Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q3 and 9 Months FY25 Earnings Conference Call of TVS Supply Chain Solutions Limited. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations the company has on the date of this call. These statements do not guarantee the future performance of the company, and it may involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing the star, then zero on a touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. J. Shivakumar of TVS Supply Chain Solutions Limited.
Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Margarita. Good morning and welcome all to TVS Supply Chain Earnings Call for Q3 FY25 and nine months ended, December 2024. I hope everyone had a chance to look at the financial results which were posted on the company website and also on the stock exchange last night. We have with us today Mr. Ravi Viswanathan, our Managing Director, and Mr. Ravi Prakash, our Global CFO. We commence the call now with opening remarks from our management, along with the business performance update. It will be followed by an open forum for questions and answers. Before we begin the customary remark, I would like to point out that some of the statements made during this call may be forward-looking in nature and must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk that the company faces.
A disclaimer to this effect has been included in the investor presentation, and I request and hand it over to Mr. Ravi Viswanathan, Managing Director of the company, to make the opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, J. Shivakumar, and good morning to all of you. Firstly, let me welcome all of you once again to our earnings call to discuss the performance in Q3 of the fiscal year 24/25 and for the first nine months of the fiscal year 24/25. I will share with you the highlights of our performance, and as always, my colleague, our Global CFO, Mr. Ravi Prakash, will take you to the analysis of our numbers. We look forward to interacting with you as part of the Q&A session. For the benefit of those participants who might be joining the analyst call for the first time, please note that TVS Supply Chain Solutions is a secular and asset-like supply chain solutions provider with two main business segments, namely ISCS, or Integrated Supply Chain Solutions, and NS, or the Network Solutions segment.
We operate across four continents: Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania, where we offer bespoke and tailor-made solutions in the 3PL space and also offer 4PL services in the select markets. For more details about the company, please refer to our webpage, www.tvsscs.com/investor-relations, so let me get into a brief business overview, followed by the operational highlights: financial performance in Q3 FY25 and nine months ending December FY25, and our focus areas for the last quarter of the year. The ISCS segment continues as the main revenue contributor thanks to sticky long-term contracts. On the freight forwarding space, the Red Sea crisis continues, resulting in higher shipping costs, delayed delivery, along with other factors which affect the GFS business. The recent Gaza ceasefire has given a ray of hope, but shipping lines are not likely to restore the routes until long-term security is guaranteed.
That said, the mantra for companies like us and for TVS SCS is to be nimble, flexible, and be continuously innovative, which the company has been able to demonstrate over the years, and we shall ensure the same in the future as well. Now, moving on to the performance highlights for Q3 of the fiscal year 2024/25 and nine months of the fiscal year 2024/25. Q3 FY25, consolidated revenue grew by 10% on a year-on-year basis, and in terms of segmental performance, the Network Solutions segment continued its upward trajectory and grew by 20.4% on a year-on-year basis, whereas the Integrated Supply Chain Solutions segment grew by 2.3% on a year-on-year basis. Business development continues to be robust across the segments, and it contributed to 10.4% of the Q3 FY24 revenue in this quarter.
The company reported a PBT loss of INR 15.2 crores for the quarter, and this came because of three main factors. Firstly, the company encountered a delay in commissioning a major project for a key customer in the U.K., thereby delaying the revenues. Our customer is in the utility services business, and the transformation project will now go live post-winter during the summer months, that is, in Q1 FY26. Secondly, multiple customers in the U.K. region outsourced lower-than-expected volumes in an unusually soft quarter, which impacted the revenue of the company, and lastly, one of the key contracts with a governmental agency in the U.K. got delayed due to procedural issues, and we expect the contract to start now in Q1 FY26. Amidst this, relevant costs were already built in, and thereby impacting the profitability of the company.
