Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Techno Electric & Engineering Company Limited Q3 and FY2026 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 Mr. Suraj from Asian Markets Securities Pvt Ltd. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Asian Market Securities, we welcome you all to the Q3 FY2026 Earnings Conference Call of Techno Electric & Engineering Company Limited. We have with us today Mr. P.P. Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, and Mr. Ankit Saraiya, Director, and Shivani Chandok, VP, Strategic Initiative and Investor Relationship. I request Gupta ji to take us through an overview of the company's quarterly results and then begin with the Q&A section. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Suraj. Very good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for diving in today. I appreciate you taking the time to join us as we discuss the financial results for the quarter ending December 31, 2025. Before we begin, I would like to make the standard safe harbor statement. Some of the remarks we make today may contain forward-looking statements which should be viewed in context of the risks and challenges inherent in our industry or sector. Firstly, I would like to start today's call by setting a broader agenda or context, which is new Techno Electric. For those of you who have tracked Techno Electric over years, you know us well.
You know us as a disciplined EPC player, a company with a legacy of 40-45 years in the power sector, zero debt, balance sheet, and a dominant share in India's power grid, both in generation and transmission. Of course, as a participant in distribution reforms post-Electricity Act. You know us as a team that built over 50% or more of India's national grid substations and maybe more than 60% in 400 and above kV category. You know us as a company that has never reported a net loss for over maybe 30 years, and we have survived and thrived through multiple commodity cycles, COVID period, where many of our peers have faltered. Today, I'm here to talk about the Techno Electric conventional, and I'm not here to talk about Techno Electric conventional business, but I'm here to introduce you to new Techno Electric.
We are currently in the midst of a fundamental transformation. We are pivoting from being a pure-play EPC into the power sector and now transforming to a digital infrastructure platform. This is not just a change in branding, but it's a change in our DNA. We are leveraging our deep expertise in the power sector, which is, after all, the main raw material or input of the digital age to build high-value assets in data centers and smart meters. Our vision is simple: to bridge the gap between traditional power infrastructure and the new digital economy. We are using technology not just to build, but to own and operate assets that generate long-term annuity-like cash flows. The macro landscape is a tale of two supercycles. Why make this pivot now? The answer lies in the convergence of two massive supercycles currently reshaping the Indian economy. First, the power transmission supercycle.
India's power landscape is shifting dramatically. The new Central Electricity Authority has revised the financial year 2027 peak demand projection upward to over 277 GW to meet the national goal of 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030. The country requires a staggering investment of INR 250,000 crore in national transmission infrastructure. The government is backing this up with unprecedented fiscal support. The Union Budget recently announced a massive INR 299,000 crore capital outlay for the power sector, a staggering 39% increase over last year. This includes streamlined right-of-way processes and strong incentives for high-voltage interstate strengthening schemes also. This is our home turf. Our historical dominance in EHV substations, and particularly in 400 and 765 kV, STATCOM solutions, GIS and AIS solutions, and technologies, positions us as the primary beneficiaries of these spending. The second supercycle is of the data center explosion. Simultaneously, India is witnessing a digital explosion.
According to industry reports from CBRE and JLL, operational data center capacity has already crossed 1.2 GW, with utilization rate hovering around 80%. The demand is shifting rapidly from basic storage to high-density AI-led computing. The budget 2026 magically has introduced a tax holiday on qualifying foreign cloud income until 2047, which now has been clarified to be available for domestic players as well. Global workloads are served from India-based data centers via Indian reseller structures. This materially reduces permanent establishment risk for hyperscalers and is expected to accelerate the shift of long-term compute to India, expanding demand for Indian-owned platforms like ours. Techno Electric sits exactly at the intersection of these two cycles. You cannot have AI without power. You cannot have a stable grid without digital intelligence. Financial performance, the report card. Let's translate this strategy into numbers.
I'm proud to report that Q3 financial year 2026 has been a period of resilience, growth, and operational normalization, and our year-to-date numbers are best in our history so far. I'm pleased to share that in the nine months ending December 2025, we have already delivered a revenue of INR 2,200 crore, which is nearly equivalent to the last year's top line. This brings us very close to a full-year revenue of INR 2,500 crore, reflecting the strong momentum in our business and the consistent execution by our teams. We have achieved a robust 26% year-on-year growth in revenue, clocking INR 857 crore for the quarter. This validates the actual execution that we had anticipated. More importantly, look at our profitability. The Q4, in addition, will be a growth over the last year, which will be, as you know, always the best among all the key quarters of a year.
