Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Vijaya Diagnostic Q1 FY 2027 Earnings Conference Call hosted by JM Financial Ltd. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Abin Benny from JM Financial Ltd. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, good morning, everyone. I'm Abin Benny, and on behalf of JM Financial, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you on the first quarter FY 2027 earnings call of Vijaya Diagnostic Centre Limited. At the outset, I would like to thank the management of Vijaya Diagnostic Centre for giving us the opportunity to host the call. We look forward to having an engaging and insightful discussion on the company's quarterly performance and the outlook. I would now like to hand over the call to the management for the opening remarks. Over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Abin, for hosting the call. Good morning, thank you all for joining us on the call today. Before I move on to a detailed business update, I would first like to welcome Raju back, who's rejoined as our Chief Financial Officer, and I'm sure he doesn't need any introduction to the investor community. Moving on to the business update, I'm pleased to start on a positive note as we delivered a solid year-on-year revenue growth of approximately 22.8%, supported by volume growth of nearly 16.5% in Q1 FY 2027. Turning to PH , we're very happy to inform that we have delivered year-on-year growth of approximately 18%, primarily driven by network expansion. Happy to announce that during the quarter, we also added one hub center in Gachibowli, Hyderabad with a 160 slice cardiac CT with superior infrastructure.
During the quarter, we further expanded our network with the successful commissioning of four spokes across Hyderabad, AP and Pune. In July, we added another two spokes. I'm pleased to announce that in July we also commissioned our flagship hub in Bengaluru, located at JP Nagar, where we have introduced advanced imaging technologies, including a digital PET-CT with an inbuilt cardiac CT and also a 75 cm wide bore 3T uMR Omega. The 75 cm ultra-wide bore design allows a patient to remain directly inside the gantry with the child, ensuring maximum comfort, eliminating anxiety. It also enhances comfort for those who are claustrophobic as well as bariatric customers. The hub also houses a full-fledged state-of-the-art automated lab, which will serve as a central lab facility for our Bengaluru network.
Our CapEx plan includes commissioning another nine hub centers and 10- 12 spoke centers, out of which we have already commissioned two hubs and six spokes till date. We will be continuing our efforts to strengthen the technical and with senior level leadership team across our network to help scale in a sustainable manner. With that, I now hand over to Raju to walk you through the operational and financial highlights. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. Good morning and a warm welcome to everyone. It's a pleasure to be back to the Vijaya family, and I look forward to meeting you soon. Now I will take you through the financial performance and key developments for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026. The consolidated revenue for current FY stood at INR 331 crore, reflecting a strong revenue growth rate of 22.8% year-on-year. This strong revenue growth was again driven by test volume growth of 16.5% year-on-year. Balance growth was due to change in the test mix and increase in realization. Hyderabad continued to outperform, maintaining its strong growth momentum at 17% year-on-year revenue growth. Pune also delivered 18% growth year-on-year. Coming to the geography-wise revenue contribution for the quarter, Hyderabad contributed 67%, rest of AP- Telangana contributed 20%, Pune 6%, West Bengal 4%, and the rest of the geographies contributed 3%.
During the current quarter, the revenue growth has been driven by both radiology and pathology segments, reflecting the robustness of our B2C-focused integrated business model. The B2C revenue stood healthy at 92%. Our radiology business stood at 37%. The revenue per test and revenue per footfall stood at INR 403 and INR 1,860 respectively during the current quarter. EBITDA for the current quarter stood at INR 98 crore as compared to INR 74 crore in the corresponding quarter in the previous year, reflecting a year-on-year growth rate of 34%. The EBITDA margin stood healthy at 32.7% in the current quarter, with an improvement of 360 basis points year-on-year. The profit after tax for the current quarter stood at INR 53 crore, reflecting a growth of 37.6%. The PAT margin also stood healthy at 23%.