The company is taking specific initiatives in this regard for the profit turnaround, which Ravi Prakash will cover in detail later in this call. In the freight forwarding segment, the company grew its revenue impressively on a year-on-year basis. The ocean freight growth momentum was driven by rising freight rates in the market, while air freight rates remained resilient in the quarter. The incremental ocean freight rates did not translate to margins due to Red Sea surcharge, which was a pass-through in nature, and hence margins were subdued. With regard to the Integrated Final Mile for IFM as a subsegment under the Network Solutions, we are in the last lap of the turnaround to profitable growth. Now, a quick look at the nine months FY25 performance.
Consolidated revenue for 9 Months FY25 grew by 10.7% compared with the corresponding previous year, and PBT for the same period was INR 16.4 crores. We note that the customer volume drop in the U.K. is seasonal in nature and will be possibly addressed in the coming quarters. With this brief background, let me hand it over to Ravi Prakash, our Global CFO, who will then take you through a detailed analysis of the number.
Thank you, Ravi. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the TVS SCS Q3 earnings call. I would like to start off by talking about four items, four key factors which are actually going well for us in the business, and then analyze the financial results in detail. In the ISCS segment, both India and North America margins are trending well, and that is expected to continue, and that is actually a solid foundation as we work through the next couple of quarters. As our Managing Director has already talked about, the IFM business turnaround is on track. We had messaged that by Q3 of this year, we would probably be getting to break even and start moving towards run rate profitability in Q4 and Q1 of FY26, and that trend continues, and the last point is that the GFS business has demonstrated robust volume growth on a year-on-year basis.
Yes, there was pricing benefit as well, but volume growth has been good. So these are four positives that we, as management, and we would like everybody also to take note of as we go through the rest of the financials. Now, let me walk you through the numbers line by line. Q3 FY25 revenue was INR 244.6 crores compared to INR 221.8 crores for the same period last year. That represents a 10% growth on a year-on-year basis, where the network segment grew very well, almost 20%, and the ISCS segment grew 2.3%. The network segment revenue was driven by healthy volume growth in the forwarding business. The volume growth was supported by higher freight rates as well. Revenues from business development have maintained their momentum, with INR 231.3 crores being booked in the quarter, and that reflects the healthy ROI business.
We have shared these numbers in our earnings presentation. Today, the pipeline stands at about INR 12,500 crores. The combination of good momentum on the freight volume, the ISCS strong customer base, and the business development has sustained the revenue performance. Other income for the quarter was INR 24.6 crores, and that was primarily due to the interest from bank deposits and forex deals. With this, the total income for the quarter was INR 2,469.2 crores, which is a 10.1% growth on a year-on-year basis. When we look at nine months performance versus nine months of last year, revenue grew at 10.7%, which is in line with what we've been indicating in the past.
Nine months revenue was INR 7,496.9 crores versus the corresponding number of INR 6,773.7 last year. Segmentally, ISCS grew 5.6%, where the Network Solutions segment grew 17.4%. Now, let's take a look at the major expenditure items.
Material costs for the quarter were about INR 391.4 crores, which was lower by 9.9% on a quarter-on-quarter basis and 4.9% lower on a year-on-year basis. This cost reduction is on account of a change in the business in some of our overseas entities, which will carry inventory as required in some contracts. The freight clearing, forwarding, and handling expenses, being variable in nature, increased due to the higher volume of freight handled in the GFS business and due to the additional surcharge levied by ocean carriers on account of the Red Sea situation, and that's why they increased on a year-on-year basis at 27.6%. Quarter-on-quarter, they were lower by 5.4%. Employee benefit expense for the quarter was INR 590.3 crores, which is an increase of 2.4% on a quarter-on-quarter basis and 6.9% on a year-on-year basis, primarily due to the change in customer mix.
