Ladies, and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Tanla Platforms Limited Q4 FY 2025 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Ritu Mehta. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
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 Abhishek Jain, 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 risk and uncertainty, some of which cannot be quantified or predicted. 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 soon. Hope everybody got a chance to go through our investor presentation and shareholder letter. The management will be happy to answer any questions, and we will now open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone 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 a question. Ladies, and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Balaji Subramanian from IIFL Capital Services. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions. The first would be on the enterprise revenue. We have seen that while you have ramped up really well on OTT platforms, including WhatsApp and RCS, there has been this continued drag from the ILD SMS volumes and revenue. What would be the ILD SMS revenue for the fourth quarter? The reason I am asking is just to get a sense of how much more pain is left and when can we see the benefit from the pickup of OTT channels really benefiting your overall top line. That would be my first question. I will come back with my second and third questions after we are done with this. Yeah.
Hey, hi, Balaji. How are you?
I'm good. I'm good.
Good, good, good. Okay. You're right. I think if you see this quarter, OTT channels have really performed well. We have been telling you the last couple of quarters that our trust has been on OTT channels. The entire enterprise segment on the solution build-up has done fantastic work in all the various channels that we work with, whether it be WhatsApp, RCS, and others, in moving the needle significantly up from an OTT perspective. Right? Today, OTT is nearly 29% of our revenue base. From an ILD question perspective, it continues to be weak, but I think within our portfolio now, it is sub 10%. It is not mature enough for us to maturely worry for us in a future projection perspective. I think we have seen the weakness of ILD from a year-on-year perspective.
It's really impactful, but from an important quarter perspective, I think I would say it is not any more mature enough to create a big pain point for us from an FY 2026 perspective.
Thank you. That is really helpful. My second question is on the platform revenue. While I can see that the YoY numbers were, in fact, on a reported basis, were impacted by the Vodafone contract going away, what explains the relative weakness QoQ? I do know that on a full-year basis, excluding Vodafone, you have done well, but 4Q seems to be a little weak, at least sequentially. Is there anything to call out there, or is it just a seasonality issue?
I would say it's just a blip, Balaji. We should not read too much in one quarter, per se. As we have been telling you, we have put all our trust on platform as a channel and, of course, OTT and a few other strategic things that we have talked about. If we had really, really gone about all the Q4 platforms that we have talked about to you earlier, I'm sure you would have gone through our announcement a couple of days that we've done that we have signed an RCS platform with two of the large telcos outside India. It's the first large win for us, which is outside India. You should start seeing the contribution of that by the end of Q4 onwards as the thing ramps up. It's completely revenue-shared, subscription-based model there as well.
ATP, as another example, is seeing good traction with customers. Of course, I don't have any good news to share as of now in terms of any new incremental win in India, but I can only tell you that assets continue to be very, very promising, and we are very excited about the opportunities that are there with us. I would say this quarter is just a blip. We continue to believe that platform would play a story for us for FY 2026 and beyond.
Thank you. That's helpful. My last question would be on the gross margin in the enterprise segment. It has been kind of trending downwards. I understand that mix probably plays a role here, but anything you want to call out there? Where should one expect the margins to trend going ahead?
I think if you remember, I called out earlier as well, we would like to be in a narrow band. I think between 25%-27% gross margin is a narrow band that we have been operating in the last couple of quarters. While we do not guide, I would say those are the range that we want to operate at. Our industry has seen a significant headwind and pricing pressure in the last couple of quarters, especially from an SMS perspective. I believe that hopefully a bottom down from a pricing perspective and any upside that we get from a price increase would only help both top line and across margins.
We have also been working much more efficiently in terms of how do we deliver to our customers, how do we build up a solution story with the customers, and hence bring out a more efficient way of delivering the messages and communication channels to our customers. That is helping us, but Deepak, anything specific that you think I should add?
No, no. Abhishek, you covered everything.
Yeah. I think, Balaji, net-net, I think it's more of a pricing pressure that we went through last couple of quarters, but we are doing all we can to see how do we compensate through various other channels. I don't see a big headwind, at least as we speak.
