Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Manoj Menon from ICICI Securities Limited. Thank you. Over to you, sir.
Hi, everyone. Representing ICICI, it's our absolute pleasure to host the first-ever quarterly results conference call of Travel Food Services. Handing over to Ms. Chhavi Agarwal from the company, Vice President, Investor Relations, for the further proceeding. Thank you.
Thank you, Manoj. Good evening to all. From Travel Food Services, we have with us Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Varun Kapur, and Whole-time Director and CFO, Mr. Vikas Vinod Kapoor, to discuss the first quarter financial performance and address the question- and- answer session. Before we proceed, here's a disclaimer for the call. A few statements by the company's management in the call will be forward-looking in nature, and we request you to the disclaimer in the earnings presentation for further details. We'll start the call with an opening remarks from the management, followed by the Q&A session. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Varun Kapur for opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you.
Yes. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us on the call. I would like to start by first extending my gratitude to all our stakeholders, investors, customers, regulators, employees, as well as very much our airport and brand partners for the invaluable support extended throughout our IPO process. The trust by them and confidence through the years has been a very important contributor to achieve this milestone. Before we move into the quarterly performance, since this is our first earnings call post-listing, I would like to take a few minutes to briefly explain our business. Here at TFS, we primarily operate in two categories, Travel QSR and Lounges at airports. Travel QSR is mainly the F&B outlets you see at the airports.
You know, we call it Travel QSR as it's a required attribute for all the outlets to deliver their product in a quick manner given the time-sensitive customers at airports that we all see. Within Travel QSR, we are a one-stop shop offering a whole range of concepts, formats, and cuisines. Further, we also operate Lounges at multiple airports, and the lounge business model has gained a lot of prominence in the last decade, not just in India, but globally as well. This is mainly due to the combination of increasing travel, higher disposable income, and increasing credit card adoption. Within Travel QSR, we are the leading player with 26% market share and have 454 outlets as of June 30, 2025. This continues to grow as we speak.
We are a unique multi-brand platform with 130 brands, including global and regional partner brands, as well as our own popular in-house brands. We are also the leading lounge operator in the country with 45% market share and operate 37 Lounges in India, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. We started our journey in 2009, and we operate airports through long-term contracts with airport operators, and they often prefer a master concession for similar services by bundling multiple units to award to one concessionaire capable of providing comprehensive F&B coverage and lounge services at the airports. There are many complexities and challenges involved in operating in a restricted space such as airports, ranging from security issues, construction challenges, large back-of-house investments in stores and central kitchens, to name a few.
Our ability to navigate through these complexities and successfully run the business differentiates us and acts as a high entry barrier for others and a competitive moat for our business. I would also like to emphasize our business and growth has been complemented by our long-term partnerships with leading airport operators in the country. We have formed strategic joint venture partnerships with two of the largest multi-airport operators, with whom we have had the experience of working with for many years. This structure covers Lounges and QSR outlets in key locations like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Navi Mumbai, Lucknow and Goa, Mopa, amongst others.
We have been successfully delivering strong performance for years. Therefore, we have a contract renewal rate of 94% since the inception of our business in 2009, which is a key strength of the business, demonstrating our success in operating our existing contracts and the strength of our partnerships. Coming to our financial performance, our focus has been always on sustainable growth coupled with efficient capital management and a healthy generation of consistent profits. The same is also reflected in our financial performance as our system-wide revenue and profit after tax have grown at a CAGR of over 20% consistently over the past decade. Our ROCE, our return on capital employed, which is a key statistic we look at for the nature of our business, has been steady at around a 50% over the last few years.
Going forward, we see a large and fast-expanding opportunity in the Indian air travel space in which we operate. We are also well-positioned to scale our footprints in the international markets with the success seen in Malaysia and Hong Kong. In addition, the Highway F&B business in India is at a very nascent stage, and with the large public and private investments planned in the sector, coupled with the growth of access-controlled expressways, we do see that being an area of growth for the TFS business over the next decade, which we shall tap in a strategic and prudent manner. Our strategy has three key pillars: growth, optimization of our financial performance, and delivery with focus on strong people practices.
As part of our strategic priorities as well, we continue to strengthen partnerships with leading global brands, including the opening of Nando's at the Delhi Terminal 3 recently, and the upcoming launch of two Gordon Ramsay concepts at Delhi Terminal 1 and Mumbai Terminal 2 respectively. We also forged a national tie-up with Coca-Cola to further enhance our beverage offerings across outlets, and rolled out a technology solution enabling direct collaborations with banking and credit card partners, eliminating intermediaries, delivering tailored solutions for distinct customer segments, driving economic value, and ensuring a more seamless passenger experience. We will continuously strive to expand our business while delivering operational and capital efficiency and driving earnings with a focus on customer experience enhancement.