This is mainly because of the deployment of people in contracts, which is absorbed in the gross margin of the customer contracts. On the EBIT front, while depreciation and amortization expenditures were lower by 3% both on quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year basis, the lower EBITDA generation in the ISCS segment has impacted the overall EBIT, which was down, which was a loss of INR 3 crores. Now, let me walk you through the three key factors which impacted Q3 profitability. The first one, as Mr. Ravi Viswanathan has already mentioned, is a delay in commissioning of a major project with a UK customer. The product was expected to go live in Q3. It has now got pushed to Q1 of FY26, and the infrastructure for the product is in place. Revenue recognition is pushed back, that has impacted the profitability.
Second, and this is important to note, in general, the December quarter is a softer quarter outside of India because of volumes, because of the holiday season. We had anticipated that, but this Q3 was unusually soft for a few customers in the UK. This is clearly a one-time impact because as we go through Q4 and Q1, we do not see any such trends. But that has had an impact in Q3. And in the GFS business, there have been lower margins. The three factors that I've talked about have more or less, what you say, these are the three factors which have contributed to these drops in profitability. The focus of management is to act on a few initiatives to ensure a quick turnaround from the numbers that are coming through this quarter. First, strategic price adjustments in many contracts in the IFM business.
We have talked about in the past that the IFM business, we are taking price corrections to improve margins, and that is currently on. And so we expect to see that benefit in about 20% of the revenue of the company. Second, headcount rationalization. We are streamlining the workforce. We are already taking some steps in the first nine months, but we are going to be focusing a lot in the next coming quarters. Third, overhead reduction. We are taking steps to reduce overheads across the board. And again, we should see the benefits in the coming quarters. Fourth, infrastructure consolidation, particularly in the U.K. We have already acted on consolidating a number of warehouses into larger ones, and that cost benefits also should be coming through in the coming quarters. And lastly, outsourcing to India. We have a Center of Excellence in Madurai.
We have been moving work here, but we are pushing this harder in the coming months. We believe these measures, which are in different stages of implementation, would push us back to the normal profitability that we expect to get from this business. At this stage, I also want to make it clear, our midterm goals of a 4% PBT do not change. The three factors that I outlined are a one-time quarter impact in this quarter and not anything, what should I say, structural with the business, and therefore we expect to turn them around. So I just want to kind of reaffirm our midterm guidance. Finally, there is a clear cut plan to address the impact on overall profitability, and I will be happy to give you greater details during the question and answer session. With this, I'll hand it back to Mr. Ravi Viswanathan.
Thank you, Ravi Prakash, for the analysis. I would like to touch upon the business development and key engagements. The revenue momentum of the company is backed by strong leads. We contributed about INR 231 crores for Q3 FY25 and INR 757 crores for the nine months FY25, reflecting robust performance. And we have those details in the investor pages 14 to 16. We informed in the last earnings call how the company is able to win large deals in mature markets, both in the UK and the US, after winning transformational deals in the UK and USA. We continue our focus on Fortune 500 customers, and we will continue to add Fortune 500 customers to our ranks. During the quarter, we won a notable four-year contract with the UK Ministry of Defence for the provision of maritime consumables and furniture to support the Navy.
This enabling contract will ensure the seamless procurement of a wide range of essential items, supporting operational efficiency for the Navy. Further, in the ISCS segment, we onboarded an Indian electrical company, an Indian consumer durable company, a global agri-equipment company in the USA, an international railway infrastructure company based in the UK, and a global manufacturing company based here in India. Some of the new customer wins in the Network Solutions segments include a global wind turbine manufacturer, a UK-based consumer healthcare company, a global consulting and outsourcing company, and an engineering and electrical equipment company, so a very diverse set of customers across the areas of our focus. As in the past, the pipeline of new opportunity continues to be very strong, and we are building on that strength quarter-on-quarter. It currently represents a revenue opportunity annualized in excess of INR 4,500 crores.
Some of the key opportunities we are working in India include a warehousing solution for a large Indian retail chain, an integrated solution to a global home appliances manufacturer, a 3PL solution including buy and sell for a global wind turbine manufacturer, and an integrated 3PL solution for an automotive parts provider, and some of the key opportunities we are working outside India include a warehousing solution for a global auto component and engineering company, an integrated 3PL solution for a UK-based automobile OEM, a technical repair solution for an industrial giant, and an integrated 3PL solution for an American auto OEM, and a field service management solution for a large retail chain.