As you are aware, we commissioned 10 hub centers during the previous year, and the pace at which most of these hubs are ramped up has exceeded our own expectations. The momentum has continued into the second year as well, with pathology revenue now beginning to scale alongside the radiology. This strong exhibition has given us the confidence to deepen our presence in these new markets and replicate the expansion strategy demonstrated last year. Accordingly, we plan to commission nine hub centers, 10-12 spoke centers, and our state-of-the-art Sanjeeva Reddy Nagar Laboratory. In addition, we intend to acquire land in one of Andhra Pradesh's key medical hubs for setting up another hub center for future expansion plans with an estimated investment of INR 8 crore-INR 10 crore. Overall, we expect our CapEx to be approximately INR 190 crore-INR 195 crore for this expansion.
We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with a surplus cash position of approximately INR 330 crore, consistent cash back generation of close to 26%-27%, and a healthy revenue ratio. This resilient financial foundation enables us to pursue our expansion strategy with confidence and maintain a disciplined approach to capital allocation. That's all from my side. I would now request the moderator to open the line for the Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. We will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue is open. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask any question, you may press star and one. We have our first question from the line of Siddhant from Tusk Investments. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Ma'am, my first question is regarding the number of centers. As of Q1, the total number of centers is 166. Could you just give us a breakup between this, how many hub, how many spokes, and does this include collection center as well?
Hi, Siddhant. In the total of 166 centers, we have 51 hubs and 115 spokes with approximately 26 processing units.
The 26 processing is a part of the 166 number, right?
Yes.
it is-
of these processing centers are part of the hub centers, and these act as the cluster labs to process all of those samples across those geographies.
Okay. Ma'am, when we say collection centers, don't we have any collection center number? Or is it-
No, we don't do plain collection center formats at all. The smallest center will also have ECG or X-ray. All of those centers put together come in the spokes of-
115
115.
Got it. The acquisition from the PH Diagnostic Centre, it had 12 collection centers. That also had the spokes model with the ECG.
The 12 collection centers of PH after acquisition also gradually have been upgraded, and most of them have added some amount of imaging and cardiology into it.
Okay, ma'am. Now my second question is regarding the CapEx. The two hub centers that we commissioned this quarter, what was the combined CapEx for the two hub centers?
Raju can take that.
Yeah. Hi, Siddhant. As we mentioned, in the current quarter, we commissioned two hubs, one in Bengaluru, the state-of-the-art hub center with 3 Tesla wide bore, okay? We also installed a digital PET-CT with an inbuilt cardiac CT as well. We have added the state-of-the-art laboratory as well, which will act as a central lab for the entire Bengaluru region. Okay. For this center, the estimated profits is approximately INR 34 crore to include in the current quarter. The second hub center, what we opened is in our core geography in Hyderabad at Gachibowli. Again, it's a prominent location which is close to the financial district and Hi-Tech City. Okay, to suit to this location, we also have done slightly superior infrastructure as well at this center.
This center has also got 160-slice cardiac CT as well in the hub center, apart from the basic radiology equipment like ECG, X-ray, ultrasound, mammography, etc. The CapEx of this center was INR 9 crore in the current quarter was incurred.
Okay. Thank you so much. I'll get back to the queue.
Yeah, sure.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask any question, you press star and one. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. We have our next question from the line of Abdulkader Puranwala from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Just wanted to understand your opinion on what you mentioned about doing a CapEx of close to INR 190 crore-INR 195 crore and then getting some banks. What exactly are we doing there? If you can elaborate could be helpful.
Yeah. Sure, Abdulkader. As mentioned, in the next 12 months, we are planning to add close to nine hub centers and 10-12 spoke centers, out of which we already added few hub centers as of now. Also coming to the spokes, we added six spokes across our network. Okay. Also further, we are also planning to set up a hub center at one of the key [hub centers] locations in Andhra Pradesh as well. Okay. Where things are not able to secure a leased location, we might invest INR 8 crore-INR 10crore to purchase the land to set up another state-of-the-art hub center, which will be close to medical facilities over there. Okay. The overall CapEx is INR 190 crore in the estimate, Abdulkader.
Out of which, as I said, the major CapEx is towards the AP and other Bangalore facility, which will require INR 30 crore. The balance eight hubs will be in the range of INR 15 crore-INR 16 crore will be the CapEx for the other hub centers. Also, as mentioned in the last call, we are also setting up a state-of-the-art reference laboratory in Panjagutta . Okay. The CapEx for this lab is also included in this overall CapEx of INR 190 crore.