Got it. That's it from my side. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Jyoti Singh from Arihant Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Just wanted to ask your view on the industry side. On the SMS side, as we have continued seeing the volume decline and shifting on the WhatsApp, what is your view for the positive FY 2026 and how are we seeing going forward? Any kind of visibility that we are seeing in India for the messaging side? What is your overall view on the industry side?
I'll take it, and then I'll maybe request Deepak to add on it. I think, to be honest, FY 2025 has been a very tough year for us, from an industry point of view, but nothing to do with volume. It was more to do with pricing, and every player in the industry wanted to be a little aggressive in gaining the market share. From a volume perspective, I think industry would have only grown, or at least between 15%-20%, it's a double-digit growth. That's not reflected completely on the top line. It's primarily because of the pricing and the price erosion that we have seen over the last couple of quarters, and we have been calling it out.
We strongly believe that we may have bottomed out from a pricing perspective, and hence any upside that we get here from a pricing correction perspective would only help both the top line and the bottom line. That is one picture of the story. Right? The second line of the story is, if you see, ILD, as I said, has not been mature enough, at least for us. We do not see it to be mature as a headwind going forward for ourselves. The third, OTT channel continues to play a very, very bigger part. The way roughly around 15% earlier last year contributed, today that percentage is 29%. WhatsApp, RCS continues to play a very role; we are reaching every day new heights, both in WhatsApp and RCS business. I think WhatsApp has done phenomenally well for us this quarter as well.
OTT would be the way forward. The last would be platform. I think platform continues to be a great story. I'm giving a bit of both industry and where we see a lot of positive bias for ourselves. Right? As I just said in the call earlier, that RCS, we have signed with two large telcos globally. It gives us the first footprint to go outside India from a platform business. We remain very, very positive. The good part, Jyoti, for us at least, is that while we may have a headwind from a pricing perspective on SMS and ILD, our exposure to ILD business has narrowed down significantly. Right? B, the platform and the WhatsApp capability that the enterprise team has for us creates a very differentiation between us and our competition.
I think in that sense, we are hopefully well placed as we speak.
I just wanted to understand that we are not impacted at all going forward or in this event?
No, it would be difficult for me to give a forward-looking statement. What I said are two things. Right? One, ILD contribution to our overall revenue today is less than 10%. It's a single digit. I would say any decline there or any impact there does not have a mature impact on our overall growth. B, SMS from a volume perspective continued to grow very well. It's just that pricing has been a little bit stretched. What happens tomorrow, we have to wait. Beyond this.
Jyoti, do you have any follow-up question?
No. Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Ram from Equinox Capital. Please go ahead. Ram, may I request to unmute your line and proceed with your question, please?
Okay. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you.
Hello. Yeah. Okay. I joined late. I'm not sure this question has—yeah. I joined late. I'm not sure this question has been already asked. From Uday's note, I saw that now we want to take it global. I mean, the global footprint is what you have been—this financial is what you are aiming at, going global. Is there baby steps you have been contemplating to take this forward, or is it with a kind of aggression? Can you just throw some light around that?
We believe in delivery rather than calling out what we want to do. I'll give you a couple of instances that will help us understand what we are talking about. Right? We do, for example, have presence in the Middle East. Our enterprise business is there, and Deepak and team are trying to see how do we ramp up much faster than what we have done in previous years or previous quarters. If you see ILD, which has significantly impacted, has got offset by good growth that we have seen from an international business perspective. Enterprise business is focusing on international business. Of course, it's certain geographies that we have restricted ourselves right now, but there we have seen a good traction.
Similarly, on a platform business perspective, I think going global is the right way for us because in India, we have both our DLT platform or RCS, which is the MaaP platform deployed with most of the telcos. We have now taken it to two large telcos outside India. I would say at this moment of time, we see good traction both in India and outside India for the platform that we have. We will be able to share more as we see the success. We want to not talk ahead of the turn, but I can only tell you that all our mighty efforts of both Deepak Goyal and Vish are around expanding business outside India as well.
Okay. These two international clients, is it possible to give any material numbers? How much business have you got? Any extensive numbers?
A, it is a little confidential in terms of we are not allowed to disclose both the name, neither the country and the contract value. It is more of a platform deployment, and hence it's a revenue share subscription-based model. As the revenue and the platform volume goes up, our revenue share towards that platform will gradually increase. That's only I can call it out at this stage. We'll definitely share as we are allowed to, as we go live with them and when we are allowed to talk, we'll give you more details about it.