In the U.K., in a Fortune 500 company, we have been now down-selected and in the final stage of contracting for a large transformational three-year thousand crore contract, and we expect to give you details over the next few years. That re-emphasizes our positioning and the strength of our solutions and the ability for us to work with the Fortune 500 customers. To grow the scale, the company's global customer account management program is well underway. This program leverages our cross-selling opportunities, and we continue to see success and, more importantly, a very strong pipeline with our global customer account management customers. On top of the Global Account Management, we are also laying emphasis on operational excellence, more specifically around the total customer lifecycle, starting from opportunity development through launch and deployment and into post-launch continuous improvement.
As such, we have created an operational excellence pillar, which is being used in all key customer implementations and will be replicated in all our geographies and large customers. Further, as a tech-led company, we continue to offer best-in-class IT solutions loaded with security features to the customers from time to time. In summary, our year-on-year revenue growth reflects the resilience of our business. We continue to secure large deals and capitalize on significant market opportunities, leveraging our global capabilities and technology expertise. With a robust order pipeline bolstered by strong customer engagements, we remain bullish about our long-term growth outlook. With that, let me open the floor for questions. Thank you.
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 their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Disha from Ashika Institutional Equity. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Am I audible?
Yes, Disha. We are able to hear you. Thank you.
Yeah. Hi. So my first question is regarding the U.K. contract. Can you specify the reason for the delay in contract? I'm assuming it is the seven-year strategic contract that we had signed with the government, I think last quarter. So if you could specify what is the reason for the delay in contract? And as well, you had mentioned in the presentation that the margin impact should continue in the next quarter, as well as a slight margin impact in one-year FY26. If you could help us quantify certain how much cost impact should we estimate?
All right. Let me take the first part of the question, Disha. So if you look at the customer's engagement, we are contracted to run two sets of operations for them. The first set of operations went live in September. The second set of operations, which was more transformational in nature, which had a lot of new technology, new business processes, and a new set of teams, which was migrating from the existing distribution center to the modern distribution center. So the delays were on multiple counts. One was the facility itself got a little bit delayed. Further, technology integration took a slightly longer time. And given that we were not able to complete what we call as the business resilience testing, it is too risky to go live in winter. So that's the synopsis of the delay. Sorry, you want to add? Yeah.
Disha, in terms of the numbers, normally we do not disclose contract-wise impact. But if I take kind of the PBT change that you've seen quarter-on-quarter, the three, four factors that I've talked about probably have an equal contribution.
Okay.
Right? I've talked about three or four factors. They all have an equal contribution to the delta that you've seen in our EBIT performance.
Okay.
Right? And we expect, and like we said, because the contract is going to go live, expect it to go live in Q1 FY26. While we expect there is an impact in Q4, and the contract will go live in Q1 FY26, that is specific to the contract, but we as a company are doing other things to make up for that. So that's also something that I'd just like to do. Yeah. Just to emphasize on that, Ravi Prakash spoke about quite a few initiatives which are all underway, which will give us significant opportunities for us to make up for that single contract's contribution to the PBT. So I think from a program or a project perspective, that's expected to go live in Q1.
That particular project will have an impact in Q4, but we're confident that we'll be able to make do with all of the initiatives that we have supported by new business. Yeah.
Okay. My second question is regarding the ISCS business. While you mentioned in your commentary that the ISCS India, as well as North America business, has been supporting good margins, if I see the growth rate of ISCS India business, it is just 0.5% on a year-on-year basis for the quarter, and it has declined by 3.9% for the nine-month period. So could you just specify what is the reason behind it? I remember earlier in the quarter, you had specified sometime that the elections led to lower manufacturing activities, but this quarter was. I mean, if you could just quantify some reasons.