Our profit after tax grew by an impressive 45% to INR 151 crore. The fact that profit growth is outpacing revenue growth determines significant operating leverage and productivity benefits in our model. Consequently, our EPS for the quarter stands at INR 30, up 45% from INR 9 last year. Yeah. Ma'am, would you like to take up now?
Thank you, sir. So looking at our nine months performance, our revenue strength is INR 2,209 crores, which is up 39% from last year. Our core EBITDA has grown 40% to INR 315 crores. Our PAT has surged 49% to INR 373 crores, and our EPS for the nine-month period stands at 34.3. As you'll notice, our core EBITDA margin normalized to 14.14% this quarter. I want to address this directly. This is not a slip, but it's a systematic upgrade. During the quarter, while in the process of digitization, we have rolled out our EPS Connect platform to institutionalize data accuracy across our projects. Our initial operating expenditure associated with this deployment led to a marginal decline in EBITDA margin.
However, this strategic investment enables us to capture site-level variables with 100% fidelity, eliminating reporting blind spots typical in EPC operations, and strengthening governance to manage out INR 10,000+ crore of order book going forward. Our financial strength lies in the cash and liquidity investments, which stand at close to INR 1,925 crore. This liquidity is our strategic edge, as it provides us with the flexibility to fund our investment plan in digital infrastructure without diluting our equity or taking high-cost debt.
Yeah, ma'am. Let me take over now.
Yes, sir.
Coming to strategic pillars now, the data center growth engine, which you all know. Now, let's deep dive into our growth engine, starting with data centers. This is where the true pivoting story begins. We are not just building shells. We are building AI-ready, high-density ecosystems. Our strategy is a dual-pronged hyperscalers + edge. Our first hyperscale project in Chennai, the flagship facility with a total planned capacity of 36 MW, continues to be a key milestone in our growth journey. I'm pleased to share that the phase one with 6 MW capacity has been fully operationally ready since September 25. This facility is delivering an industry-leading PUE of 1.3 and better, reflecting our strong focus on operational efficiency and sustainability. Based on the current demand visibility and recent budget announcement supporting digital infrastructure, our discussions with both global and domestic cloud operators have escalated meaningfully.
We expect phase one to be fully utilized by the first half of the financial year 2027. With increasing interest from hyperscalers, we are optimistic about commencing new strategic business relationships during financial year 2027. In line with this demand momentum, we are initiating construction of the next phase in the coming financial year. Beyond Chennai, we are moving fast. In Noida, construction is progressing at full pace. We expect the first 500 kW or half a megawatt to become operational by March this year, followed by an additional 5 MW getting ready by March 2027. In Kolkata, we have commenced construction of a 16 MW facility spread across a 4-acre plot within a prime data center cluster called Silicon Valley. Phase one commissioning is targeted during late 2027.
Given we are power engineers, we use our in-house EPC expertise to build these centers in the shortest time with significant cost savings and faster time to adapt markets. Second, the edge network. This is our unique differentiator. We have a 20-year revenue-sharing partnership with RailTel to deploy 100+ edge data centers across India. The Gurugram facility is already live and fully occupied. Mumbai goes live by the end of this month and will be occupied before close of this year. The economics here are compelling. RailTel utilizes about 60% of the capacity. We monetize the rest. But here is the key metric. Per revenue, these edge facilities are better, and we are selling managed cloud services, not just space. We have already onboarded our first cloud customer, and the response is extremely encouraging.
While FY2026 revenue will be very modest due to initial migration timelines, we are at an inflection point. We are working hard to ensure that in FY2027, we must achieve INR 100 crore+ revenue as a top line. But look at the quality of the revenue. These revenues come with 50%-60% EBITDA margins, nearly 4x of our EPC margins. This is the quality of earnings shift we are driving. The next pillar is smart metering and annuity income. Our second digital pillar is smart meters, AMI. The segment transforms us from a contractor to a service provider. We hold a massive order book of 2.24 million m. And out of, we have valued at INR 2,612 crore under the RDSS scheme, having already deployed 250,000 meters under PMDP scheme.