Before I move on to our quarterly performance, I would like to take a moment on behalf of the company to express our deepest condolences to the families of the people affected by the tragic Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad. It had a profound impact, not only the aviation industry, but I think as well on each and every single Indian. To coming to the quarterly performance. Our system-wide sales, which is sales including our JVs and associates that we operate, have grown at a very, very healthy rate of 26.7%, with like-for-like growth of 12.5% and net contract gains of 10.1%. This is in spite of certain temporary headwinds that has caused moderation of air passenger growth in the quarter, as visible to everyone.
These have been namely geopolitical events of recent past as well as the after effects of the aircraft maintenance and grounding due to the unfortunate crash of the Air India Boeing 787 in early June. There's been a short-term effect on the growth of passenger traffic towards the second half of the quarter. Despite that, our numbers have grown at the level that you see it. We see the effects of this temporary traffic moderation continue into the current quarter with recovery trends already underway. In line with Air India's indications suggesting the recovery is underway from August, and we expect these temporary effects to return to normalcy ahead of the second half of the year as well. In the business as well, we have a strong focus on profit generation, which is an important tenet for the business.
We delivered a 59.5% year-on-year growth in reported PAT, profit after tax, which also equated to a 19.3% year-on-year growth in our adjusted PAT, which Vikas will also elaborate on specifically shortly, showing the robustness of our business model. This is a clear testament to the resilience of our business model and the exceptional efforts of our highly motivated team. I request our CFO, Vikas Kapoor, to take you through the quarterly numbers in detail.
Thank you, Varun. Once again, welcome you all to the Q1 FY26 earnings call. Before I talk about numbers, I would like to explain our commercial models that drive our revenues. We operate our units under two key models: long-term contracts and strategic partnership arrangements. Long-term contracts are fully consolidated into our PNL, and strategic partnerships are accounted as JVs or associates under the equity pickup model. In long-term contracts, we own and consolidate the full PNL after paying a concession fee to the airport owner. As a result, we invest the complete capital into the unit. In joint ventures, as the operations are overseen by us, we receive a management fee for operating the units and a share of the PAT of the joint venture entity as per our equity shareholding. The capital investment is also proportionately shared along with the JV partner.
In both models, we manage the units in the same way, but the accounting treatments are different. We talk about system-wide sales, which represent DSS-managed airports, including the subsidiaries, JVs, and associates, in line with what Varun explained a bit earlier. In addition to our long-term contracts, the JV arrangement enables us to be in a strong position to operate the F&B and Lounges in many existing and new operator airports operated by the multi-airport operators. Before I move to talk about our performance in detail, I would like to mention that since Semolina Kitchens was part of our consolidated financials for the first half and part of Q3 last year, we have adopted a like-for-like comparison to ensure consistency in evaluating business performance. Semolina's quarter one losses for FY 2025 have been added back to the results.
In Q2 FY25, as Semolina turned profitable following unit mobilization, the corresponding profit will be adjusted to maintain similar comparability to Q2 FY26 results. Coming to the numbers. The system-wide sales touched INR 7.15 billion, growing by 26.7% YoY. As Varun brought out earlier, the growth was supported by a healthy like-for-like growth of 12.5% and net contract gains of nearly 10.1%. LFL is driven by effective revenue optimization initiatives despite a short-term moderation in air passenger traffic growth. Net contract gains are driven by mobilization of new Travel QSR outlets and Lounges at the airport, primarily at Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow airports.
If we go to consolidated sales, we have reported sales of INR 3.75 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 6.3%. Like-for-like growth for consolidated sales was 5.5%, impacted by short-term moderation in passenger traffic growth. Net contract gains showed a decrease by 2.7% year-on-year due to expiry of few contracts and subsequent pick-up of the new contracts by the JV. Gross margin increased to 83% as lower inflation, efficient procurement strategies, coupled with effective supply chain lowered production cost. Additionally, continuous focus on process optimization and operational discipline lowered other expenses as percentage of sales by more than 150 bps. Share of profit from JVs and associates was INR 80 million this quarter, which was due to a one-time deferred tax adjustment, along with certain pre-operating expenses being for the units that are being mobilized as of now.
Our consolidated PAT increased to INR 950 million in Q1 FY26, delivering a strong 19.3% YoY growth compared to the previous year. I will close the opening remarks and will hand it back to the operator to open it for Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi team. Congratulations on good results. Just a request in future, if you could upload the presentation a little bit earlier so that we get some chance to go through it before the earnings call. One quick question from my end is could you explain the seasonality in your business? Typically, you know, if there are no net contract gains during, you know, course of a year, how should one think about profitability of 1Q, you know, and how does it progressively sort of change from 1Q to Q3, Q4?