Okay. So Disha, two things. One is, yes, we had said that Q2 manufacturing was definitely on a lower trend. It has had a slight pickup in Q3. But I think it's important for us to look at India from both a short-term and a long-term. We continue to win significantly large deals, which is giving us a good set of, I would say, visibility towards what it is in the future. Specifically on Q3, I would say the performance, given the fact that there were a couple of projects we exited, it is still something which we are very comfortable with from a momentum perspective. Maybe Ravi Prakash can share more details.
So Disha, I think in the last couple of quarters, we've been talking about the fact that in India, there have been a couple of contracts that we have chosen to move out of.
We have always said that the revenue growth in India will normalize. So it is a matter of one or two quarters before you start seeing the revenue growth again. But maybe I want to spend a bit of time on the comment I made on margins. The India business has managed margins well. They have adapted. They have quickly worked both at a gross margin as well as at an EBIT level and cash flow management to kind of improve their margins. That's why we specifically called out that despite the revenue shortfall, the margin performance has been good. The same has been the case in North America. The reason we kind of called this out is we've always been messaging that the supply chain segment is something that we can depend upon.
All three businesses have performed well as a margin front for the last many quarters. This one time in SCS UK is a first-time event, and therefore we expect to get back, so that's the reason we called out the margin performance in India and North America.
Okay. If I may, I would like to ask another question. See, FY25, we just have one quarter left for it. And considering this decline and the delay in order execution, how do you see FY25 ending? You said that your medium-term goal for FY27 remains intact, and we have a robust order pipeline. But the conversion of that order pipeline, that is taking time due to various reasons, fundamental and technical reasons. So how do you see FY25 ending?
Look, from a quarter-on-quarter perspective, what we see is normally we do not offer very quantitative guidance, but we would expect Q4 and Q4 revenues to be a little bit better than where we had in Q3 from a revenue perspective, right, and then continue to build from there.
Any qualitative guidance on the profitability front?
See, from the profitability front, I'll just go back. Before this quarter, for I think almost four quarters in a row, we had continuously expanded both PBT margins. We had gone from a breakeven to INR 5 crores to INR one to INR 17-18 crores PBT. We view this quarter as a, how should I say, as a blip in the overall journey, and we expect to get back to the normal EBITDA margins in the coming quarters, normal EBITDA and PBT margins in the coming quarters. Yes, there is probably one more quarter to navigate in terms of the three challenges we talked about, but after that, again, we should be back on our normal trajectory.
All right. That is it from me.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vaibhav Shah from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much, Ravi. Sir, in particular in the NS segment, we are looking for a medium-term guide of around 71% in terms of EBITDA margins. So how near or how far are we from there? And should they implement the actual over the next two years?
Yes, Vaibhav. If you look at it. Right? And I'm glad you pointed out the NS segment. NS segment, actually, the margin has improved quarter on quarter. And we are on track to that 7% margin. A big component of that is the IFM turnaround. And that turnaround is well on track. So the two-year time frame, look, I don't want to put an exact time frame, but I think we should be getting there in terms of the 7% EBITDA margin. The target doesn't change.
So, 2026 should be somewhere margins in between both the years. So there should be a marked improvement in 26 as well.
I think that's a fair assumption. In the 2026, definitely better than what we have in 2025, and on our way to getting to that target.
Okay. Fair enough. And secondly, on the ISCS segment, we had mentioned that in last call that 11% margins can't be replicable on a quarter-on-quarter basis. So there is going to be softness in 3Q. But in 4Q, can we see somewhere closer to double-digit?
So Vaibhav, on ISCS, right, you're right. I just want to kind of again call out, last quarter was an extraordinary quarter with 11.1%. In general, in ISCS, we are targeting a range of 9.5%-10.5% EBITDA margin, right? I think we have one more quarter where we have to work through the situation in the U.K. Afterwards, we should again be getting back to, in general, for the last, if you take out this quarter, we have been operating upwards of 9% for the last five or six quarters. That should start in, as we get into FY26, we should get back to that trajectory. We have one more quarter to work through.
