quarter, and this year, fourth quarter?
So, Anil, your first question on ATP, right? You know, that if. Obviously, you know, if you look at the problem that we are trying to address, definitely there is a market which is probably much higher than the number that you mentioned, right? So obviously from a perspective of the opportunity ahead of us, and we are, and these are global opportunities, right? They're not just limited to India. Definitely, we see that potential. Now, the timing of how quickly we will realize it, whether we will realize it in here, whether we will realize, that's very difficult to kind of predict, right? But all I can tell you is from a, opportunity size for this area and this platform, it's quite high, right?
But I can't give you a timeline on, you know, on, you know, by when we can reach it, right? So, you know, I, I've given the numbers on OTT, you know, effect, for on OTT, right? Everything other than OTT effectively is SMS. So, if we have, like, 18% of our revenues to be OTT in Q4, you know, I mean, there's a very small component of, email and voice, but everything else largely is SMS.
Okay. No, I was more interested in knowing whether the international SMS headwinds that you have been facing, have we sort of has that process bottomed out? Has it got completed, or is it? Like in the third quarter, there was a volume decline in international or ILD SMS. What was the experience? Was it still declining in the fourth quarter? And can you say that that process is now over or a few more quarters are more left for that for our international SMSs to find their bottom and then start growing from there again?
Yeah. So maybe I will give an answer, and then I will request Deepak to supplement this, right, Anil. So, you know, we talked about this entire shift to OTT and having that as an impact on the international messaging business. I think we had some residual impact of whatever, you know, decrease in volumes happened in Q3, in Q4, but I would say that, you know, there was not necessarily incremental impact beyond the residual impact or carry forward impact of Q3, right? So I would think it has bottomed out, in that sense from an opportunity, right? So today, the international messaging business contribution for us is around 25%, and not all of it is subject to, you know, what we call ILD, right? So there are also international businesses that we have.
But I will also ask Deepak to give you a perspective on how he sees it and what we are doing on this space. Deepak?
Yeah, sure. Hi, Anil Ji. Yeah, so I, as Arvind said, you know, that process has bottomed out. Absolutely. I mean, we shared, you know, in the previous quarters that even WhatsApp, some business moved to WhatsApp. Now, you must have heard that WhatsApp has increased the prices for, you know, ILD messages, and they are going to launch it-- relaunch it, from July or something. So how we see, we see it as a, as an opportunity for us to grow that business now. So, not only on, on the ILD SMS side, but, also we see that, these tech giants would, adopt WhatsApp, and we have a good, you know, we are in good situation to have a play there.
And new use cases would emerge around that. And we see that, you know, overall this business, we will see some growth going forward basis.
Okay, great. I think if I were to just get one more comment from you, is that, look, there is a kind of a canceling out that was happening during especially the third and maybe the fourth quarter also, where SMS revenue was on the international side declining, and WhatsApp and RCS revenue, OTT revenue was going up. So this can be taken, fiscal 2024 can be taken as a year of adjustment, you can say.
As you look ahead, I mean, assuming that the ILD SMS revenue has bottomed out and the national SMS anyway has its own growth momentum, and now you mentioned that 18% of fourth quarter revenue came from OTT, and also in the letter it is mentioned that INR 500 crore run rate for only WhatsApp. So, I mean, can you, can you sort of throw some light on fiscal 2025, where the headwinds no longer are operating and the tailwinds come up? So what does. What is the outlook, I guess, taking into account the slowdown of SMS and the rapid growth in all these OTT platforms that you have invested in?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Aravind, please.
No, so maybe I'll give a view, and then, you know, Deepak and Uday can add, right? So, you know, we don't give guidance, Anil, as you well know, so, you know, you will not be able to get me to give a number on that. But clearly, as we said, and we've kind of talked about it in our launches, in our partnerships, we are betting big on OTT, we are betting big on platforms, and those should, you know, definitely accelerate, right? And as Deepak said, you know, we are, we have a good rhythm. We've added a lot of customers in FY 2024, right? That will also schedule well. I think we are definitely optimistic in terms of the opportunities ahead of us.