Yes. Hi Jay. Good evening. Thanks for your question. This is Varun here. In terms of what we see in the business, which I think has been quite consistent over the last few years, is normally for us in terms of seasonality, which is why YoY is a useful indicator to see. H1 tends to be a slightly lower percentage versus H2. You could roughly consider it as being 45% H1 and 55% H2, driven by the fact of passenger traffic. That ratio comes from passenger traffic is roughly 45% towards H1, 55% H2. You know, at the holiday season you have the months of December, January, February, where air traffic tends to be stronger as well as, you know, consumer spends during the holiday period as well.
People on leisure travel tend to spend a bit more. That is something we have generally seen across the business. Particularly looking at and therefore, you know, you see that trend is happening, year-on-year and playing out in the numbers as well. If you see in terms of particularly referring to the profitability and how that plays out, you know, over a period. I think what one surely does see is, you know, that quarter three and quarter four, you know, with that same logic, are the quarters that do stand out, you know, as you would see reflected in our numbers as well.
I think maybe we can maybe make reference I think to this particular quarter as well while, you know, looking at it, traffic has been, you know, slight moderation towards the end of the quarter, but like you said, you know, you see those effects on normal period where Q3, Q4 would be much stronger from versus Q1, Q2.
Any color you can provide which helps us appreciate the operating leverage advantage you get into second half better? Because when we look at historical numbers, given that accounting changes and it is a little difficult for us to. If you can just tell us broadly, you know, everything else being same, if the revenue split is 45/ 55 first half versus second half, what could potentially be the profit split first half versus second half?
Sure. I'll maybe hand it over to Vikas. Before I take, I think there was a part of your question which I didn't address. I think you were talking about the net contract gains. That may be just a perspective to give there. You know, in our business that tends to be a bit lumpy by nature of our business. While, you know, the system-wide basis, we've had a growth there in terms of new units being mobilizing across airports, you know, there. But in terms of that tends to be a bit lumpy. It's not, you know, year-on-year basis, it tends to be may not be one quarter, but it could very well be in the next quarter, you have a significant jump.
You know, that's why nature of our business, where these units come in a master concession, there, you know, versus obviously LFL coming consistently. I'll maybe hand over to Vikas to maybe address your question right now.
Jay, as we progress, quarter-on-quarter, what we see, despite the moderation in air traffic, we believe that the moderation will bear out by the end of H1 and traffic should come back to normal in terms of the historical trends at which it has grown. From that perspective, we are well equipped to kind of capitalize on the opportunities looking at the real estate that we operate across airports. As more units are getting mobilized, we are talking about roughly around 50+ units that are going to be mobilized during the current year in our system. From that perspective, we believe that yes, we are well on track to achieve our budgeted numbers. Coming back to your efficiency point.
In terms of efficiency, as we have, typically we have seen that in our real estate we operate not only central kitchens but central stores. Because we operate in the entire ecosystem of the airport F&B and the lounge, parameters, we are able to bring in certain efficiencies due to our scale, also in terms of manpower deployment. Those efficiencies will continue from that perspective. Our operating margin overall in H2 should only improve looking at how we have traditionally also performed.
Sir, one more question, if I may. 12.5% like-for-like sales growth and 4.5% traffic growth. I'm assuming the balance, you know, the gap between the two is largely driven by, pricing. Is that right understanding?
It's a combination. Yeah. It is partly comes in from pricing, but partly because obviously it's been a year from that point of view. In addition to that, I think in this particular instance, there's a large amount of initiatives around, so a lot of new brands coming in, and if you see the number of units that have opened in that period as well have been quite significant. You know, that pushing, you know, the existing units, premiumizing their offer, that plays out quite well in our LFL in terms of... We've done a lot of promotions around it. To your point, I think, we make sure the deck , I think that feedback is taken.
We do talk about a lot of the efforts, initiatives we've done there in existing units to push like-for-like sales. I think that's something as a business we do consistently to push up like-for-like sales is very much the nature of the business. It's a combination of no-doubt price, but there's a lot of efficiency gain initiatives on the ground, which translates over and above the air passenger traffic, as our numbers show.
Do you at, do you expect this?
Mr. Jay?
Sure.
I just request you to please-
I'll get back into the queue.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Nihal Jham from HSBC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good evening. Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Two questions. One, a clarification that when you're given the like-for-like growth for the console business and system-wide, I believe for the console sales it is basically the existing airports have given a 6% LFL. Whereas the system-wide, which is at 12.5%, is basically the new airports which have come in. That is what explains the differential. That's the right understanding to clarify?