Abdulkader, just to add to what Raju has said.
As you're aware, we commissioned 10 hub centers during the previous year, and the pace at which most of the hubs has ramped up has exceeded our own expectations. The momentum has also continued in the second year as well, with now pathology revenues scaling alongside radiology. This strong execution has given us the confidence to deepen our presence in these markets and replicate the same expansion strategy which was demonstrated last year.
Sure, sir. Well understood. Second one on Pune. If I look at your Pune growth, it's close to 23%, while PH's growth rate has improved. If you have to understand directionally, then what timeframe, if you could help us mark that PH would start growing in line with what your average growth in Pune currently is.
Abdulkader, just to correct you on that point, Pune geography in the current quarter grew at close to 18%, okay, from close to INR 10.8 crore to INR 12.8 crore. Also in the coming quarters, we're also planning to add three more hub centers as well. Also we have plans to add few more spokes in that network. Definitely we expect that the growth momentum will continue in Pune geography.
Sure, sir. Understood. Final one, if I may. On margins, this quarter, our margins were quite significantly elevated. Given the expansion plan what you have, would you still guide for around 40% kind of EBITDA margin range?
Yes, Abdulkader. The existing chapter has been growing at a very good rate. The operating leverage is being played out. That's the reason why we could achieve this healthy EBITDA margins of 32.7%, in spite of only adding last year close to 10 hubs. The drag, if any, from those 10 hubs would have been close to a 0.5%. Because of the operating leverage that we're getting from the existing structures, example like Hyderabad geography create healthy 17%. Because of this, the operating leverage is playing out every quarter, and that is helping us to get this above 40%. Even if you get like a 40%-45%, even if there's a drag from the future expansion under 1.5%, we are fairly confident of achieving the above 40% EBITDA margin.
Understood, sir. Thank you. Good luck with it.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Anshul Agrawal from Emkay Global.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Just following up on the previous participant's question on margins. The hub that we sort of commissioned in FY 2026, now that pathology revenues will start to settle down, and these hubs would revert to our portfolio-level pathology contribution of revenues. We don't foresee any margin improvement those hubs because of this, right?
Anshul, Raju here. We don't foresee any dip from these hub centers because 60%-70% of our cost is coming from a fixed cost base. Most of these centers, as we announced in the previous call, they have already achieved the breakeven. That means already the fixed cost has been already absorbed. And as you know, our cost of method consumption and blended rate is close to 11%. Your contribution is 89%. Any further revenue in these hub centers from a pathology business side will directly flow to the EBITDA level. We don't foresee any dip at the margins level because of the pathology revenue growing up in these hub centers.
Sir. No dip in the hub that we added in FY 2026, and in the current year, the hub that we add, obviously no large base of network, the margin dip would not be expected in the range of what we sort of witnessed in Q1 2026. Would that observation be correct?
Anshul, if you remember, in Q1, we had launched the six hubs, all came at one point of time. During this year, you would see CapEx being in a staggered and a phased manner. We don't foresee a significant impact on account of these hubs during the current year or any of the quarters.
Great. Thanks for that clarification. Second question I had was on the land that we purchased in AP. This is no deviation from our strategy of leasing properties, right? This is just a one-off case where we were not able to secure a lease and hence we are buying the land.
Anshul, like we mentioned earlier, there are certain regions of interest that we would like to go in west of AP, Telangana, and Hyderabad, keeping the requirements of the long lease and the infrastructure. Like we mentioned earlier, if we find a place that's suitable, this is an area where we've been trying to open a center for the last almost six to seven years. When we found this piece of land, which is ideal in size and also in terms of location, it's located in the medical hub of that particular region. We said it makes it one of its kind, but it's going to be a state-of-the-art hub center for Andhra.
Got it. Ma'am, this land would likely be purchased in the current year and the INR 190 crore CapEx includes this acquisition cost?
Yes, it does.