Some of them, we need to see how quickly they translate, but that's how I would kind of summarize our outlook at this point.
Great. I will come back in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, you may press Star and One to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir, thanks for the opportunity. So my question is on the, you know, OTT revenue. Obviously, we have seen, you know, significant scale in OTT coming. Okay. So from here on, you know, how to see the growth rate for OTT? If you can throw some light on how big the market would be and what our market share would be in the OTT space, and how fast the market is expanding. And also, in terms of the recent, you know, tie-ups we have done on the ONDC side and also, you know, on the tie-ups with, you know, the Google and Meta. So how this would impact our OTT revenues, and how do you see it, say, from two years from here?
So, Deepak, do you want to give a perspective on what we are seeing on OTT? I can come with the numbers later, but maybe it'll be good to get a, you know, perspective on where you are seeing the opportunities on OTT.
Hi, Amit. I mean, as far as, you know, OTT as a market is concerned, right? If you see that, each and every brand is adopting it in a big way. Earlier, it was more about marketing, you know, messages, promotional messages, and so on. Now, there's a big focus is there on utility, where, you know, enterprise customers want to send bills, they want to send, you know, all those PDF files, statements, all of that, on OTT. I mean, even largest of the, you know, banks you would see, you know, they are using, WhatsApp and other channels a lot.
So as far as growth is concerned, of this overall OTT as a space, I mean, it's growing by 60%-70%, you know, if you really see. So it's a huge growth, which is happening in this particular space, and brands are adopting it in a big way.
In terms of our market share, if you can say, share a number that, how big the market would be in India right now? Obviously, we would like, is it fair to assume that we are the one of the largest player operating in OTT or, like second largest?
Aravind, you would like to answer?
So, Amit, Uday here. The way I see is, okay, if you look at the Meta revenues of last year. Our estimate is they have dropped around INR 1,600 crore for last year. The total revenues of Meta, that is WhatsApp revenues for India, INR 1,600 crore. Out of that, we did around three sixty-five to around four hundred crores last year, right? This year, Meta, which is WhatsApp, is expected to do around, probably INR 2,500 crore. Okay? And we have plans to double our revenues from last year, which is around from INR 370 crore to we should able to move to around INR 700 crore. That's on Meta, which is on WhatsApp, right?
Secondly, when it comes to RCS, as we mentioned in my last letter, we are the market leaders, and we would like to retain that. So it's too early to comment. RCS just started the journey last year, and RCS revenues, the Google revenues from RCS from India is pretty, I mean, basic last year, okay? But this year, I think we are expected to do well, and out of that, we would like to retain. We would like to have at least 50% in the market share, okay? As we mentioned earlier, we have deployed or we are deploying our MaaP platform with Vodafone.
So with that, what happens is our margins will be better off on the RCS, and definitely we would like to have 50% revenue market share on RCS. That's the second one, right? When it comes to Truecaller, okay, we have the exclusive partnership. We have been doing with the business for the last two years with them, and we have extended our partnership with the Truecaller for the next two years on the exclusive basis, right? So 100% will be with us, and we're doing good, and we're going to accelerate even on the TC. So if you look at the blended OTT, okay, probably we'll be the largest OTT player, you know, from India.
I think, the second and third, fourth, three, the three of them together, not even equal to us, in the next 12 months. So I would like to leave it like that.
Okay. Also, thanks for the explanation. Also on the enterprise side, if I ex out WhatsApp, so there has been no softness in the enterprise organic revenue, ex of ValueFirst if I see. So that obviously is coming through the ILD weakness, and you have mentioned that it has come down from, say, 40% revenue to 25% of revenue. So if you can quantify what has been the drop in revenues for ILD in FY 2024, that would be helpful. In terms of the, you know, fourth quarter contribution, how do we see it, whether it has bottomed out or we can see some more softness?