Nihal, you are absolutely right. The LFL for system-wide is a combination of both your consolidated numbers as well as the JV and associates. As Varun had spoken earlier, the system-wide sales represents revenues from the entire footprint of QSR and Lounges that are managed by TFS under long-term contracts as well as JV partnerships.
Understood that. Is it possible to get a sense, you mentioned there were disruptions towards the second half of the quarter because of certain incidents that what was the LFL trending at before some of these incidents played out? Just to get a sense that once things normalize in H2, maybe to get a sense of how it can improve towards?
I think, particularly these sales, as you see, look, I think those incidents were primarily for start of May. We had the geopolitical event, particularly in India, you know, with India-Pakistan happening. That had some effects on traffic, but I think it was June, the mid of June as well, where you had the unfortunate crash as well. I think those were the effects that happened towards the second half of the quarter. You did see those play out and probably play out on certain particular markets, a bit more prominently. I think that's been the nature because as you know, there were slight aircrafts, were partly taken off by Air India. I think it was 15% reduction in international wide-body flights and a 5% of certain narrow-bodied flights as well.
I think that combination was there from June as well, that drop. You could see that particularly playing out in certain airports like, maybe Delhi. You know, it was in Kolkata, played out in Goa. You know, these airports you did see that effect probably play out a bit better, a bit more in terms of the versus the other airports. What's happened, I think, which is evident from Air India's own indication, from around August, those numbers have been are coming back. We can see those green shoots very much in our numbers in terms of the growth, you know, versus the last year. I think, you can see that kind of playing out from those very indications by H1 of this year, the end of H1, kind of normalizing to normalcy.
When I say normalcy, I mean normalcy of the growth levels we've been quite used to there. While we know we've been able to have consistent strong growth by, you know, LFL growth being still strong, you know, with our initiatives plus the combination of new units, we've nonetheless had a 26% system-wide growth as well. I think that perspective just of the sector, it looks to be on the trend of improvement currently.
Varun, would it be possible to give a sense of April or say till mid-May, what the console LFL and the system-wide LFL was trending at?
Nihal, the overall passenger growth which is in the public domain, April on April, kind of grew around 10%. From the mid of May, it kind of tapered out due to the geopolitical events. Unfortunately, at the end of June, and some bit of July, what we are seeing is the passenger traffic growth has been impacted due to the unfortunate accident of Air India crash. From that angle. As Varun said earlier, we are seeing the off-shoots come.
Got that.
We're starting to see some increase. Yeah.
Sure. Just one more question, before I go back in the queue that, you could just give a sense of, the expansion plans at Navi Mumbai and Jewar about when is it expected to operationalize and how our units will build up through the year?
You know, in terms of dates, I think, they, you know what, they've publicly announced information we can hear those airports particularly. We can see that and probably refer to. We have currently in our system about, we're giving a broader perspective, which will be helpful. We have about 70 outlets roughly under construction, which includes Navi Mumbai and Noida. These outlets are actually in design construction phase as we speak, in addition to the 491 outlets. You know, we have about 454 Travel QSR and 37 Lounges. You know, that number, you know, we have, in addition to that 70 is over and above that. That's those 491. That's currently in place.
Both of these airports, I believe are opening in this particular calendar year, is what is called out, you know, from their date. Our constructions are well underway. Many of these outlets are even ready as we speak. I think the dates of those airports, as those come live, those units will be trending probably in some degree of phasing. Yeah. Those would be coming online in the next few quarters.
Got that. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vedant Rane from Unifi Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congratulations on a good set of number. I just have one question. If it is possible to give expiry date or expiry year of key contracts such as Delhi T3 or Airports Authority of India, where you have some airports? Hello?
Yeah, hi. Just a question. Some of the data we have, particularly while, you know, individual contract data, we, you know, as you'd understand, will be commercially sensitive. We had in the RHP called out some of this information, particularly on contracts, that was needed.
Okay.
it may be best to refer on specific contracts to the RHP. I think it has to the RHP. It has that specific details there.
Okay, sir. Got it. Just one last question. You know Delhi T3 is now under subsidiary. Is it possible that in future it will follow same trend as GMR JV? Like, will it get converted into a JV? Just to be.
Currently, the entity, just to clarify, it is under a subsidiary which is also a joint venture with, you know, with the airport operator there. That contract, when it comes up, particularly because, you know, there will be different contracts there, at that point in time, maybe an evaluation one would do. That currently it is operating under already a joint venture with the airport operator. While it's a subsidiary, it is a joint venture with the airport operator.
Okay, sir. Got it. The PAT gets consolidated with your consult panel, right?
Yes. This is Vikas here. The PAT does get consolidated, under the equity accounting method, the non-owner share is kind of clarified as well in our results.