So Q4 also should be similar? Yeah, some improvement can be expected.
I mean, look, I think this time it was 8.8. Q4 should be slightly better. I probably can't put an exact number on that. But like I said, Q4 is also not the normal quarter of a 10% as well.
Okay. And like you mentioned that your target of 7% for NS segment in maybe next couple of years. So for the ISCS segment, that could be 9.5%-10.5%, or we can even go beyond that, maybe FY2027 or 2028?
Look, in ISCS, you know that in one quarter, we were able to do 11%. And immediately, we were careful to kind of caution that, look, that was an extraordinary quarter where everything worked. The mix worked. We had some very high-margin contracts coming in revenue. Everything worked. It was a great quarter. So that 11% demonstrates the possibility of what we can do. I think at this stage, we would like to stay with the 9.5%-10.5% guidance. And then once we get through the next couple of quarters, we can always revisit where we could go to. Our aim is always to keep pushing the margin. But at this stage, probably it's good to stay in that range.
Okay. So last year, on the revenue side, we have seen a very strong growth in the NS segment, right, around 17% in the nine months. So that is quite encouraging. On the ISCS segment, we have seen the softness. So it has been in the range of, say, 4%-5%. So Q4 also could be similar. And how do you see 26 and 27, depending on for ISCS in terms of revenue growth?
So look, ISCS, right? I just want to focus on ISCS for a minute. In general, and this time we've given you the seasonal quarters as well. December outside of India is normally a slightly softer quarter. If you look at all the last three years, quarter-on-quarter revenue we've given, Q3 revenue is slightly below Q2 revenue. That's what we have put out in the. You look at phase seven of the earnings deck. That's what historical information shows. And then we get back, right? But before that, ISCS was delivering double-digit growth for many quarters. So if I take 26 and 27, that would be our objective. And we do have a pipeline. Yes. And in this quarter, a few projects got moved to the right, and therefore this quarter revenue didn't come in as expected.
But there is nothing that has changed fundamentally in terms of either our pipeline or structurally in terms of our business engagements. Therefore, the double-digit ISCS revenue growth is something that we would be returning to in FY2026 and 2027.
Okay. But Q4 also would be similar to Q3, or we can see some growth over the last year given the last year there were INR 14 billion?
Look, I think Q4, let's see how it progresses. I think I've given you a fair idea on where the margins will have come through. Normally, in some parts, like for example, India, Q4 is normally a strong quarter. But we'll have to see how it evolves in the rest of the world.
Lastly, whatever projects have been delayed, so we expect them to start mainly pushing in Q1. So that's a fair assumption, right?
It's one project. I also want to kind of maybe place this in context. Look, this is a massive project for a very large company in the U.K., and it's a significant transformation project. It's quite normal that projects of this size, which impact the entire value chain or supply chain of a large company, sometimes the customers and both us could be measured in terms of pushing them to go live, considering the impact on the supply chain. So a three- or four-month delay toward the right in a large engagement. Normally we are on time. Because of the size of the engagement, we've had to call out the impact. It's not unusual. It's just that two or three factors work together, which is, again, how should I say, again, unusual that the project got delayed. It happened in the Q3 quarter where volumes were soft.
We had softer margins in GFS, all three coming together, which has impacted the P&L. Going forward, the project will, like we said, by Q1, FY26 would be on stream. We expect, in fact, as we see, we expect volumes in the other UK customers to get back to normal. We also expect to take the actions. The most important thing is we listed five actions. We are working very hard and on a timely manner on those actions. We expect those actions to start showing benefits.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Those are my questions. Thank you.
Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Payal Shah from Billion Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I have two questions. First, you mentioned in your opening remarks about the profitability in IFM business in the next quarter. So if we wanted to understand what sort of margins and numbers should we look at? Does this business have a potential of the size and scale of our ISCS business?