As of December, we have executed approximately 50% of this order book, and we are targeting the completion of the Indore facility by March and Ranchi projects by June 26. The Kashmir and Tripura project will be completed by December 26. However, I want to highlight a strategic shift here. We are seeing margin pressures in some new tenders in this space. As of now, we are keenly watching them, and we have adopted a profit-over-volume strategy as usual. We are becoming selective. We will not be chasing every opportunity, but the right ones to continue to be giving a stronger bottom line. The long-term value here is an annuity model. Once installed, this project shifts to an O&M phase, providing steady, predictable cash flows that will balance the lumpiness of our traditional EPC business.
The conventional business and our cash cow as of today is the EPC in power sector. While we reach further digital sky, our feet are firmly planted on our EPC bedrock. This business generates the cash that funds our transformation. As of December 31, 2025, our order book stands at INR 10,200 crores. Between April 2025 and February 2026, we secured an order book of roughly about INR 2,500 crores in new confirmed orders, and we are additionally placed L1 in tenders worth another INR 750 crores. This position helps well to achieve our target of INR 3,000 crores in new orders during the current financial year. Our fundamentals remain strong. We are not a commodity player. We focus on complex, high-altitude, high-voltage projects, challenging opportunities in EHV segments of 765 kV or 400 kV categories. We avoid low-margin transmission line businesses.
The technical entry barriers, the loss has to consistently deliver a margin of 13%-15% while industry peers struggle at single digits. We are acutely aware that growth cannot come at the expense of stability. We have identified key risks and have active migration mitigation strategy in place, client concentration. Historically, we had top two clients, but now we have more than five of them. We are also actively diluting this by scaling up our data center and smart metering verticals, diversifying our revenue base. Large-scale digital projects face global supply constraints. Our mitigation is our legacy in this space. We have 40 years of relationships with global OEMs like Schneider, Vertiv, GE, Siemens. This gives us a supply priority over new entrants. In data center, technology moves fast. That's why our new designs are NVIDIA, GE 2035, and Build by Hitec from day one.
We are not retrofitting old designs. We are building for the future. So now I'm talking of future outlook. So where are we heading? By 2026, my guidance will continue to be on the revenue of INR 3,300 crore-INR 3,400 crore at an EPS of nearly around INR 50. In brief, I would like to say that Techno Electric is at the most exciting juncture in its four-decade history. We have the technical expertise, having built more than 50% of India's grid. We have financial muscle with zero debt and INR 2,600 crore in cash at the consolidated levels. We have the digital strategy spanning data centers, cloud, and smart meters. We have the market tailwind fueled by Budget 2026, which have made data centers tax-free and the power supercycle. We are not just observing the digital revolution. We are building the infrastructure that powers it.
With this, I open the floor for any more clarifications.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. Participants who wish to remove themselves from the question queue may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir, and thanks for the opportunity. My first question is, sir, what kind of revenue growth do you expect in FY2027 given the current order book? And are you facing any execution challenges which can lead to some kind of downward revision in our EPS guidance of INR 75 in FY2027?
As of now, we are not anticipating any challenges. Mostly, every opportunity becomes a challenge by virtue of delayed availability of land parcels from the asset owners. But other than that, we generally don't see any challenge right now.
Understood. So you're maintaining the guidance of INR 75 in FY2027. Is that correct, sir?
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
My second question is, sir, the order inflow has been subdued in the last nine months compared to what we did in FY2024 and FY2025. Can you just talk about the order prospect in transmission for FY2027? How do you think about FY2027 in terms of the order inflow?
This is a little double-edged question to my mind. There is an ample opportunity in the market, but we are becoming more choosy till we build up our ability to deliver more in the sector. We are a manpower-based industry. You can see in three years what we used to deliver in a year has become a quarterly output. So that is the kind of growth we have seen in the last three years. Sustaining this level of growth often can be prejudicial at times. So we believe in discipline and continuity of performance. So we will like to limit our order intake and learn to say no to many orders unless they are juicy and bottom line accretive. So there's no dearth of business in this marketplace given the business profile.
But we will not like to book more than INR 3,000 crore-INR 3,500 crore going forward. Till such time, my top line growth will be INR 5,000 crore and beyond.
Understood. My last question, sir, how much you invested in the smart meter and TBCB till date?
Yeah. In smart meters, we have already invested about INR 1,000 crore you can take. In TBCB, our investment is about INR 500 crore.
Understood, sir. Thank you and all the best, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ravi Naredi from Naredi Investments. Please go ahead.