Also, the volumes that are coming on to the ILD as of now, is it more like critical volumes or, you know, there is a probability of these volume also to shift to other alternate channels?
So, maybe I'll start, Amit, and then I'll request Deepak to add on to it. See, not calling out at a channel level on growth rates for all of these, right? So the more giving a perspective, I would say that we had a sequential degrowth starting from Q2, right? Which also flew into Q3 and, you know, had an impact in Q4 also, more from a residual perspective. I think it is kind of bottomed out now, because most of the use cases are really not so, you know, replaceable in that sense, right? But, you know, I don't see this to be a very big or, you know, kind of flattish kind of business or marginal growth. It's not going to be a big growth engine per se, right? In the coming year.
But Deepak, you know, be grateful for you to share the perspective.
No, Aravind, I think, I think you said it, so, yeah, I agree with you.
Okay. And on the platform side, sir, so you know, we had the ATP revenues coming in, and also we had the impact of the you know, exit of Vi deal. So how much you know, like, would be the exit impact, and how much would be the residual impact, as you said, will kind of come in quarter one as well. So if you can just you know, give some sense on that. And also on the ATPs and the ATP revenue side, you mentioned that the ATP you know, talks are going on with banks, but the conversions are a bit lower. So what is you know, the reason as per your understanding, why the conversions are lower?
And also, in terms of the ATP revenue, you know, contribution, whether you know, it's a start and we can see some more adoption, or is it... or, or the ATP, like, revenues is, like, linked to volumes, how is the revenue model out there?
So, Amit, let me answer the first question. Like you said, we exited the deal, you know, there will be some impact in Q1, but, I think we are also seeing a lot of traction in the platforms that we have deployed, okay? So I don't want to give a guidance at a platform level, but definitely, you know, I don't expect a repeat of what happened in Q4 and Q1 from a sequential standpoint, okay? From an ATP, two elements to it. One is, it's a very unique deal in the sense that it's a subscription-based revenue stream, right? In the purest of the sense, it's a pure SaaS subscription-based billing per user, per month kind of construct that one has. So that's the kind of nature of the revenue there.
The reason for delay of all is that, you know, it's a product that doesn't have too many comparables. So there are a lot of internal discussions that ends up happening with the customer just to get the process right, a lot of questions. The sales process is long. So, so we're going through it, right? We've, we've created a lot of leads and, you know, then, you know, we are hopeful to convert a few.
Okay. Okay, sir, thank you, and all the best. Bye.
Thanks. Thanks, sir.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Anil Nath, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. I will just follow up on the question from Amit, regarding the pending losses or whatever losses are still to be there on the Vi firewall deal. I mean, if I look at the gross profits, margins that you have reported and the gross profits, I mean, you have mentioned that 13% has been the gross profit year-on-year growth, and but for the Vi deal going away, it would have been 35%. Okay. Basically, it means that nearly INR 17 crore has gone out of this quarter. If I just add up these numbers and do the mathematics, and if I also recollect, the Vi entire impact was supposed to be around INR 65-170 crore, which you had reported a couple of quarters back.
I mean, INR 717 crore annualized will lead up to that number, then why are we saying that still some more pain is to come on that account?
So, I don't think you're doing the math right, Anil. I'll share with you separately. See, you have to remove both from the base as well as the current quarter as well as the base. So what we are saying as 35% growth is the growth if there was no network Vi deal in Q4 of last year vis-a-vis Q4 of this year. Okay? So the base also changes, and that's the basis of this. As we have captured, the total revenue size on a quarterly basis, which we communicated, is very much true. That's about INR 18-19 crore a quarter, right? That's the cumulative impact of the Vi deal, which is kind of getting spread out over Q3, Q4, and some amount of residual in Q1.