Okay. Is it a conscious effort that this MaaP platform has been marketed outside India that we got the business, or is it one of a lucky strike what we got from this opportunity? Is it any separate marketing team, sales team reaching out to other geographies?
It's a conscious effort. It's a conscious effort. Yeah, and we have a very good pipeline as well.
Oh, so you see very good potential in this, in the MaaP platform?
Absolutely.
Okay. Coming to this Wisely ATP, I just want to understand. We have anticipated a very good potential in this space, however, the traction is not great as a way of what we have anticipated. Right? In a way, is this Wisely ATP, it went to a lull state, or still you see the potential or traction from the market? Still, we can keep some hopes where we can strike big deals in this space on the Wisely ATP.
Ram, the way to see about this product, it's solving the problem of the R, right? And it's a very, very promising technology. I believe both the regulatory authorities, telcos, the enterprises, all are cognizant of the fact. Any such product, whether be in India or outside India, need to prove their success stories and so forth, right? We have done two success stories in India, have been with the client for almost a year now, and they are very happy, and we have renewed with them as well, right? The cycle time for us took a little bit longer. Now, since we have proven track record of our customer being happy with us and renewing it, we are excited about this opportunity and to scale it up.
As we speak, we see a great pipeline, and we strongly believe that this is an asset which will give us a good result both in near term and in the long term.
You are still excited with this opportunity, Wisely ATP?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Okay. Okay.
I'm saying it's not excitement, right? Just to clarify, it's not excitement. See, being a technology wizard, we'll always be excited about any technology that we create and launch, right? I'm just saying.
Even the business opportunity also should be exciting. Right? The technology may be great, but if you do not have business opportunity, business potential, and that also is more of a conscious thing what you have done.
That's the point, Ram, I was trying to point out, that we are seeing good traction with our enterprise clients.
Okay. Understood. Though you need not substantiate with the objective numbers, this year, can we see some kind of a growth in top line and bottom line? Last two years, it was flat. It was a testing time for all as investors. Right? Do you anticipate you have plans in place that this year we can see some growth both in top line and bottom line? What are your confidence levels?
See, it would be difficult for me to make a forward-looking statement. I can only tell you that we are exiting the year with a very good note. Right? If you see from the last couple of four, five quarters, we have not grown. In Q4, we have grown 2% +. We will have a tailwind from a Q4 growth perspective. Right? Q4 into Q4 itself will lead to growth. I think it's a good place to be at. First, B, we've seen a good traction both from OTT, RCS platform, as I called out. I would say we are well placed as to what we were earlier, and our exit this year is much better, I would say, than what we were earlier. I would say we'll see how the year stands out.
Deepak here, just to add to what Abhishek has said, as Abhishek said, this year, last year has been a bit tough for us, but it has been quite tough for our industry and for our competitors also. I mean, let me tell you, most of them are bleeding. If we really see ourselves with our competition, we really did very, very well, and we generated profits. I can very safely say that we would be, our revenue market share maybe 40%-45%, but in terms of our profits, our share would be more than 70% of the industry. We did well despite all the price pressures and everything. We know our competition is bleeding a lot. This year and going forward basis, we see much better days ahead. That's what I can say.
Got it. Okay. Since we have the goods, can I ask the question, or someone is there on the queue?
No, no, no. I just wanted to add one point, right, saying.
Yeah, please.
Since Deepak touched upon it, I thought, let me complete as well. Both leadership, both from their side and Deepak and other media perspective, what we believe is cash is king. Right? Ultimately, any business that we do should convert back to cash at the bank. We are very excited and happy to say that we touched four digits from a bank balance perspective, highest ever in Tanla history. Our bank balance at the exit of the year is INR 1,009 crore. Our free cash flow for the full year was 101% of the PAT, and last Q2, Q4 had been on an average more than 150% of the PAT. In any industry, free cash flow is really, really good. What does it mean is, A, how do I return back to our shareholders?