Right. Got it, sir. Thank you so much. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akhilesh Bhatter from IKIGAI Asset. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, team. congratulations on a good set of results. I have two questions. first one, mainly I just wanted to get some more color on the deceleration in profits, flowing into JV, and how do you expect that to pan out for this year?
Hi, Akhilesh. Akhilesh, if you could just repeat that again. I didn't quite.
I just wanted some more color on the deceleration in profits flowing from JV, and how do you expect that to pan out for this year?
Akhilesh maybe give me perspective. The JVs, as you know, are in the process for us, as we called out in the RHP as well, in the process of mobilization. Part of that mobilization, you know, many new units are being activated as would be evident, you know, in our system-wide sales as well, growing out as well. That perspective are the JVs currently, where they're at. The cost, the way it plays out is when we mobilize new units, we tend to have pre-opening costs as well as it takes us roughly those 12-18 months of operation for those units to operate at levels that we normally see in other units. You know, in terms of new outlets coming in, operating them efficiently, getting them up to the PAT levels.
Not that they may be breaking even earlier, but getting them to the required PAT levels that we see for the rest of the mature business, it takes a bit of time as a normal practice. Most of the joint ventures or all the joint ventures for that matter, are in the state of in heavy mobilizations as we speak. That's why, you know, part of the cost. Those would obviously, as those come in, that profit would be on a trend of those costs decreasing. That's the direction there on those joint ventures.
Got it. Thank you. Just some more color on your international expansion. How does it look like, how's the ramp-up going in the new airports? Any color for this year or any future expansions that are in the pipeline?
In terms of portfolio, we had over the last 12 months, mobilized the Lounge in Malaysia. We have also mobilized the lounge in Hong Kong as well over the last 12 months. That business is trading. The business in both of these markets, like I said, is in relatively early days in terms of the period, and trading strongly as well. We continue to look at new opportunities, by nature of our business, you know, once we have the stage where we would have an opportunity while we're constantly doing a business development program and efforts in markets, that's part of our continuing strategy for this year as well. You know, as there are any wins and decrees, we would be coming here, but there is a quite a well-organized and efficient effort being put in for those opportunities.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask question. The next question is fro the line of Arvind R from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for giving me the possibility. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, since airport lounge is your major business, major contributing business, and the contracts at some of the locations like Chennai and Kolkata are about to expire. How do you foresee growth? Is the business, the majority of your business, which is 50% from airport Lounges, is at risk because of that?
Hi. Yeah, in our, you know, by nature of our business, and I referred to as well earlier, we've been operating since 2009 in this sector. You know, we have, we operate both guest Travel QSR and Lounges. Obviously our breakup of that is quite evident. Roughly you could say about relatively equally from a system-wide point of view. In terms of our contracts, I think what has been, I think, evident from the 2009 till now, a very important part of the business is contract retention.
What we always would focus on, part of our business strategy, is no doubt, yes, one part is net gains and business development, which comes at certain frequencies, it tends to be lumpy, but retaining contract is as much a part of development strategy. We've had a retention rate in our business since 2009 of 94% of contracts. I think that's evident to the ability to perform well and-
This call is now being recorded.
As well as the long-term relationships that we have with the airport partners. We constantly have contracts coming up for renewal and us obviously having quite good success at renewing the various contracts when they do come up for renewal.
Okay. Just to add on that. As your contract at Adani is also creating a partnership with likes of lounge operators like Plaza Premium. As it is evident in the news as well that there's some friction with Adani, with your partnership with Adani. Do you want to comment on that?
We have I think what is evident is our outlets under any joint venture are particularly called out. You know, that's been part of our, you know, both the, you know, the numbers that are there when we, in the RHP as well as currently that we have in the business. We have our footprint in the airport. That I think you see from in terms of the LFL and the net gains account for any other stores which may be operated by any other partners or anything else. You know, in any point of time, we don't say we have the full market, you know, in terms of that. We've, you know, put our market shares as well.
I think I mentioned earlier as well, you know, we have a 45% market share on Lounges and roughly 26% on Travel QSR. What we have been seeing, the general trend is we've been increasing our market share. Do we at no point see that being an overnight exercise. That is something that generally by, we believe the strengths and our focus on this particular segment, that has been happening in a steady and gradual manner. We operate in a sector that is itself growing quite well. I think that's been our strategy going around. You know, we're very clear that we operate a large amount of outlets, and there's an ecosystem, there'll be different operators, different players.
I think we've been seeing consistently our market share, which is part of our strategy as well, has been growing quite well. Plus, as airports in India which are growing, grow larger, more airports come in the purview for what we would look at as opportunities. Because we tend to look at obviously the larger airports in terms of our product mix, what we do on Lounges, what we do on premium Travel QSR. As airports grow larger, they tend to be airports that we would look at in terms of taking our model to.