If you remove it from both the numerator and denominator from Q4 of this year and Q4 of last year, then you would see the full impact, and that's why if you see this growth, right? And just to give you a sense, right, if we say that we delivered a GM in this quarter of INR 88 crore, right? And we delivered a GM last year, same time of INR 78 crore, right? And let's say INR 78 crore had the full, you know, impact. So excluding that would be something like INR 59 crore. So that's how you should do it, then you will understand why this 35% is coming in.
Okay. That's a very unique way of doing this thing, but fair enough, I will do it that way again. So can you quantify what is left to be absorbed in the next quarter, or that is something that is not possible?
It will be around INR 5 crore left, Anil.
Okay. That's good enough. Thank you so much for that. The second thing is, on the Wisely ATP, I mean, this was, Uday had touted it as one of the best products to come out of Tanla. Sincerely, I had seen a demo, and I believe that to be true. I mean, it's an extraordinary product. It has been, like, nearly four or five months when the three banks trials were over and everything, and probably one of those banks has picked up a deal with you or maybe it's another bank. I don't know the answer to that.
I mean, with this kind of a product, which are able to bring down the more, the losses and the spending and everything else, I mean, even after the commercial trials, I understand there's a, price discovery mechanism and all, but still, it is still a lot of time. So are there any regulatory hurdles that you are seeing in this, or there is lack of regulatory, tailwind which is impacting this? I mean, price is one thing, but price can be discovered. But other than prices, are there anything else that is going on?
So, Anil, I think a lot of people wants to know more of on the ATP. Let me. I owe you guys an explanation here. Let me explain that. Okay? So the problem is so big.
Absolutely.
A lot of scams are happening on SMS, a lot of scams are happening on the voice. That's the problem statement is so big in India. Not only India, globally. That's number one, right? And secondly, the platform is able to, you know, curtail the scams. That we have demonstrated to all three banks. That is also a fact. That's the second one, right? Where we are facing a bit of challenge is. See, for example, I cannot really pick up any bank here. What is happening here is.
Yeah.
Probably the central bank is not very clear whether who's going to carry this liability. So, for example, somebody's going to, I mean, lose the money because somebody's got scammed. Okay, right? And, are the banks are liable for the money or the individual is liable for the money? The banks strongly believe that it is the individual who has to take care of them, themselves. They are the one who has given away their credentials to the scammer. Okay, right? Bank never ask you to share your credentials, right? Okay. So that there is a bit of confusion here, unless until the regulation is clear. Okay, once the any bank customer loses the money, okay, who's going to take the liability?
Is it the customer himself or herself, like, or the bank? There's a bit of confusion here, okay, right? So that's where the banks are saying that, like, you know, we are not liable to pay the money to the, to our customers, like, okay? Because they are the one who has given away their credentials, like... Okay, so that is one of the reasons why though the banks are under the impression that, like, you know, that their customers are losing a lot of money. Okay? And secondly, they're also worried about their brand. Not that... I'm not saying that the banks are not worried about their customers, they're not worried about the brand, okay?
But there is a bit of the confusion here, who's going to pay that liability? Okay, so that's the reason, like, you know, it's a - they... Yes, banks are agreeing with us that there's a problem statement is so big, the solution is very good, but, like, you know, why should we pay the money to you guys? So why don't you collect the money from the users? Okay, right. So there is a bit of confusion here until the time the regulations are, regulators are very clear about who's going to carry the liability.
Thank you. That seems more understandable, because otherwise there is no reason not to adopt. Thank you for that answer. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Brahmanand Reddy, individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hi, Uday and team. Congratulations for the excellent performance. The two questions I had is: one, in digital platforms, okay? I am assuming that based on your numbers, it contributed 50% on the gross margin. In the INR 759 crore, what we achieved, almost 50% is contributed by digital platforms. If so, what is the... When can we see a growth of 25% range in the digital platforms? And do we see any competition in these digital platforms with other companies?