Hello? No, no chat. We are coming in now.
Sir, Ravi, there is a lot of disturbance from your.
Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Now, you won't get any disturbance. Sir, it is really, I can say, fantastic result so far. Sir, how much data is outstanding since long in our books like Bengal Energy Limited and this Afghanistan project? How can we say how much is pending?
We are very little in amount when Bengal Energy is a very legacy issue of where they did not pay our retention money of INR 15 crore only. And arbitration is going on. I think any day we'll get the award. In Afghanistan, it is much advanced now. Our total outstandings of $8 million+ have been certified by DABS and forwarded to UNOPS for payment. We trust in Q1 we should get this money.
Okay. Okay. And sir, please tell some detailed commentary about data center, how our Chennai is working, how is the top line and bottom line of Chennai?
It's a bit early to talk, Mr. Reddy. It is still a work in progress if you ask me. Demands more hard work. I think it is still this market of data centers is very different than power sector. I think we'll be more in a position to speak on it by September 26.
September 26, it will be fully gearing up, right?
Yeah. We'll have a lot more clarity to say clearly that this is how it will plan out. But I'm very sure on one thing if you ask me, by 2028, 2029, digital infra will become the face of the company. It will be otherwise out. Yeah.
Okay. And some data center, we are planning with RailTel also?
Yeah, absolutely. Noida is with RailTel. Edge data centers are all with RailTel.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All the best, sir.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Shrey Gandhi from C.R. Kothari & Sons Stock Broking. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My question is regarding the data center segment. How much CapEx are we planning for the next year for Chennai, Kolkata, and Noida if you can give a brief phase-wise?
Yeah. Our planning is around INR 500 crore-INR 600 crore in data centers in 2026, 2027.
Can you give a brief how much in Chennai and Kolkata and Noida in phase one and phase two, respectively?
No. As for Chennai is concerned, it is a part of the audited accounts in March. You will see we have spent by now about INR 550 crore in Chennai and maybe another INR 50 crore more if required to suit to build to some entities, some hyperscalers requirements. Additionally, I'm giving these budgets for April to March 2027. That will be another about INR 600 crore in Noida and Kolkata. Also maybe 3-4 edge data centers.
Okay. How are we planning to depreciate the data center? What is our policy regarding that?
There's no policy as of now. We like to hold on it and build on it as I've already stated in my submissions.
Okay. How is the customer onboarding going right now in Chennai? Have we acquired any major customer, to be clear?
We are in a silent period with some hyperscalers. We cannot announce. But discussions are going on with many more. There is a very active interest. I can share that with you.
Okay. My last question is, how are we seeing the opportunity which Google has announced that they are setting up a data center? So how are we seeing EPS per share?
Can you repeat your question?
How are we looking at the opportunity of the data center segment in which Google has announced $1 billion investment in Visakhapatnam? How are we looking at that?
1 GW.
Can I take that?
Yeah. We won't be interested in doing any EPC for Google. But if they need any data center as a service to build, we will be very keen to be partner in that. And we are talking to them. But anyway, they will need a lot of power infra behind it.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anmol Mittal from SMC Private Wealth. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is regarding the commentary given. Guidance often focused on standalone performance. Could you please explain why standalone is a preferred metric for tracking business health and whether consolidated numbers will become more relevant going forward?
my mind, both are relevant here. But it depends on the investor which one he wants to rely more because control also in-builds the future whereas standalone is of the very period of the entity as a holdco, as a face of the entity or conventional entity.
Okay, sir. Can you provide Q4 FY2026 guidance on revenue and DABS separately for standalone as well as consolidated operation? What are the key assumptions behind the guidance?
I thought I have already shared with you. I said Q4 will be upside over the last year. And our target is to achieve around INR 3,400 crore and EPS of INR 50 as a standalone.
Okay, sir. Okay, sir. On the other income part, it is a meaningful contributor to overall profitability. Could you please share a future outlook on how much other income can we take in next quarter or in next year also?
You can take the same amount year on year. It is well-managed treasury with us. We're very secure. You can take around INR 150 crore per year.
INR 150 crore. Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Shreyans Gathani from SG Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, sir. I had a question on the data center strategy. So just trying to understand, are we in the future looking to dispose of these assets like we did for the power transmission assets, maybe lease it out? Otherwise, it's like a big CapEx-heavy business where we'll probably need to raise money. So how are you looking at that strategy?