Great. Lovely. Second question that I had was on the wellness. Last year we did 14.8% and this quarter itself we are on 14.8%. Would it be possible to sort of add some color on how we are able to sort of ramp or sort of crank up this lever? I have gone through the presentation, any additional color on any specific age cohort that is sort of driving this, and is this a structural sort of a lever that all of diagnostics-
If you ask if it's a differentiated lever, I would say yes, more than structured. Like I said, pre-COVID times, we used to be around 8%, with the awareness, more migration, and lot of education in the Tier 2 geography itself. Now, if you see the 15%, some of it is actually contributing from the Tier 2 geography, which was not what we would see in the early on days. That's also a reason why we do not basically have this process of upselling or pushing packages. The number that you're seeing here, 15%, is pure wellness revenue coming in from customers who are wanting to come and avail one of these packages.
There's only two things that we do differentiated in this, is one is a digital initiative that we continuously try to educate, and then we're seeing a lot of the newer hub centers get more advanced cardiac CT. What's happening is earlier on, the packages would probably end at an ultrasound, 2D Echo, TMT. Now you are seeing packages go all the way from your basic urine blood investigations, all the way up to whole body imaging. That could be in an MR, that could be in a CT. That is also the reason why you're seeing a little additional costing in the Gachibowli center, because we try to work a little differently with the center in terms of the look and feel of the center, the experience itself, and also packaging it in ways where the packages go into multi-organ screening.
This is something that we will be taking forward into Bengaluru, Pune, rest of the geographies that we are, as we understand probably the requirements of the customers better.
Great. Thank you, ma'am. Just a follow-up on this. What would be the price point of these premium wellness packages for us at the personal level?
Like we said, we don't do deep discounting on this. Probably on an MR, I think they would be a little lower than about 20% is the highest. Average package of an angio would approximately range anywhere between, say, INR 8,000 to INR 10,000.
In terms of wellness or patient level or a test level, realization will only inch upwards.
Yes, it will.
Great. That's it from my end. Thank you so much. All the best for the remainder of the day.
Thanks, Anshul.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask any questions, please press star and one on your touch phone. Next question is from the line of Alankar Garude from Kotak Securities. Go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Ma'am, personally, if you look at Bangalore, it's been almost a year since you entered the market. Can you talk about how the competitive landscape has been, both on pathology as well as radiology? If you can comment on your learnings over the last one year, how do you expect the market to play out over the next three to five years?
The competitive landscape, Alankar, I think is more or less the same across most of the geographies that we operate in, Bangalore has been no different. Bangalore, keeping the limitations of probably the difficulties of the city itself in terms of your traffic, logistics, you've not seen large brands grow in Bangalore, where a single brand has about 30- 40 centers. They are locality-specific chains that have five to six centers concentrated in one cluster. To understand the market better, like we mentioned earlier, we chose two geographies since we were new to the market to understand customer requirements. One in HSR Layout on one corner of the city and Yelahanka on the other corner of the city. Both of them exceeded our expectations, broke even in the first year itself.
Now we say Keeping the growth of Bangalore being our core, we will probably treat Karnataka as our next core geography after rest of AP, Telangana. Keeping that growth and the plan in mind, we said we require a fully automated lab first to create a hub, to create the infrastructure before we go on expanding and adding on new centers. That is when JP Nagar has happened, which is INR 30 crore CapEx investment, which is again, like a state-of-the-art hub center like Panjagutta and Hyderabad for us in Bangalore. JP Nagar center has infrastructure which is first of its kind, not only to Karnataka, but many states. The 3 Tesla uMR Omega is the first in Bangalore, and the digital PET with the cardiac CT is also the second. Only a hospital has it, and the first diagnostic to have it there.
There are two things here to add to the wellness, full body imaging in an MR and the cardiac CT gives you the full body imaging in CT. They're not only going to be serving as prescription-based diagnostic facilities, but also probably inching towards wellness there. Next, once the lab settles and gets accredited, you will see a lot more hubs and spokes coming up in Bangalore itself. Then we start looking at home collection. This is basically setting up Bangalore for the next five-year journey. That is where [the initiative] helps us in Bangalore.