Hence, we have given an interim dividend, and then the next interim dividend of INR 6, and Board has approved it this quarter. B, we have cash with zero debt in our balance sheet to invest on our talent, to invest on the technology, to invest on the solution for our enterprise clients, and continue to hunt for right strategic assets that could fit our bill. Right? I would say not just from a growth perspective, but we have been very, very conscious about converting the profitability to finally cash in our books, which becomes very, very critical for us.
Hello?
Yeah, sure. Go ahead, Mr. Ram.
Hello.
Yes, Ram, you're audible.
Hello.
I believe there is some network issue at Ram's, and we'll move on to the next participant. Before that, any participant who would like to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead. Amit, can you hear us?
Amit.
Neeraj, can you check our line, please?
Neeraj, can you check our line, please?
Ma'am, I can hear you fine. Your audio is loud and clear.
Okay. Right. It's not connected. Can you please check the conference is on?
Yes, ma'am, the conference is on. Please bear with me.
Okay.
Amit, can you hear us?
I think you can go to the next participant.
Sure. Next question is from the line of Rohan Deriya, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes. Go ahead. You're audible.
Yeah. Yes, please.
Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm slightly new to the company, so I just wanted to understand a little bit more about our WhatsApp offering. As I understand that, Facebook also directly offers this offering through its cloud APIs at a slightly cheaper rate. I just wanted to understand what is the value proposition for service providers when they provide it via us, I mean, especially for large accounts.
Hi, it's Deepak here. I'll just take this question. Firstly, Meta, which is Facebook, they do not provide any lower rates than us. That is number one. Number two, they do provide direct connects primarily to, I would say, a few global tech companies who are sending ID messages earlier, and that is, I mean, that is moved to OTP on WhatsApp.
If you see, that is very simple kind of messaging where you're just sending one-way OTP message, so there's not much technology that's involved here or use case or any application is involved. That's how Meta is taking their business directly. Their business in overall scheme of things is not very big. If you really see what the kind of value at what we are doing, in fact, okay, just to give you an example, now even Meta is suggesting that the enterprises who are working directly with Meta should work with companies like Karix because we add a lot of value. We are the kind of expertise we have to build the use cases.
We can keep on adding more and more use cases, keep on educating the customer where they can use two-way communication and create bots and create journeys and user journeys, which can actually help them achieving their objectives. When it is coming to only sending this one-way OTP, that is fine, but WhatsApp is much more than that. That is where we come as a player.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. One more follow-up question I had is, as I understand, Meta has been also reducing charges on WhatsApp on some of the messages. How would that impact our monetization, or does it have no impact?
If you see, that has already impacted. What has happened is that Meta has increased the prices for marketing messages. By doing that, the customers have reduced the volumes on marketing.
On the other side, they reduced the prices for utility messages, which we call it, let's say, for example, transaction message, where you're sending information messages or transaction messages and all of that. Those prices have come to a level of SMS now. That volume has increased, but the marketing volumes have decreased. This is how it has happened. That has happened like about a couple of quarters back. That impact you would have already seen in our Q3 and Q4 results. As we move forward, there is no much change. The only change we foresee, what we are getting hints from Meta, is that there could be slight maybe change in the way they charge for the utility messages, but nothing major impact over here.
Okay. Thank you. Best of luck.
Thank you. Thanks, Ram.
Ladies, and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask the question. Participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. Next question is from the line of Sanjeev Gupta, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Am I audible? Hello?
Yes.
Yes, please.
Yeah. I understand that our company has basically two enterprise businesses as well as the platform business. Platform business is a much, the margins are much higher in the platform business. The only thing is it takes probably time to scale up for Wisely ATP. It takes almost one year to establish the use cases. I would like to know a little bit more about our platform businesses and how do you look to scale it up and all those things.
Right. Yeah. Okay. Good, good, Sanjeev. Let me give you a couple of points on platforms. If you see a couple of years ago, we started our business, or when we had launched our platform business, the prime contributor today as we speak was SMSC and the DLT platform that we had deployed with most of the telcos in India. Our aspiration is that each of the platforms that we work on over four to six quarters or eight quarters, depending on the life cycle and the use case, goes to INR 100 crore, ARR, feature wish list, or the ambition that we have put for ourselves. The first matured platform that, as I said, is Trubloq, which has been successfully deployed for the last five, six years and has been doing very well.