So, Brahmanand, you know, digital platforms contributes about 34% of our gross profits for the full year. We've kind of had a track record of growing over 20% gross profit YOY for almost 14 quarters in a row, right? This is the first quarter, I think, in the last 15 quarters, where the growth rate has been sub 20%. That's because if you've seen some of the earlier questions in the call, which we addressed, on one particular transaction kind of scaling down, right? So this is something that we are quite bullish on. We've done a lot of work on this, so that's how we are seeing it. So, you know, we have a lot of potential here, and platforms will take us to the growth rates that you are talking about and beyond.
Any foreseeable competition from any other companies, right?
Yes and no. Okay, for example, when it comes to the threat intelligence, which is, which you call it as a Wisely ATP, right? So we don't have any competition, not only in India but global market. Okay? But certain platforms we may tend to, for example, when it comes to our DLT platform, which we call it as a Trubloq platform, where we have the consortium with Tech Mahindra and IBM. Okay, so there is. So we cannot afford to say we are the only one player in India. We kind of have the consortium between, I mean, among ourselves, like. So yes and no. Certain places, like, you know, we collaborate, certain places we compete.
That, that will be helpful. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Anil, from Centrum India. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity once again. So, Uday, this is on a broader basis. See, you've been investing very heavily on technology, and you've been hiring top talent, you know, over the past many quarters. So, obviously, this is in anticipation of some developments.
So, and in the past, you have said that perhaps, I mean, you know, the Indian regulators are not moving in terms of data privacy, et cetera, at the pace which you would have liked. So if you can give a fresh comment on that, that is one part. Second was, that on ATP now we have some actual data, like, you know, real-time, real-world data is available.
of how it is performing with one of the banks. And there is. Within India, there is a confusion regarding who carries the liability, individual or the bank. But... And you had opened up a subsidiary in Saudi Arabia also some time back. Can this not be sort of taken overseas based on the real-world data that we have now, and approaching the telcos who might rightly be the candidates for buying ATP?
So, Anil, that's a good question, right? So, okay, let me. When I say regulators, I'm not intending at Indian telecom- Indian regulators, whether it is a central regulator or it be the telecom regulator. I'm talking about the global regulators. But having said that, as I reported earlier, like, you know, for example, Singapore came out with a regulation, and so is Australia, like, okay? Now, all the, the governments are now coming out with regulations, right, okay? In the sense like, who's supposed to implement this product, whether it is a bank or the telco.
In case of Singapore, what the Singapore regulator, Singapore regulators, the type of examples, telecom regulator has closely worked with the banking regulator, and both decided to take the ownership, saying that: "Okay, now we both have to come together and take the ownership of curtailing the scams." Okay, so it all depends on the regulator. So who's going to blink first, right? But at the end of the day, the regulations have to be in place, whether it is the telecom regulator or the banking regulator, they have to have regulation before, for example, even if you look at the DLT platform, which we deployed in February 2019, okay? Till the time we had the regulation, nobody has deployed to prevent the spam. Okay.
Similarly, we are looking for a regulation, whether it is in Saudi, whether it is in Singapore. So we definitely this product needs a bit of regulation. And what we see, the problem statement is so big, the solution is there, and who's going to pay the money? It all depends on the regulations will clarify who's going to pay the money. So we are, we're just waiting for the regulation in India and outside India.
Great. And considering that, you know, the Singaporeans have already taken a few steps, can one expect in the coming quarters something on the overseas side as regards to ATP?
No, no, that won't move that, that fast, Anil. Like, you know, once the regulation comes, they give almost a year to deploy the platforms. Okay, it's not that only Tanla has got the platform. We don't know who's going to roll out it, right? So it takes a bit of time. Once the regulation is clear, they'll give a bit of time to the banks and the, and the telcos to implement any in the platform. It takes a bit of time. But once you have the regulation in place, it's question of time.