That's pretty helpful, ma'am. Just one follow-up there would be, if I compare the different locations you are present in, the different cities, I mean, would you say that Bangalore, in terms of the overall market dynamics, is closer to Hyderabad than any of the other cities you are present in? Maybe another one there is, if you can compare and contrast Hyderabad and Bangalore in particular. Does Bangalore, apart from the micro-market point which you mentioned, can it be as big as Hyderabad for us conceptually fight to fight the next eight, 10-15 years?
Alankar, definitely Bangalore and Hyderabad are very correlated to each other, especially because I would say the southern part of India. Initially when we entered Maharashtra with the Pune acquisition, we said we needed a little more time than the guidance that we had given because it is a new market and we are trying to understand the needs of that localized market. If you look at South India per se, like we mentioned earlier, the way the markets operate, whether it is probably Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, will all be similar. Because we tend to probably, like I mentioned earlier, for a simple headache, we go and see a super specialist and try to finish it in the first instance itself instead of waiting it out.
Also a lot of, like you see the wellness bit growing in Tier 2 geographies, that is because of the basic awareness among the clientele and the importance that is given towards healthcare. Tier 2 geographies, the hubs are also ramping up because of availability of the super specialists across these Tier 2 geographies. Look at Gulbarga in Karnataka. It's comparable to, say, a Nellore or a Kurnool for us in Hyderabad geography. They are definitely similar. If you say what do you look at for Vijaya in the next 10 to 15 years, it's going to be definitely eastern part of India and Karnataka. Both of these are probably enough for the next seven to eight-year plan to go as deep as Hyderabad, and these three states will definitely give us the numbers that all of us would be looking at.
That's very helpful, ma'am. Maybe one final question from my side is on Pune. It's been more than two and a half years since we entered Pune via the acquisition of PH. How should we look at your plans for Pune? I mean, if you can again compare versus what the expectations from the market were at the time of the acquisition, versus how things have played out. Because if you look at the contributions from Pune has been relatively flat at about 6% for us since then. Of course, we have grown in other markets as well, expanded in other markets as well. Conceptually, are you thinking about Pune slightly differently than how you were thinking about it two and a half years back?
Definitely, I'm looking at it differently, but I'm not probably looking at it differently in terms of growth. Probably the strategy and the play that we would do in the other geographies would be a little bit differentiated when it comes to Pune. Like we mentioned earlier, we did take our time to settle in, structure it out, put things in place, processes in place. Like we mentioned, you'll be seeing these nine hubs coming up. You will also see a large hub coming up in Pune. That is basically to create the infrastructure that was required because of capacity issues in the existing PH centers. This fully automated lab, again, state-of-the-art center that will come up in Pune, will again align us to open a lot more spokes collection centers, align wellness and home collection there.
The backend facility was not available with PH, and we also had the constraint of finding the right location. You will see that happen this year itself, in this financial year, which will show us an inching towards the growth. We've also performed well in Pune. We've shown an 18% growth, the new centers are also ramping up. We've also added one spoke in Kharadi as we speak in July. We definitely see Pune growing, but probably a little bit differently when you compare your Eastern India and your rest of AP, Telangana.
Got it, ma'am. That's helpful. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Alankar.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask any questions, you may press star and one. We have our next question from the line of Abin Benny from JM Financial Limited. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hope I'm audible. My first question is regarding the growth. Ma'am, growth has remained above 20% despite a higher base. Possibly, how much of this is attributable to the market share gains versus the industry growth? If you could give some color on the industry aspect going on right now. Along with that, if you could give some color on the competitive intensity that has changed in any of your key markets in the last six to 10 - 5 months.
Abin, if you look at the growth, since we are a B2C-focused integrated diagnostic chain, we always have been outperforming the growth of the industry. The industry was giving close to 13%-14% growth. We used to do at least 4%-5% higher growth than the industry. The reason is mainly the strength of our business model, which is focused on B2C, and then focused on high-quality reporting, accurate reporting. Plus the high-end imaging equipment that we introduced across our hub centers, be it a Tier 2 location or be it a metro geography. That is helping us to gain the market share quarter on quarter and that too consistently across the geographies. That's the main reason.