We always message that network segments we would like to hit 7% EBITDA. Today, we are at about just under 4%, right? The objective of the IFM turnaround is to push towards that 7%. Both the businesses in the network segment, GFS and IFM, as a first step, should hit the 7%, right? The good news is that the trajectory we have mapped out, and we have clearly messaged that probably last year itself, that it's going to take till December of FY25, is on track. From next quarter, we should see the journey towards the 7% mark. That's the first step. Now, I think your broader question, given the scale, should we start moving towards the ISCS margins? Look, internally, that is something that we would always like to get there.
Because when we initially talked to the markets, we always said there's probably going to be a 100 to 150 basis points difference between ISCS and network. What has really happened is ISCS has gone faster into the higher margin territory, to the 9.5% and 10.5%, and network is now trying to catch up to it, how should I say, the norm, which is about 7%. So I think right now, we are focused first on getting to the 7%. I think once we get there, we can have a good discussion in terms of where else it can go.
Oh, okay. That's quite helpful. My next question is on what would be the contribution of GFS and IFM of the overall NS segment, and what will be the margin for each business?
See, I think we have probably not disclosed the gap between GFS and we do it on an annual basis, right? When we do the March quarter results, we typically give out region-wide numbers. At the moment, the margins are kind of pretty similar right now. One is not holding back the other, or it's kind of both are contributing equally to the network segment.
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. I'll join back quickly. Thank you so much.
Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah Nuevo Capital. please go ahead.
Yes, sir. So on ISCS front, I just wanted to know how is the North America geography performing? We have talked about India and U.K. Can you throw some light on this region as well?
It's doing extremely well. In fact, in my opening remarks as well, I talked about the margin. North America is doing very well on a margin front. It's doing well on a revenue front. And we also see a strong outlook for that as we go into FY26. Yeah. I just wanted to add that North America has won significantly large engagements, which we, I think, announced early quarter. And from a pipeline perspective, it looks extremely robust. So North America is a significant engine of growth for us as we look forward to the future.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks.
Mr. Kunal, does that answer your question?
Yes, sir. Yes.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question to the management, you may press star and one. The next question is a follow-up question. It's from the line of Disha from Ashika Institutional Equity. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Yeah, Disha, please go ahead.
Thank you for the follow-up opportunity. I just have one question. You mentioned that the contract in U.K. was a very strategic contract. That is the reason why there was a three- or four-month delay, and you had to call it out. Now, considering that we are expanding in the rest of the world market, and we are going to undertake any such strategic contracts, I believe we are undertaking one in North America as well. So if in case any future delay such as this happens, it impacts your profitability and your profitability margins. So is there any particular step or any change in contract type that you will undertake to ensure that no such profitability margins are impacted?
See, Disha, I just want to kind of place this contract in perspective. I think, and actually, thank you for asking the question. Maybe I'll share a little more information. We've been working on this project for almost 18 months. The project itself was supposed to evolve in three stages. The first two stages went exactly as per plan, and we've actually recognized revenue and margin from that. This third stage was a step up in terms of the revenue and the margin we want to get from this project, which is what got delayed. Now, the reason we are calling out this in this quarter is, to be very honest, if three or four factors had not come out together, we wouldn't have expected this kind of an impact on the quarter profitability. Normally, what happens is most of the business performs to portfolio as expected.
You would have one or two projects kind of getting impacted. That's part of normal business, and the company has adequate profit cover to kind of manage through their profitability. It's a very unusual quarter where you have, and that's in the most predictable part of our business. SCS UK is our most predictable business for the last 25, 30 quarters. It's unusual to have a project delay, lower volume, all happening in the December quarter, and that's why we had to call it out, so the combination of factors that I talked about, look, it's very unlikely that everything will come together like this in a single quarter. That's one, so the second thing I want to talk about is, as we see this, when we budget for contracts also, we are quite measured in terms of the way we budget, how contracts come in, how revenue is budgeted.