Just to add on that. The airport operators now are coming up with their Lounges, like at Bangalore T2 and GMR as well is coming up with its own lounge. I mean, won't they be able to make you go out of business if they come up with their own Lounges?
Could you repeat that question? Your voice was a little muffled, if you don't mind.
I'll repeat again. I'm saying airport operators will also come up with their own Lounges, like at Bangalore Terminal 2, and GMR is also coming up with its own Lounges. How do you cover up that risk?
I think different airports have different players which may be doing individual lounge opportunities. I'm not aware of GMR doing its own Lounges, I don't think that's a reality. I think there, for example, the one in Delhi, like the new one I know at T1 is operated by Encalm. There would be different operators there, which is very much part of the ecosystem, and we would have market leadership. Nowhere do we say we have 100% of the market, if that's the opportunity of growth that's there in any market. Those would no doubt operate in different markets there. I think that information may be slightly incorrect in terms of there. You'd have different Lounges, could be done by different operators, could be joint ventures with the airport operators that maybe.
Hello, Mr. Arvind. Does it answer your question? There is no response from the person, we'll move to the next. The next question is from the line of Dhiraj Mistry from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening, sir, and congratulations on good set of number. One question, regarding your, no doubt your disclosure is better, the disclosure which you had in DRHP, in terms of revenue from the lounge and QSR, can you give that breakup for the quarter?
Hi, Dhiraj. Sure. If you just give us just some time to just look up so we can refer to that and answer your question.
Dhiraj, our overall breakdown between Travel QSRs and lounge for Q1 FY 2026 is roughly around 50% via Travel QSRs and around 46% via the Lounges business.
Got it. What was that in the base year, sir?
In the base year, it was on a similar plan, roughly around 48% again in Travel QSR and around 50% in the Lounges section. From that angle, that's where we have.
Yeah. This you are talking on consolidated sale, that is on system level sales or consolidated sales, reported sales?
This is system-wide sales because, from all, practical aspects, we do monitor what we manage and operate at a system-wide, both the Travel QSR and Lounges. For that same services, we do get also a management fee.
Got it. Got it. Sir, second question is regarding regarding your QSR business. If we take a slightly longer let's say the over last five years period, whatever what is your like for like growth? If you can divide that between pricing growth and traffic led growth over the long-term period, so that it it would be very helpful as an analyst to forecast the growth going ahead.
Yes. We may not have those numbers handy. We're happy to be engaged if you could send that communication and we can probably get back to you particularly on that breakup over a longer period of time. Is that really the last decade, you know, we've seen those numbers. We've had a consistent, you know, more than 20% CAGR. That's with obviously COVID in between, but I think from point to point, our CAGR has been more than 20% in terms of our sales growth as well system-wide, plus, PAT has been even larger than that. That's been the general trend in the business over a long period of time.
In terms of specific areas, you know, carve out of that, if you'll be able to reach out, we could, happy to engage with you and, share some of that. We don't have that handy for a longer period of time right now.
Got it. Got it. Sir, last question. The gross margin expansion, what we have seen during the quarter at the adjusted sales level, what are the reason for that? Is it purely the mix or is there any pricing element also in that?
Dhiraj, I will take this one. The gross margin improvement is mainly due to the lower food inflation and the efficient procurement strategies as I had called out, coupled with that effective supply chain management, which kind of lowered all the overall costs. Additionally, because of the real estate and the volume that we manage, we have negotiated our annual contracts with suppliers effectively given the increase in scale of operations.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Agrawal from ICICI Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. This is Rahul from ICICI Asset Management. I'm just continuing on the, you know, questions asked earlier on lounge versus QSR, more on the growth trends, you know, next three years, if you can talk about, how would you foresee your growth between these two formats? Will it be similar or one will be higher or lower? Secondly, on the same question, from a return on investment perspective, what is more lucrative? That's the first question.
Hi, Rahul. Generally, Rahul, I think from a perspective, see, a lot of the dynamics that drive passenger spending in airports tends to be, you know, passenger growth. Those tend to be quite common among both businesses. In our RHP, particularly, there's a call-out around the expected, I think, the industry report over the next 10 years, both are expected to grow quite similarly at a 20% CAGR over a 10-year period. I think Lounges expected to grow slightly more because the extra kickoff, you know, credit cards, other penetration, premiumization of airlines, you know, wide bodies, et c. You know, those areas But generally we see these as being quite similar in terms of the dynamics and the growth expected in both of these sectors.