The beauty of that product is that it is so tightly embedded with most of the telcos that the incremental efforts, whether it be on GTM or innovations, innovation we continue to do because that's in our DNA, but more from a GTM perspective is hardly anything. Right? That is a very, very mature product that we have. The second product that we launched a couple of quarters back was, I am just giving you some of the platforms' names. Right? Second was ATP, where we have seen a good success with two large telcos and one small deal with one of the OTP players. I think, as I was telling earlier, what we have seen is shown a good case studies. We have shown use case, good use case.
We see a lot of good traction as we speak in the market for the ATP and look very, very promising assets for us. The third is RCS MaaP platform, which has really done well. We have seen RCS ramping up beautifully in India. We are closely tightened up with the telcos. We are seeing a good revenue share, and there are volumes both going on in the enterprise side on RCS and our revenue share as well. Similarly, the same platform has been now deployed with two of the large telcos outside India, and we wish to take it to a few more telcos outside India as well. I am just tapping with three out of the other three out of few platform businesses that we have.
I think, while yes, the scaling takes time, as we speak, we believe we are very, very excited about the opportunity that we see for both near-term and medium-term.
You see, as investors, when you had launched that anti-phishing platform and you were about to launch it in maybe Barcelona, the whole investing community was very much excited that this is going to lead to a lot of revenue growth and profit growth and things like that. Probably that has taken time, and those successes of that platform launch have not translated into profits and bottom line as yet. I think that is what the main anxiety which all the investors are facing, feeling that when that can happen, that ATP platform resulting into bottom line growth and profits and EPS growth.
I can only say that the asset is beautiful. It's solving the purpose and the pain that we are all going through, both as a consumer, as an enterprise, and as a regulated authority. It is taking a little larger time perspective. We are still excited, and let's see. We hope the product will do well as well as we go forward.
Yeah. It's a real pain point. Every day in the first page of the newspaper, there are people who are getting scammed, and there are frauds and things happening. We think that we have a solution for that, and we think that, yes, I wish you all the best, and we are hoping for the best and staying invested. Thank you.
Yeah. Point taken.
Thank you. Thank you. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. Next question is from the line of Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the OTT platform. Obviously, we have seen very strong growth in this quarter and also for the year. The revenue has almost doubled. As the base for this OTT has been increasing, and now it is 30% of the revenue, from this high base, can we assume that the strong growth will continue? In terms of the market share and how the whole market is growing, if you can share how the market share has shifted for us on the OTT side. If you can comment on the pricing-related uncertainty that was there, is the pricing for the OTT channels stabilized?
In terms of the shift that we're seeing from the ILD to the OTT channels, are we seeing some shift from the NLD also to the OTT channels as well?
Hey. Hi. Hi, Amit.
A couple of points. Right?
I think OTT channel growth has been really good, done well. I think we are exiting this year with a very, very high tailwind, I would say. I think we have been very excited. The enterprise team has done fundamentally an extremely good job in getting the market share. I would say, A, while markets would have grown for the OTT channel, I strongly believe that we have gained the market share every quarter that has been gone by in the last, say, couple of quarters. Right? Our belief is that, yes, definitely, we have moved the market share for ourselves from an OTT point of view. From a price stability perspective, I think we have not seen any price change. That last price change was happened in Q2 and early Q3. As of now, Q4 had fully baked in the price stability.
At this stage, there is no discussion on price revisions and so forth as we speak. From an OTT perspective, that's what you were talking about. I think from a shift from NLD to OTT, ILD to OTT, as I referred earlier, that ILD has not been any more a natural volume for us. It's a sub 10% for us. From an NLD to OTT shift, I think it's okay. I would say there will be always some use case which may shift from NLD to OTT or vice versa as well. I think at this stage, I would say NLD volume has grown in a double digit between 15%-20%. If we are able to get a little bit of price increase, I think it would be a great scenario both from a top line and a bottom line for us.
Okay. So assuming the base.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
Yeah. Just to add, just to give a bit more color, you would have seen, I mean, as you've seen, our OTT volumes have grown and revenues have grown. We are making great progress in signing more and more customers. We see that this year is going to be even better for us. I mean, just to tell you, we have signed and gone live with one of the, I mean, in fact, the largest NBFC in the country. We have gone live with the largest gaming company in the country on WhatsApp, as well as on RCS. We have signed the largest bank on WhatsApp, and currently, the integration is going on, and we are building a lot of use cases. We have also signed the, I would say, the number two largest PSU bank, and we have gone live with them.