Abin, if you also look at the current quarter, existing spokes in our core geographies, including Hyderabad, whose vintage is more than five years, they have grown at higher double digits. It indirectly means that what we have been communicating since several quarters, that there has been a gain in the market share and that shift, although gradual, happening from unorganized to organized, that is playing out. Quantifying the market share, et cetera, would be difficult. We don't have those numbers.
Understood. No worries. Thank you for that. Second question is regarding the wellness program. Are corporates increasing the frequency of the wellness employed programs, or is the growth largely driven by retail customers? What categories of the wellness packages are currently witnessing the strongest demand growth?
It's a mix of both retail as well as corporate. Apart from the seasonal packages, the lifestyle packages are showing strong growth for us, be it cardiac, et cetera. Those packages are showing strong growth for us. This is not just restricted to Tier 1, even Tier 2 cities are showing higher growth. That trend has been a surprise for us.
Understood. Thank you. I'll get back in touch with you. Thanks.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of [Bharat] from Quest Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just to understand, on this, your differentiated approach in Tier 2, Tier 3 city. If you can give little more color. Second thing on digital space that when you are talking, how do we really using AI, I mean, pathology as well as other diagnostic combining and giving a better output in terms of the patient whole wellness point of view.
[Bharat], yeah. When it comes to AI, especially in the wellness packages, there is a smart report that we generate for all of our lifestyle packages that Dhiren was mentioning. These are more customized towards the patient's history, details, age, and these are specific to that customer. All of the lifestyle packages across Vijaya, along with a traditional report, also get a digital AI smart report. When it comes to reporting, there are certain modalities and basically AIs, again, organ-based in radiology. We cannot just take and pick and implement any AI. It needs testing, it needs validation, it needs certification before we can use it for clinical use. There are a few of these that we use for our KUB cases, chest cases, breast cases.
As and when our team of 400 + radiologists evaluate and then decide that this can be put for clinical use, these are patched to our PACS systems and it is an integrated report that goes out. Likewise with pathology. When it comes to digital initiative.
Sorry, ma'am. Coming back to, I mean, on that same path. How is the acceptance vis-à-vis other player and where do we stand in this whole stake on wellness when you are saying that combining or whenever digital.
I think even without an AI bit of it, [Bharat], if you go back to your basic wellness, if you look at a wellness package in any integrated player, just not Vijaya. Basically you're looking at everything from blood work to an ECG to advanced cardiac imaging to radiology. If I'm a smoker, probably you're covering your lungs through a chest X-ray. If I have a liver issue, I'm covering it through your ultrasound If I'm a lady above 45 years, there is women's wellness, which covers your Pap smear and Liquid-based cytology with a mammography. If I'm a cardiac patient, then it goes through your cardiologist. Again, Vijaya only has qualified DM cardiologists who perform these tests, unlike other centers.
A wellness integrated center probably will have all this covered versus a pure pathology health package, which will include probably in number you would look at, say, 30-70 tests being performed. Is it holistic and complete in nature? That depends on the requirements and needs of the customer. This awareness has basically created that wellness bit to inch. If I probably go through what is my requirement in a year and everything is normal, you would repeat it only once in two years. Otherwise, probably a year. This is again, both from corporate side and a walk-in customer base. When a corporate customer walks in and goes through this experience, it's only fair to say that he would want his family to experience all of this.
With one corporate client, you also tend to have another two or three walk-ins who would want to come back and get a full health package done.
Is it really adding, inching up in our overall revenue pie?
It is looking like that in your numbers. For us, operationally, it is definitely increasing, and it is adding more value also. That is the reason why we've also relooked and advanced the wellness packages into more advancement into some of these also, where age group of people is above 60-70. We've brought in an MRI brain into a screening protocol to rule out dementia, to rule out a lot of other things. In people, say, between 40-55 years, we've brought in a lot of advanced cardiac imaging with cardiac angios. There is a separate profiling for liver patients with a liver elastography. These are based on the needs and requirements of the customer.
Okay, great. Now coming to these Tier 2, Tier 3 cities you can give.
Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are likewise. [Bharat], if you look at Rajahmundry, why I'm picking it is, Kakinada is a larger geography compared to Rajahmundry. We chose Rajahmundry as a geography to understand interiors of Andhra Pradesh. When we entered Rajahmundry, we said we would like to give ourselves three to four months extra to break even. We broke even in the first nine months itself. Again, Rajahmundry, which gave us a very pleasant surprise, was in the wellness segment. Rajahmundry, being the smallest town in that section, today has a lot of wellness packages coming in almost from 150 - 200 kilometers surrounding it. Probably keeping Rajahmundry in mind is why we have looked at other geographies and also inching towards wanting to buy this land in another Tier 2 geography and create a state-of-the-art hub there.
All of these Tier 2 geographies, medically, not just with diagnostics, in terms of super specialists moving back, large hospitals coming up in these geographies. Early on, you would see customers traveling to nearby cities is gradually decreasing year-on-year, and all of this customer base is being treated, diagnosed, taken care in that geography itself. Probably examples for you to understand better would be Tirupati, Kurnool, Nizamabad, Khammam, all of these centers.
In your vision of five to seven years, where do we see our next kind of a thing, if we can give little more color?
Probably I'm saying after 10 years, we would replicate what we have mastered in the eastern part of India and in Karnataka as a whole. Be as dense as possible, create the same dense cluster model of a hub and spoke, increase our home collection and wellness segment. At the same time, be pioneers in what we do, best in imaging, best in pathology.
Thank you and all the best, ma'am.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from line. Dr. Kartik Bhané from Bajaj from Bajaj Life. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. A lot of AI-based companies are on the lookout for healthcare data. Do we have any possibility of monetizing the healthcare data that we accumulate? First of all, is it ethical, and what would be the regulatory things that we have to undergo if we have to monetize such a data?
Dr. Kartik, we're on the same page as you. We have a goldmine of data, today we do not know in terms of compliance on what can be done, cannot be done. We will engage the right agencies, after we get what is required as per compliance, probably plan it out accordingly. As of today, as Vijaya, as a company, we do not share this data. We have a very strict privacy policy in place, and this data is not being shared with anyone.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask any questions, you may press star and one. We have a follow-up question from line of Siddhant from Tusk Investments. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello. My follow-up question is, what was the mature center growth in Q1? In terms of absolute EBITDA loss from the new center, could you just highlight what was the absolute EBITDA loss from the new centers?
The mature centers grew at 16%, and the new centers, the revenue contribution from them was 6%-6.5% for the quarter year-on-year. In terms of the burn, the three to four hubs which have not reached breakeven, which we've launched one year back, or you can say couple of hubs which we launched in December. The burn is roughly about 0.5% of our top line. Overall, if you compare all the 10 hubs together, there is no burn as such. Majority of the hubs have achieved breakeven.
Okay. Basically, you're talking about just INR 1 crore or INR 2 crore of EBITDA loss for this quarter.
Less than INR 1 crore.
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask any questions, you may press star and one. We have our next question from the line of Amey Chalke from JM Financial Limited. Please go ahead. Amey, are you there?
Yeah. Sorry, I was on mute. Thank you for taking my question. I have two question. First, a broader question basically on Vijaya growth strategy. For last few years, let's say two years before, we have been consistently growing organically in Hyderabad cluster, and that was a proven model. Investors are always concerned that Vijaya Diagnostic Hyderabad cluster how they will perform outside Hyderabad or the Andhra Pradesh cluster. Now, over last one or two years, the way the performance has been for the last 10 hubs which we have opened up. Now we want to open up nine more hubs this year. It looks like that we have found a model to grow outside Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh region as well.
Our expansion focus from here would be keep growing because of this confidence, and should we expect a 20% growth would be a new normal for Vijaya?
Amey, as you said, I think we have been growing consistently across geographies and including like Hyderabad, which is a mature cluster. Without even adding any hubs in the last two to three years. I am happy to state that we grew at 17% in Hyderabad. Which constitutes close to 67% of revenue pie from the overall revenue contribution for us. Apart from Hyderabad, even the Tier 2 locations that we launched the last two to three years. Like what Ma'am was explaining, like Rajahmundry, Tirupati, Khammam. Places like Krishnanagar in West Bengal, et cetera, have outperformed. In fact, they surprised us with even breakevens getting achieved in just two to three quarters in most of these locations. The Bangalore being mature. Both the hubs achieved breakeven as per our expectations, and they are doing extremely good. The reason is simple.