Okay. Great, great, Uday. And one last thing on GDPR, et cetera, like, like, like in Europe, et cetera, data privacy has really acquired a lot of salience. Anything on India side that you are seeing and where your products can be, you know, more relevant?
So when it comes to data privacy, the DPDP bill, as you know, this is passed by both the parliament and, but the board has not formed yet. Probably they will form the government post-election, they form the board. Once the board is in place, they come out with the regulations and business rules. And probably they may give one year's time for us to implement the consent and preference management, the tool.
Okay. And this is for EU, not for India, right?
No, I'm talking about India. I'm talking about India. So both the parliaments.
India, okay.
In India have passed the DPDP bill. Okay? But,
Right.
But for them to implement DPDP bill, like, you know, they need to have a board. Okay, right? The board comes with the business rules. We are expecting the board to form and also come out with the business rules in by sometime in August of this year.
Great. Great. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is on the line of Sharad Kohli, individual investor. Please, go ahead.
Hi, guys. I just had a few questions around the gross margin. Now that WhatsApp has scaled to a, you know, reasonable number of roughly INR 400 crore, could you just share what the gross profit or the gross margin on that business is relative to the rest of the enterprise? I know the blended number for the enterprise business is close to 19.7%, but can you just specifically give me an idea of what it is for the WhatsApp business?
Yeah. So we're not calling out gross margin, but it will be, you know, reasonably similar to the enterprise margins. Given that we are in a little bit of investment phase, it may be marginally lower, but not very different for the year.
Is the model similar to what it was with the telcos, wherein you get, like, whatever the number is, like close to 20% or 15%-20% of the, you know, what you collect on behalf of the telcos, so that, you know, as the business grows, at least from the telco side, what I understood is that they jack up the prices by, you know, they double the prices from INR 0.12 to INR 0.25. Is the pricing for WhatsApp similar to that? So now WhatsApp is doubling its pricing, starting what Deepak said, sometime in July. Does that automatically mean that Tanla receives double that amount?
In general, the philosophy is same when it comes to the fact that if the input cost goes up, the output revenue goes up, right? That model is not different, but there are a lot of nuances, right? It is. You know, billing is not per transaction in WhatsApp, it's per session, it's about a 24-hour session, you know. So there are nuances, but obviously, pricing goes-- input price goes up, the output goes up also.
Got it. And on the collection part-
But, but one other clarification, Sharad, is just from what Deepak mentioned, that was specifically on international messaging. So there is a huge price difference between international messaging and domestic messaging. But from a WhatsApp perspective, the pricing was not different, so there was a very big arbitrage of, you know, WhatsApp being much cheaper than international SMS messaging, right? So that is getting normalized in some way with the price increase that WhatsApp was mentioning. It is not for domestic price, which is majority of the market today. Just, just to clarify that.
Got it. On the receivable side, is it again similar, that you collect to disperse, so it's basically negative working capital for the most part?
No. No, no. I, I cannot say it will be negative working capital, but it will not be too dilutive, right? I, I think on an average, you collect in about 60 odd days from invoicing, and you may pay in 60 odd days from invoicing. So, so it, it will be more neutral, I would say.
Got it. And do you expect the same, same kind of model for RCS when it gets implemented, or is it going to be different?
No, I.
So, Sharad, like, you know, when it comes to RCS, okay, what Google is trying to do is, at least for India, like, you know, they have decided to go through telcos, okay? Like, you know, the way we buy the SMS from the telcos, we do the same thing with the RCS also, same model. Where effectively, we have to buy from the telcos, and we have to build the solutions on top of that and sell it to our customers, right? So the Google model is slightly different from WhatsApp. Google have decided to go through telcos, at least in India. I don't know much about the global market. They're yet to decide.
But for India, like, you know, they decided to go ahead with the go through our telcos. Whereas other OTT channels, including Truecaller and WhatsApp, we have nothing to do with the telcos. It is more to do with the OTT platforms.