We have already, I mean, our integration is on with a lot of other banks and food delivery companies and a lot of other companies. Right? We are seeing great traction in whatever the kind of use cases we are building, the kind of expertise we have shown to these customers, and they are really happy. It is not just about WhatsApp. Wherever we are selling WhatsApp, we are selling RCS as well. We are giving options to our customers where it is not just about WhatsApp. We are providing options on WhatsApp, RCS, as well as Truecaller. Yeah. As far as the prices are concerned, customers have also realized that the kind of work we are doing, we are, and just to, okay, in a nutshell, we are going to start charging for our services as well to these customers.
This year, we would see that our OTT revenues would definitely go up. Our number of customers will go up on these channels, and our margins will also improve.
Okay. Just on the OTT channel, to understand the growth drivers more clearly, what is the kind of client mining strategy? How many of our NLD customers are using the OTT channels? Also, whatever growth we are seeing, is this coming from existing customers, or is it coming from net new customers that we are signing? What is the stickiness in terms of the new customers that are being onboarded? How easy or difficult is it to shift from one vendor to another in terms of OTT? Adding onto the margins, as we have seen that the OTT volumes have been scaling up, the gross margins have been coming down over the last four quarters. Is it fair to assume that the OTT volume is coming at a lower gross margin?
Okay. Yeah, Abhishek, please.
No, go ahead, Deepak.
No, you please go ahead. Then I will add on.
Sure. Fine. Fine. Amit, I think it's a mix of both. As Deepak has said, the advantage that we play out in the industry is that I think we are the only player in the industry who can offer all the channels end-to-end. It's not just the channel offering, but the solution capability that Deepak and the enterprise team have built up. Platform team has always had a strong footprint in terms of technology capabilities. I'm telling you that from an enterprise perspective, the solution the enterprise team has built up is very, very unique. It's not restricted to one channel, but it's an omni-channel.
Hence, that's what we are being referred to as a partner for our customers, which means that we are able to offer them the most efficient way for them to communicate, whether through OTT, whether through SMS, or various other channels that our client would like to reach. The reason I wanted to highlight that is that same clients are able to, A, deep dive and do organic growth and do a cross-sell of selling OTT channels. With the same client, we are able to get the market share. We are also able to win new clients on the back of OTT channels and so forth.
Second, the OTT channel is also bound to be communication, rich media communications, and solutions built up for clients, which becomes the case study becomes very, very critical for us and our client, which means the stickiness for us and our customers becomes more important, right, rather than just a utility message being sent at a one-time. I would say because the solution is built on top of the platform that we have, our partners have, whether it be Meta and others, it becomes a more sticky story for us along with our customers. That is one. From a margin point of view, we have been calling you out that we have been making investments. In the future, we are making investments for growth.
I would say the margin shift or a little bit softness that you have seen in the gross margin not necessarily would only mean because of the shift to the OTT channel. It's also because we have been making on various areas, whether it be go-to-market, whether it be direct cost, and so forth. However, as Deepak said, there is an opportunity for us to price it better. There is an opportunity. There is a value that customers see for our solution built up, and hence, we will be able to price them as well. As I earlier communicated, we believe that margin should be in a narrowed range. That would be our endeavor as we speak. Deepak, if you want to add anything.
No, I just want to add, I mean, if you are aware, we as a company, as Karix, we were about three years behind as far as WhatsApp is concerned in India because WhatsApp appointed our competitor as their sole partner. They opened up for others for up to three years. It was always a catching-up game for us. To answer your question, yes, all the customers, they want to be on OTT as well. They want to have a two-way communication with their enterprise customers. We, as I mean, Karix and Tanla and ValueFirst, we were serving these customers for SMS, and slowly, we were pushing them to come to us to use OTT as well. That shift is happening now. A lot of customers from our competition are moving to us now.
That is what I just said a few minutes back, that there are a lot of customers who are now signing us up who are there with our competition. That shift is happening, and definitely, we are going to increase our market share on OTT channels.