Focus on B2C, then give a superior experience from infrastructure perspective compared to other standalone players, and invest in the high-end radiology equipment. Which is generally not there in other players. This is the main differentiation which is pulling the highest footfall across our Vijaya network. The objective is to create such a dense network across the three new Tier 2 locations that is Pune, Bangalore, and Kolkata. If you see in the last year, we added close to nine hub centers across these three metros, in the next 12 months, we are going to add another six out of the nine that we mentioned. Nine plus six, we are going to add 15 hub centers across these three new metro markets where we are planning to go deeper. That is the plan, Amey. We are fairly confident of this growth.
Coming to the current year growth, as you know, Q1 was extremely good. We delivered 23% growth. We are fairly confident of giving high double-digit growth for FY 2027. When we talk about mid to long term growth, like a three to five years growth on a sustainable basis. We believe achieving 15% EVG. That is it, Amey. No doubt.
Sure, sir. Thank you. The second question I have on some divergence on the margin side. Standalone pathology typically has been operating at the lower margin than Vijaya, which is a combined entity. For us, the pathology share although has been growing or inching upwards. At the same time, the margins are also expanding. It will be helpful if you can explain this divergence.
No, Amey, when you look at pure pathology players. Their B2B contribution is generally higher than the B2C. What I think is that most of the peer group has close to 25%-30% of their business coming from B2B. Where the prices are at much discount compared to B2C. That's one of the reasons why Vijaya, on a consolidated basis, enjoys a higher margin compared to a pure pathology business. That is one. Second thing is, since we have advantage of giving comprehensive testing including radiology, the number of tests that we perform is higher than the other peer group which are catering only to pathology. Just to give a number to that. It's close to 3.7 tests that we do for every patient who is walking into our network. As compared to 2.5-3 tests that a typical pathology chain does.
That's also helping us to gain a higher wallet share from a customer, which is coming to close to INR 1,860 approximately, for a Vijaya customer, as compared to a few pathology chain where you get close to INR 900-INR 950 per customer because of few pathology test availability.
What you are basically saying that traditionally our margins are higher compared to standalone pathology player even for pathology because of the higher realization for patient. Is it right?
Yes. Absolutely. Initially also, our margins being integrated in B2C corporate because of two reasons, were always higher than a standalone pathology player from the beginning.
Got it. Sure. I'll join that. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Jyothish Vijayan from Moat Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello, everyone.
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay. Good morning. Thank you, team. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the pricing growth side. Generally, we see in the diagnostic industry in a general way limited pricing growth. I would take any price hike over the last 22 years and what is your pricing strategy going forward considering the inflation and the competition rising?
The last price hike which we had taken was in the month of June 2025, where it was restricted to Hyderabad across select tests. Post that we haven't taken any price hike. Obviously, post Q2, Q3, we will reassess our pricing strategy and decide based on internal assessment.
Okay. My second question is from the competition side. As of now, there is some competition arising from the organized chains as well as the hospital-based diagnostic labs. Are you witnessing any change in the competitive intensity across your key markets, particularly in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka?
If I were to speak about Hyderabad, if you look at the top three players the second and the third best diagnostic centers are smartly deploying their capital outside of Hyderabad because Vijaya has already greater market share here. We are in witnessing a strong competitive intensity in terms of the network expansion from the organized players in Hyderabad and in rest of AP and Telangana as well. There are obviously standalone players there, none of them has a large integrated center and the way we've been able to, for example, in Vizag we have added one spoke and in the coming couple of months, we'll be adding more spokes. The kind of network expansion that we've been able to do, we've not seen the competition doing it at the same intensity.
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much. I'll join the queue.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask any questions, you may press star and one. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, press star and one on your touch tone phone. A reminder to all participants, if you have any questions, you may press star and one. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, hit star and one. There are no further questions for today, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you all for joining the call. Should you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of JM Financial Limited, that concludes the conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.