Got it. And my last, last question, just to understand, you know, after this rise in prices from WhatsApp, what is the gap between, you know, call it the telco side, which is roughly equivalent up as well? What is the catch-up coming up to now? Because, you know, one of the debates here is, the telcos have been complaining, that OTT has been... You have not had to spend any money on the infrastructure. We've spent all this money, da, da, da. So the question then becomes, is there a regulatory move here where they now start asking Meta to pay money to compensate for the investment capital that the telcos have put together? Can you shed some light on, on that and how the price catch-up, that, that's happening in July, how, how much of the gap that bridges?
Sharad, the way I see is it all depends on the use case. For example, the banks cannot afford to use WhatsApp or any OTT channel to disseminate one-time password. The central bank, which is RBI in this case, is not allowing any banks to send OTTs other than SMS, okay? Other enterprises other than banks are allowed to send OTTs, right? Okay, that's number one, right. Number two, even in case of other use cases, the price per. There is a bit of difference between WhatsApp is definitely expensive than SMS when it comes to pricing, okay? What you're referring to is the ILD messages, okay?
For example, the telcos are selling at $0.05 per SMS for ILD messages. And I think, Deepak, I think WhatsApp is coming out with $0.03. Okay, right?
About $0.03, yes.
Yeah, $0.03. Yes, $0.03. So they are directly competing with the telcos. Because, like, you know, most of these messages are either from the Facebook or from the Google or from the Amazon. We are not there. They're not regulated by either the RBI or by any other regulator in India. So they're free to use whichever channel they want to use. So net-net effect, like, you know, there is a.
Right.
I strongly believe that the TAM of the ILD market may further reduce, okay? But I think WhatsApp is going to eat into the ILD SMS messages line. But when it comes to CPaaS providers like us, it doesn't really matter because our margins are the same. It may have a bit of impact on in terms of top line, but in terms of the our margins, it's going to be intact.
Got it. The one thing that, you know, I'm just not able to grapple my head around it, maybe it's just me being slow. But I would have thought that WhatsApp, I mean, obviously, you know, I carry an India phone, and I kind of get all these marketing messages, all these promotional messages, and it's.
You know, especially from the banking perspective, now, getting statements, doing transactions through WhatsApp has become really convenient. My logical brain tells me that the, the margin profile for WhatsApp, and I get this whole thing about who initiates the session. Is it the customer who initiates the session or the enterprise that initiates the session? There's a pricing differential there. I'm just not able to grapple the fact that the margins for the WhatsApp is similar to the traditional SMS margins. I would have thought it's a lot higher. And so I would have thought that the. As WhatsApp and RCS get a bigger proportion of enterprise revenues, I would have thought the margin profile for the enterprise business should actually be significantly higher. So, yeah, you know, maybe you can just help me understand why the margins are the same.
In many ways, Sharad, I think it's also a question of where we are from an evolution standpoint, right? So today, we are doing a lot of investments as far as the business is concerned. You will find that you know, in a sense, everybody knows what is the input price, so there is always a certain amount of profitability on top. So if you look at WhatsApp, it's somewhere between. It's aligned to the domestic business, obviously, you know, much better than the international business. But as we build more solutions, build more IT, we have a headroom for improvement in profitability. But as it stands today, at the growth rate that we are doing right now, you know, the profitability is broadly similar.
Just one last question on the pricing front, right? When you negotiate these prices, can you just, like, help me understand the process? Because I know from a standpoint of when you were a telco. You're just a price taker, right? Is it similar to on the WhatsApp and RCS side, or there's some negotiating room there, like, in terms of what you can carry from the enterprise side? Sorry.
There, there is negotiating room on both sides, right? You have negotiating room on the enterprise side, you have negotiating room on the supplier side, right? And that all is a subject of scale that you bring to the table, right? So to that extent, it is, it is not very different in that sense. But the sale process, the value proposition tends to be very different when you are doing a solution sale on OTT, compared to maybe, you know, a transaction messaging that one is doing on SMS, right? So that process is different, but I wouldn't say the, you know, some of the main rules are not very different.