For us particularly, you know, obviously year-on-year you may get some opportunities in a particular year on Travel QSR and Lounges. Quarters and individual years, you may have one growing slightly above, but I think from a general trend, structurally both are in quite a strong perspective. Consumers in both areas, you know, are eating at airports, want premium experiences at airports. That I think generally is very evident to grow together. I think for us probably the additional area is we're also looking at Lounges internationally as well. Over and above the current growth expectation in India, we do see that as in the medium-term an opportunity. The longer-term opportunity on Travel QSR, which we called out as well, was the highway opportunity.
You know, with the significant private and public investments happening on highways, we see that as an opportunity in the long term as that ramps up for us to take the Travel QSR opportunity there as well. Those are additional drivers of growth we see, for each of the segments.
Got it. And for both these formats, because you've been operating both formats for a long time, would you just talk about bit of innovations or maybe some global benchmarks which you have, you know, tried to get to the Indian market? You know, how are you doing things differently just purely from a operation perspective?
Sure. Maybe I can touch on maybe one aspect for both. You know, there's a list of things, but maybe one aspect I could address in the question. For example, in terms of the Travel QSR side, brands are a big part of our portfolio. You know, what separates us from peers in the segment and makes TFS stand out is our brand relationships. We currently have 130 brand relationships as of June end. Some of the ones I did allude to in the call, but maybe just reinforcing that again. Earlier we did Nando's recently, again, a global leading brand. The first one, the airports in India, we did that at Delhi Terminal 3.
We also are getting one of the world's most prominent chefs, Gordon Ramsay, two of his concepts we're launching shortly in India. This is, one gonna be at Delhi Terminal 1 that's launching shortly this month and then subsequently Mumbai Terminal 2 as well. You know, those brand relationships, the brands we get is a big separator that allows us, you know, to get incremental customer spend and also premiumization, right? You're playing that opportunity which I think from an Indian consumer point of view, I think we have Indian consumers more than ready for some of the concepts that are world leading in premium. Actually the demand sometimes I would think is actually more than most other parts of the world. Actually, our consumer here is looking for those type of experiences.
I think that's one as a driver there we do see to drive upside. In addition on Lounges, you know, there are various initiatives, I think one thing we're doing, for example, is we are increasing and cementing much more deeper our tie-ups with the, our relationship, our lounge partners there. We've actually developed a technology platform, integrated one. There are self direct tie-ups with, you know, our banking and credit card network partners where we can actually tie up directly. To provide a much direct consumer and a seamless consumer experience. You know, it doesn't go through aggregators or intermediaries. It's a direct tie-up. Customer experience on the ground is much better. It's a integrated single platform, you know, it doesn't matter what you have. You know, it's a much more seamless experience.
We can address different cohorts, right? Depending on the card. You have a X card for this customer cohort versus Y. Today Lounges is one experience. By having a direct tie-up, we can actually partner with our credit card networks and banking partners much deeper and create different experiences. We see the consumer directly, we can create different experiences for each credit card. You know, whether you have X card or Y card, you know the color, you know the nature of the consumer for our partners, we can create those and ultimately that is where we see an opportunity, which also would be potentially margin accretive in the long term as well.
Got it. Just your comments on the return on investment for Lounge versus QSR. Is there any difference or both are similar?
Return on investment tends to be quite similar because the way we approach this is a portfolio approach. You know, for us, we look at it not from a single branch. Sometimes, we always say that, you know, even within lounge, Travel QSR versus Lounges, within Travel QSR, there's probably more variation than between Travel QSR and Lounges itself. Within Travel QSR you have, you know, your normal QSR outlets, what you traditionally call the high street, but you also have casual dine. You would also have in that, you know, where the bar concepts you would have. You could have, you know, different, you know, varying different offers that could be there. You know, more sit down restaurant, grab and go, you know, various things.
I think within that sometimes you see more variation, but our general perspective is, on the return on investment, we tend to look at portfolio approach, so it tends to be quite similar across both of these in terms of the investment versus, what the return for us, on ROC is.
Got it. Just one small last question, on the revenue salience. Just from a risk perspective, today, if we talk about the India business for you know, let's say how is your revenue concentration like? Like, let's say top three airports, top five or top 10 maybe however you wanna break down it, where is, how is the revenue concentration for the business?
Some of these details we have, I think they are specifically called out in the RHP in quite a bit of detail. I won't have it handy now, but that would be the best place to look at because I think those particular things are called out in quite detail there.
Sure. I'll refer to that. Thank you so much, Varun, and thanks. All the best for the rest of the year.
Thank you. Much appreciated.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akhil Parekh from B&K. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the margins front, right? We are seeing a significant gain, at EBITDA level. You know, sort of 400 basis jumped on a YoY basis. Do we see that margin gains what we have achieved in 1Q, to be sustainable? Because historically we have been in range of 30%-33%. If it is 38%-39% EBITDA margin is sustainable going forward? That's my first question.