Can you repeat your question? I think your question is a little confusing.
No. So what I meant is once you have your data center ready and leased out, are you looking to sell it how we did for the transmission assets where we get the higher return and then we sell it out to some infrastructure trust or something like that?
Not for next 2-3 years as of now. We first want to build the scale as a platform. We may look for investors at the platform level and not exit the asset like transmission.
Got it. Okay. So what kind of CapEx are you looking at in the next 3-5 years in this segment then?
We have stated our outlook that we are looking for a CapEx in data centers of no less than INR 5,000 crore over by 2030.
Okay. Okay. And previously, you had mentioned that the margins would be around 70%-80%. This call, you said it's around 60%. So I don't know if those are comparable or I'm understanding differently.
No. These margins are.
Let me answer that. So basically, you see, when we talk about a margin of 70-odd%, we talk about in a situation where the data center is getting purely leased out or only on a pure lease model. But when we start building services on top of the data center such as bare metal services or cloud services, it ends up improving the top line. But obviously, it also impacts the EBITDA. Though the absolute number in EBITDA and top line improves, the margin levels are not the same comparable to a pure play colocation lease.
Oh, I see. So we are not providing racks as such. We are providing additional services. If you could elaborate on that, that is not something that.
Yes. So we are building on additional services.
Today, we target to generate at least 20%-30% of your revenue out of additional services while 70%-80% might come out of pure play co-location.
Got it. Got it. That's good to know.
And I think in the beginning of the call during the introduction phase, we also mentioned that we have already onboarded our first customer for bare metal services. And we have also onboarded our first customer for cloud services.
Got it. And when would the rest how long would it take to operationalize the entire 36 MW in Chennai? Would it be as in when you get customers, or is it going to be one-shot kind of an expansion?
No. So it will largely depend on how smoothly and how fast we are able to acquire customers. We will not be expanding speculatively.
But given the way industry is evolving and rapidly evolving, I believe that we should be commissioning the entire capacity and maybe more within the next 2.5-3 years. We might just be required to expand our Chennai project beyond what we initially envisaged.
Okay. So we have capacity there too, additional capacity that we can expand to.
Yep. So the project can actually be expanded up to at least 45 MW, whereas we have currently executed somewhere around 34-36 MW as of now.
Okay. Got it. Got it. That's good to know. Yeah. That's all from my end, that's all I had to.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Prashant Gopal from Spark Asia Impact Managers Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Sir, can you provide approximate per MW cost for your data centers now?
We can assume around INR 40 crore, safely.
Okay. That helps. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Shukla from Fine Investors. Please go ahead.
Sir, I'm audible?
Yeah.
Conclusion, sir, for good set of numbers. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Sir, when we see the result in standalone mode and consolidated mode, depreciation is different in standalone INR 2 crore and in consolidated INR 9 crore. Please explain this, sir.
Yeah. That ought to be different here because in standalone, it's an EPC piece. And we don't own many high-value equipment. They are mostly rented out for the purpose of construction. But when you consolidate the assets deployed or owned by those subsidiaries or SPVs, they have to have an impact of the depreciation of the equipment. So obviously, in a consolidated mode, the depreciation will always be higher and growing more going forward.
Okay, sir. Sir, the guidance which you have given for 50 EPS, that is consolidated mode or standalone mode?
I have given on standalone mode. Consolidated mode will also not be very different. It will be within ±5% only.
Yes. That is why. INR 7 crore difference is made in PAT also. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Kripal Desai from Electrum PMS. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yeah, sir.
Hi, sir. I'm actually new to the company. So some basic questions. So my first question was on smart meters. So in smart meters, we are saying that we are more than INR 2,000 crores of order book where we would be installing more than 2 million meters. So sir, your how much CapEx we would be doing per meter, how much revenue we are generating, and what are the EBITDA margins here? That was my first question.
You have more questions, or you have this question only?
No. There are more questions too. On smart meters, this was the question.
Ma'am, the question is a little tricky. I think you need to see the whole value chain of it. When the concession is given to us by the customer, it is always on a per-month, per-meter basis with some grant inbuilt into the concession. And now, this is also inclusive of GST also. So it's a bit difficult to compute, per se. But whatever concessions we have got with us, you can easily say that our margin, EBITDA margin, will be around, you can say, 20%. But we are not recognizing in the books again. That is a difficulty because it involves a lot of time discounting because they happen over 10 years, 94 months. So there are a lot of computations involved in terms of the time value, in terms of the taxes, in terms of the back-to-back arrangements with the people providing the services to us.