Got it. And is there any. I know we are early in the investment cycle, but is there a vision that you guys think that over time, as the volumes on WhatsApp, RCS, the OTT channels become significantly larger in the business profile? Again, I'm going back to the same question. Logically, I would think that, given the investments that we made, it's more traction driven . Do you see this margin profile changing in the next three to five years?
What's that? So the margin profile of the OTT business, whether it will change over the next three to five years. It's too early to comment. It's early to comment, Sharad. I think let me put it this way, right? And I think Uday made this point. We did our first win on the MaaP platform from an RCS standpoint, right? The minute you have your MaaP platform, chances are that you will run at much higher profitability, right? So in some way, OTTs will give you an opportunity both on the platform side and on the enterprise side. Now, at a collective basis, definitely you can drive higher profitability, right? But you will have to see how it evolves. Like today, I would say on Truecaller channel, we drive higher profitability, right?
So, Sharad, the way I see is, for any channel, even be it SMS, okay, even if you look at SMS, we have a share, revenue share at SMSC level, and we have revenue share at the Trubloq level, which is a DLT platform. And then we have the margins at SMS when Karix or ValueFirst and buy and sell as a channel, right? Okay. So the crux of the issue here is we need to have the platforms, right? And secondly, we need to have the control on end-to-end, right, from the telcos to enterprises. Or in case when it comes to OTT, we'd like to deploy our platforms at OTT as well as with the enterprise.
That's where we have tremendous control in terms of quality of services and in terms of the better margins level. For example, RCS, we have two choices. One is we just go on the tie up with the telcos, there we have the margin is only on RCS, right? But when the minute we deploy a platform with the telcos, okay, our margins will double by, by just by default. Not only we have the control on the quality services, but the margins will double. So my point is like, you know, the enterprise business will drive the platform business. Okay, once we have the scale, once we have the volumes, they will allow us to deploy the platform either with the telcos or with the OTTs.
Got it. And I know I keep saying last question, just, this, I promise, is the last one. On the capitalization of expenses, so, I know that, you know, the comment that was made in the roadshow is that you're capitalizing both the employee costs and the platform costs onto the balance sheet, obviously. Can you just give me a sense of are you capitalizing 100% of the employee costs, or there's something that's flowing through the income statement, for the platform side? And on the enterprise side, is there a similar dynamic or all of that is being expensed into it?
Yeah. So, you know, the straightforward question, answer to the question is, it's not all of the expenses. It is people who are working on the product development of new products, where there is a new revenue stream, and that is the only component of the employee cost that is getting capitalized, right? Which are purely working, so people who are on support, people who are, you know, on- So, so in other words, in case of ValueFirst and Karix, we expense it out 100% of our salaries. Correct. That's number one. When it comes to Tanla, wherever we have the run garages, we will expense it off. Wherever we have build garages, in the sense like, platforms are still in the build phase, where the salary of that garage will be capitalized itself.
Am I clear?
Okay. Yeah, and just, just a follow-up to that. And what is the typical split like? I mean, I'm guessing it's... I don't want to throw numbers there, but is the employee cost working on product development 80% of the cost and the tech is 20%? Like, what is the split between employee versus product?
So it depends, right? When the platform is under the build, okay, most of the money is going to be salaries. Okay, right? But once it goes to the deployment, okay, then it's the other way around. Like, you know, we need to deploy with a lot of hardware, a lot of stack, a lot of, like, you know, we need to integrate a lot of tools and so on and so forth, okay? During the build, it's going to be mainly employee cost. When it goes to deployment, it's the other way around.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question. I now hand the conference call over to Ms. Ritu Mehta for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone. In case we couldn't take your questions due to time constraint, please free to reach out to Investor Relations team. Good evening. Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Tanla Platforms Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.