Hi, Akhil. Vikas here. Our EBITDA margin, like, since we pride ourselves on our financial discipline in terms of, as I had explained earlier, in terms of procurement of goods, we have been efficient in terms of managing our food inflation as well as entering into annual tenders, which has brought down our costs down, and that has given us a certain uptick in terms of this. We believe the gross margin to be in a range-bound manner of around 80%-82% throughout the year. Further to that, the EBITDA margin is also in terms of the fiscal discipline that we have done in other expenses as well as the contract management part, which has improved the overall EBITDA. We believe it to be a sustainable, margin gain, which should be there throughout the year as we proceed.
Okay, great. That's really good to hear. Second, would it be possible for you to share the profitability, JV wise for the quarter or at least give some color, which of the JVs have performed better, which is around INR 8 crore of lesser contribution to TFS from the JV at that level, across the three JVs, if it's possible to share.
Two things. Akhil, since we operate both the JV and associates as well as our own business in the same manner. Our the endeavor is always to improve on the margin profile as we go. As you would appreciate that we are mobilizing quite a bit of units, as Varun and I have spoken at the start, in the JVs and associates as well. What I can give you a bit of color is more in terms of the sales of the JV and associates, if that is fine from your perspective.
Yes, that would be helpful.
Roughly, if you look at it, from an overall perspective, since our own consolidated numbers were roughly around INR 3.75 billion and JVs and associates kind of formed roughly around INR 3.4 billion, out of which roughly around INR 2 billion is what we have seen from our JVs with under Semolina Kitchens and overall, the rest with the other partners.
Okay. Sure. That's helpful. Final last question, just for clarity. In terms of the differential between the LFL growth, system-wide SS is 13% while console is 6%. It's right to assume, right, the JVs, I mean, the airports other than the newly formed JVs have performed better in terms of LFL growth compared to the non-JV airports?
Yes. That would be a fair assumption. Some of those airports, you know, which, and as you mentioned when I was in the call, so some of those airports of, you know, during this moderation, like you had Delhi, you had Kolkata, you had Goa, you know, which probably form a larger proportion of the consolidated, those showed a bit of softness versus the others, obviously temporary, but there. You can see that's why the slight difference in console versus system wide and many of the system wide units also are trading relatively new in their first year. You know, all of those coupled together is where you see that slight, you see that difference of LFL in system wide versus console.
Okay, great. That's all from my side and best wishes for coming quarters.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the follow-up opportunity. You did mention about direct dealing with credit card issuers. Can you tell us at this point of time, you know, amongst your key credit card customers with whom are you dealing directly, and what is the extent of benefit, you know, typically you accrue when you go from, you know, dealing through intermediaries to dealing directly?
Yeah. Hi, Jay. You know, we are currently, you know, doing this exercise, which we do see, you know, to your point directly, we do see as it being obviously there will be other points, you know, we see it being margin accretive. You know, we do see the other points about prime reasons of doing it is a better customer experience, as well as, you know, it addresses multiple cohorts, right? You're not seeing different card levels. You have customized solutions. I think on various fronts it is a positive for the business. We are currently in the exercise. A few accounts have been, we are working with, for example, directly, you know, we have American Express, which is now working with us directly, there in the previous quarter.
We have, we also. This quarter we are currently in the process, so ICICI Bank and Axis Bank already directly working. IndusInd is working directly. Other banks, you know, it's a process we're creating. You know, this technology platform is performing extremely well, working. Plus we're seeing the benefits on other fronts as well. Currently, since we're in the exercise, probably the numbers will be clear post the completion of this process. I think at the right time, we'll share that relevant information. It'll be evident in the numbers as well. I think the trend is very much a positive trend that's there.
Sure. Last one is, are you evaluating any opportunities, international opportunities, that can sort of materialize and have a meaningful benefit for you anytime in this financial year?
Yes. No, no. It's a continuous process we're doing. Asia- Pac, and the Middle East are areas we are looking at for opportunities. We have teams actually working on that even based out of the country and looking at those opportunities. You know, because of the nature of these opportunities, you know, once you obviously don't want that going out, these are commercially sensitive. There is work, no doubt, maybe answering your question. As they materialize and as we see our business development efforts come together, we should no doubt share that and put that forward.
Yes, you know, coming from the success in Malaysia and Hong Kong, getting into those opportunities, there are similar other opportunities which we are actively working on, part of a continuing exercise like we do in India, internationally as well, the same efforts.
Sure. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Jay.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as that was the last question for the day, I would now hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you very much. We do appreciate all of you taking the time today to join us at TFS for our first earnings call post-listing and hearing us patiently. At the same time, if you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team as well. Wish you all a good evening and a good night. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of ICICI Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.