Sometimes, they are upfront, and sometimes, they are also staggered on month-over-month basis. So different business models are deployed in it. But overall, I can say we are in a good shape in this space. Live transmission will be exiting on profit only if we decide to.
Okay. So it would be difficult to give CapEx per meter?
No. There's no difficulty, ma'am. But there can be different modes of computing it, and their numbers can, again, change.
Okay. And sir, how much CapEx we would be doing going ahead in this space? We have already done some INR 1,000 crore, you said. So going ahead, we would do more CapEx in this space, smart meters?
Yeah. We have to complete our assignment of 2.24 million meters. Definitely, our total CapEx will be around INR 1,500 crore.
Okay. And sir.
It's all about yeah.
Yes. And so my next question was on the data center. So you said the per MW cost is around INR 40 crore. How much revenue can we generate per MW?
You can take a revenue if you are doing a pure PO location, you may take a revenue of about, I would say, INR 8-odd crore. And the moment we bring in bare metal services and cloud services, it is three times.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Those were the two questions for now. Yeah. Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you, ma'am. The next question is from the line of Ashish Soni from Family Office. Please go ahead.
With this new data center policy, do you think you will want to expand more into data center against your stated goal of 250 MW by, I think, 2030?
I think we need to firstly see the impact of the announced policy. It sounds very motivating and very encouraging to the industry and especially global players who were refraining, if at all, because of taxation inequalities. But if it truly makes a difference, we will surely expand beyond what we planned when we entered the industry in 2021. And as we speak, we are seeing good interest from large-scale data center users, whether it is hyperscalers or NeoCloud, into the Indian market. And they are looking at capacities of very, very large size. So yeah, it is quite possible that very soon, we might have to revise our entire plan, and hopefully, so.
Just another question on this. Google setting up 1 GW in, I think, Visakhapatnam. So what sort of services, if at all, you want to do for other customers like that? Will you be from your gamut of services you'd like to do, which is not do you want? I think some clarity was given by Gupta, sir, but I didn't understand. Do we plan to play there, or what we don't want to play in this space for other customers?
See, we want to remain to participate in this industry as a developer, as an operator, and going forward as a managed service provider and a network service provider. These are the four products and services that we want to keep providing. Within that, there are many products and services, but these are the four verticals. And that's the reason in our entire discussion, we try to keep EPC out of the content of the discussion itself because we want to limit to be a developer today. While having said that, because when large-scale data centers of 1 GW capacity or even 0.5 GW capacity comes up, there is a larger requirement for power infrastructure. And if we are playing as a power infrastructure provider over there, we can look at providing our conventional or traditional business services like EPC.
When it comes to data center itself, these are the four buckets I would put it.
In the next 2-3 years, what is the mix in terms of business you are anticipating right now in data center and your core business, maybe including smart meter in the core?
I didn't get your question. Could you repeat? In what terms?
Okay. In terms of a percentage of revenue or the profitability in 2-3 years, where do you see data center mix by 30%-40% sort of thing compared to your core services, including smart meter, you can say?
So you see, data centers' data center balance sheet will look very different than what we have in EPC because profit margins are different. Top lines are quite different. They are not very heavy on top line, but they give good EBITDA margins. The PAT gets subdued because of depreciation, but it's always positive cash flow. Therefore, the contribution towards the total balance sheet from data centers might look different at different line items. But I would be confident to say that within 2-3 years of time, we should be able to target a top line from data centers of close to maybe around INR 400-odd crore, maybe INR 300-INR 400 crore.
Can you elaborate on these networking services you spoke about, the service for data center? What exactly do you want to do there?
Yeah. So we have recently been awarded a license. We actually succeeded in getting a license from the Department of Telecom to provide network services within the city of Chennai. And what it helps us to do is aggregate bandwidth into our data centers and sell that bandwidth to the end customer who is leasing racks or end services within those data centers from us. So this becomes an additional set of revenue for us apart from what traditionally data center brings. And it's a good achievement because getting a license is also a procedure. It requires you to achieve certain qualifications. And we've been able to break through that, and we've finally got the license. And we'll be starting generating revenue out of network services, though very, very small, but from this quarter itself.