So because all these contracts would have some bit of uncertainty, we make sure that we bring that in in our own budgeting and messaging to the market, right? So we do that. And then we have robust project management systems to manage it. The last part I want to talk about is, as management, we don't want to stop by saying that, "Look, this has been an unusual quarter." The reason we are messaging five initiatives, and I'll go through them once again. I've talked about strategic pricing in IFM. When I say strategic pricing, I'm talking about significant pricing, not the normal 2%-3% that a market would expect. We are talking about infrastructure consolidation. We are talking about overhead reduction. We are talking about headcount rationalization. And we are talking about outsourcing, increasing outsourcing.
Now, all these are stuff that you would anyway do, but the reason we are calling that out is we want to be extra sure that we create space in the cost structure as we go forward, right? And that's the learning that management takes away from this quarter, right? So I hope that kind of gives you a little bit of, how should I say, context in terms of the way we manage projects and how this quarter was and what management is doing.
Yes. Thank you. That's it from my end.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Vikram Suryavanshi from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, sir. Just to take it forward on Global Forwarding Solutions business, in terms of network expansion, how much scope is there for at least for, say, our direct services? Or is it like a more done and probably, as you said, cost control would be the focus area?
Vikram, do you mind just repeating the question? Because was it network expansion or freight? Something that you were asking wasn't very clear.
Okay. So my question was regarding Global. Yeah, you heard me?
Yeah, yes.
Question was regarding Global Forwarding Solutions business. How much scope is there to expand our service for direct routes? Or is it more like captured most of the major market?
Let me answer that. Today, we operate around 16 lanes, lane being target and destination. We have no immediate plans to expand our network. We continue to focus on these 16 lanes. These 16 lanes are predominantly based on the kind of shipping frequency velocity that we see from our key customers. No immediate plans for any network expansion. We continue to focus on bringing more efficiency and more throughput in the existing network. I hope I answered this question, Vikram.
Yes, sir. And also, there was some volume pickup between China, U.S., both prior to election. Apart from the Red Sea, we also had seen that impacting the availability of containers. So how is that situation playing out going forward? Now, we have seen U.S. particularly playing with the direct rates. So in this backdrop, what kind of growth or what are our strategies to grow volume?
From a container shipping perspective, I think that phase is over. That was more because I think it is more a Q2 phenomenon where there is massive shipments going from China to US. We are not active in the China-US lane, Vikram. So it's not an area of focus for us. But our focus is really China to Europe. So we'll watch that space because we need to see how these tariffs pan out. So we keep a close look on it to see how it impacts our key lanes. So India-US is a strong lane for us. China to Europe is a strong lane, and China to Australia is a strong lane. So we keep watching these based on what's going to happen with the tariff wars that are out there. But right now, China-US is not impacted. We are not impacted because we don't play on that lane.
But broadly, just to take it for this quarter only, within our Network Solutions, was that Integrated Final Mile margins were more impacted compared to GFS?
See, IFM margins were impacted last year. And probably as we got into the early part of the year in FY25, we have seen a good improvement in the margins in the last three quarters. And we expect them to get to run rate in the next couple of quarters.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments.
Okay. Thank you for all your questions. I just want to say that we're very, very bullish about where we see ourselves in the medium term to long term. Our pipeline is extremely strong. We continue to have a very, very strong velocity of proposals going into 1,500 customers. We expect higher rate of conversion. Like I said, we are pretty much on the verge of closing a fairly large deal within the Final Mile segment again. So our focus on large customers, our focus on Global Account Management, these will continue to drive our business development efforts. And a lot of the measures that Ravi Prakash spoke in terms of bringing in a significant amount of cost management will bolster our profitability as we go forward. And we continue to remain extremely confident as we get into the future quarters.
Thank you once again, and we appreciate all your time as well.
On behalf of TVS Supply Chain Solutions Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect the line.