Okay. Thanks for the elaborate answer, sir. Last question would be on the platform business. Obviously, we have launched the MaaP RCS outside India. That will obviously be a boost. In terms of the platform business growth, obviously, year-over- year, it is up X of Y. In terms of sequential weakness, what is not working there as per your view, and also the kind of uptick that we expected from the ATP side, do you think that it's not working the way we earlier thought it to be? Also, there is additional pressure from the in-house anti-phishing solutions being built by the telcos itself.
I would say, Amit, we should not read too much this quarter, just a small blip. I think definitely platform continues to be very, very promising. What has not worked out, I would say, would be that we did not think that the sales cycle would take much longer, and we have to prove ourselves from a use case perspective because the problem is real. The problem is here and now. I think that is where maybe we would have gone wrong or our assumption would have gone wrong. From an asset perspective, I think it has got nothing to do with the offerings that our competition has launched. I think it only supplements our platform use case that is real, and it is very, very promising. As we speak, I would only say that the pipeline continues to grow. We continue to have serious interaction with our clients.
We have renewed the two contracts that we had earlier, and we'll share with you as things go.
Okay. Lastly, on the cash balance that you have, INR 1,000 crore of cash, that is 15% of the market cap. What is the in-organic growth strategy? Are we looking at some substantial kind of an acquisition outside India?
Two things, right? From a return-to-shareholder perspective, we have declared an interim dividend. Board has approved this quarter, so we are declaring INR 6 as a dividend interim dividend in addition to what we did last quarter. Second, I think the philosophy remains the same. We are very, very strategically investing both on our ingrown talent, right, because talent is key for the success, both in the enterprise business and the platform business. Our HR team is working day in, day out to ensure that the talent is critical, and we have a right hiring and right team in place. B, we continue to invest in the organic on the GTM side, on the technology side, on the innovation side. The third, M&A, as you said, we continue to look out for the assets.
We do not want to rush, but whenever we believe that there is the right assets which will help grow us faster, which will fit with us from a cultural perspective, I think we will not shy away in making those investments.
Okay. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. Thanks, Amit.
Thank you very much. Next question is from line of Aditya Sen from RoboCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I see that the realization that India gets on WhatsApp is quite low, or rather, I should say it is, I guess, the lowest when compared to other 30-40 countries. Is there a reason for the same, and do we see an upside as to matching the median realization or going north from the present realization that we get in all three segments, that is marketing, utility, and authentication?
Deepak, you want to take it?
Sorry, I couldn't get the question properly. Can you please repeat?
Sure. I plotted the data, which shows that India gets the lowest realization in WhatsApp revenue, both in all three segments, marketing, utility, and authentication. Is there a reason for the same, that is, why we are getting this lowest realization, and will we grow forward from here, northwards from here, to match the median realization of the WhatsApp revenue?
No, are you talking about, are you comparing India's realization with other countries?
True.
See, that would always—sorry?
Yeah, please continue.
Yeah, yeah. That would always be the case. See. Okay.
Can you hear us? Deepak, can you hear us?
Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Yes, Deepak.
Go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. What I was saying is that WhatsApp has kept their prices, keeping the prevailing SMS prices in that country, right? If you look at it here in India, SMS prices are in the range of 9-11 paisa. They kept their utility prices at around 11 paisa, and marketing messages, they are kept at around 70-75 paisa. In a lot of other countries, if you look at Indonesia, the WhatsApp price, the minimum price is INR 2.50 if I convert that into Indian rupees. The reason is because the SMS price also over there is about INR 2.50. Most of the countries, if you look at it, the SMS rates are much, much higher. The realization is much higher. That is why even WhatsApp price is also much higher. This is how it works.
I hope I answered your question.
That answers completely. Thanks a lot for that. What is the enterprise segment for the next two, three years? Any guidance on that?
I think we do not guide for future, so it would be difficult to say that. As I said earlier, we are exiting this year with a high note. Q4 has been good for us. Continues to show good traction. That is where I leave it at right now. It would be difficult for me to make a forward-looking statement.
No worries. No worries. Thanks a lot. That was my question.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
I now hand the conference over to Ms. Ritu Mehta for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone. That was the last question of this evening. In case we couldn't answer your questions, please write to us at Investor Help Desk. Thank you so much. Good evening.
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.