That will be only for Chennai, or do you think it will be expanded to wherever you are going to operate your data center?
We will expand it. We will expand it. We will expand the license itself. That is under planning. But we are starting with Chennai because that is the commission capacity today with us.
How much margin is there, or is this add-on service you are thinking right now?
We can expect a margin of around 40%-50% from network services.
Okay. But it will be a minuscule portion of your data center revenues if you include overall revenues-wise?
It may not be a significant portion, but it will have a significant contribution to EBITDA of the data center.
Okay. Thanks, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ensure the management can answer questions from all the participants, please limit your questions to one per participant. The next question is from the line of Jenish Chheda from Kempfen Family Office. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. My question is with regards to smart meters. I just wanted to understand that you said you have done a CapEx of INR 1,000 crore and there's INR 1,500 crore CapEx. There's incremental INR 500 crore or incremental INR 1,500 crore CapEx to be done in smart meters?
No, no, no. We said total is 1,500. And out of that, 1,000 is committed already. That is what we are talking. And that will be the number by the close day we close of the year or so.
Okay. How do we follow the?
It is nothing quarter-specific. I must make it clear. CapEx is done on quarter basis.
Right. I understand that. But in terms of accounting, how are we following the accounting? But as you said, you are getting it per meter basis and then CapEx. It's not a part of your fixed assets, I assume, I see from the annual report. So how are you following the accounting in terms of revenue, CapEx, as well as expansion out the entire thing?
There are separate SPVs for each concession. They are doing their own accounting, which becomes part of the consortium.
No. But the amount you get while installing the smart meter, you show it in your revenue, or you are still capitalizing the entire thing?
The cost of deployment becomes part of the revenue for an EPC company. It is capitalized in the SPV per se. SPV generates its own revenue as a grant and on PMPM basis as eligible.
That SPV would be depreciating the meter over a period of 10 years, right?
Yeah. Actually, in this case, I don't think depreciation is required. Basically, it is amortized, you can say.
Okay. So eventually, in the consolidated balance sheet, this number should be there, capitalized CapEx of INR 1,000 crores or work in progress of INR 1,000 crores, either of the two. It should be there in the consolidated balance sheet, right?
Yeah. It will come. But when only they go live, like I said, one concession goes live in March, one goes live in June, July, and the rest two will happen in December. You are right. When they get go live, it will happen like that. Till then, it is kind of in deployment mode.
Okay. So revenue will start flowing once it goes live. So even in the top line on the consolidated basis, there won't be any revenue as of now?
Again, this is the dubiousness in our government policies. Governments start using even a say, I have to deploy in a given concession 500,000 meters. But even if I have deployed, say, 50,000 meters, the revenue starts there. But definitely, the whole scheme is not complete. Those contractual obligations stack. So as a conservative approach is to capitalize them. When whole deployment happens and go live certificate is obtained from the customers. But revenue happens on system acceptance test, we call it, SAT.
Okay. So how many are expected to be deployed in March, number of meters?
Till March, it should be about INR 1.4 million.
1.4 million in March. Okay.
Up to March.
Up to March. And total, it's INR 2.5 million, right?
No, INR 2.24 million.
In the previous call, we have.
Unless there is an amendment to it. Customers also seeing the progress can enhance the requirement by 25%. That is a part of the contract.
Okay. By 2025, you are saying we want to target up to 5 million by 2031 in the previous calls, right? Just confirming that.
No, no, no. We have never set a target on AMI to be 5 million or so. We'll continue to scout for good opportunities. If we find it rewarding, we may do 5 million or maybe more. But as of now, the government is more keen to deploy whatever stands ordered. And very few new tenders are happening in this space as of today because the performance of the industry is not very good. Probably, Techno is the best where we have deployed more than 50% of the concessions backed by our brothers' performance is only ranging from 15%-25%.
Okay. Thank you so much. That was helpful.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, that was the last question. I would now hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Yeah. I will once again like to just a minute, sirs. I will like to thank you for your continued trust and partnership. I was really delighted for the insightful questions being sought by all of you. I am now happy to say that you are welcome to visit us whenever you are this side of the country, either to our Gurugram office or to Kolkata. We'll be happy to address any other questions you have for our ongoing work. Please email us if you need any more details.
Thank you very much, sir. On behalf of Asian Market Securities Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.