Ladies and gentlemen, you are connected to the Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services Limited earnings conference call. Please stay connected. The call will begin shortly. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services Limited Q3 FY25 earnings conference call. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as of the date of this call.
These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and 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 star then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Dr. Raj P. Narayanam, Executive Chairman. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, good, very good evening to everyone. Thank you for joining the earnings call for Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services Limited for the Q3 of FY2025. On behalf of the company, I extend a very warm welcome to all of you. On this call, we are joined by Mr. Avinash Godkhindi, Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Aditya Kumar, our CFO, and SGA, our Investor Relations Advisor.
The financial results, press release, and the investor presentation are uploaded on the stock exchange and on the company website. I hope everybody has had a chance to look at it. Now, I would take this opportunity to just give you a Zaggle business update. This has been a milestone quarter for us with multiple accomplishments.
I'm happy to announce our highest performance this quarter and for the nine months ended in terms of revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and PAT. This quarter, the company reported a healthy growth of 69% with revenues at INR 336.4 crores on a YOY basis. For nine months, the company exhibited a growth of 77%, and the revenues for the nine months stood at 891.2 crores.
Our adjusted EBITDA for Q3 2025 grew at 38% on a YOY basis at INR 31.5 crores. For nine months of FY 2025, our adjusted EBITDA stood at INR 86.6 crores, demonstrating a growth of 48% year-on-year. The reported EBITDA for Q3 2025 surged to INR 29.4 crores, increasing by 44% on a year-on-year basis. For the nine months, the reported EBITDA grew significantly by 81% YOY to INR 78.6 crores.
The profit after tax for Q3 FY 2025 increased by 33% on a YOY basis to INR 20.2 crores. For nine months of FY 2025, our PAT more than doubled to INR 55.5 crores, growing by 125% on a YOY basis. If you just look at it, I will, you know, do a revenue number. Total revenue in Q3 FY 2025 was INR 336 crores against, you know, Q3 FY 2024 of INR 199.5 crores, showcasing a growth of 69% year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA INR 31.5 crores in Q3 2025 versus INR 22.9 crores in Q3 FY 2024, which is 37.6%. Similarly, our adjusted EBITDA margin, you know, is at 9.4% versus 11.5%. Our reported EBITDA number has been INR 29.4 crores versus INR 20.4 crores.
Our reported EBITDA margin, as has been, you know, as we previously have told, you know, is about 9%-10% range, and that is what we have guided for. I also want to highlight and thank all the investors. In December 2024, we successfully completed the QIP of INR 595 crores, and I would like to thank our investors for showing trust and confidence in the business.
The fundraise is in line with our growth strategy of inorganic expansion. We are currently very pleased to also inform that we are currently evaluating five targets in the spend management and adjacent space, such as merchant, card software, payment infrastructure, etc. Out of this, two are at advanced stages and moving towards completion at a fast pace. Okay, as you know, there are various steps to it.
You know, there is a term sheet, then there is a due diligence, then there is a transaction document, and, you know, if required, we need to, you know, go ahead and take approvals from the statutory authorities. Okay, so in both these cases, we are at very, very advanced stage, and in due time, which is, you know, possibly, you know, in the next quarter, we would be able to give you a definitive timeline.
We are looking forward to, you know, our closure of all these three transactions, you know, in this calendar year. Okay, hoping to share, we'll continually share updates with you on a regular basis. With this, I would also like to welcome Mr. Virat Diwanji to our team as the non-executive director of the company.
He's a seasoned banker with over 30 years of experience in building, managing, and growing businesses across assets and liabilities. He has been involved with the Kotak Group for about three decades in a variety of roles. During this journey, he has successfully managed the joint venture with international partners like Ford Credit International and executed the merger of mid-sized bank, ING Vysya.
He also served as a non-executive director for over nine years on the board of Kotak General Insurance Limited from its inception stage. His experience across diverse roles and business leadership will help accelerate our growth plans in the coming years. Now, I want to just give you a little bit of global macro conditions in the spend management space.
You know, globally, the spend management space is rapidly evolving with the introduction of AI-powered solutions to automatically detect the unauthorized spends and impactful dashboards, enabling users to control spend, save time, increase compliance, and improve efficiency. You know, very proud and pleased to tell you that Zaggle is also using AI and machine learning models on multiple fronts.
Zaggle's AI-driven chatbot, Razbot, it is called Razbot, has achieved a deflection rate of 60%, and we intend to, you know, enhance the deflection rate to about 99%. While 60% is extremely encouraging, but ideally, we would want to move it to 99% plus. Deflection rate is the percentage of the queries that the bot is able to resolve by itself without any human intervention. We intend to increase the expanse of our usage for our AI bot across different product functions and, and to enable efficient business decision-making.
Travel and expense is an integral and important part of our corporate spend. Zaggle has entered into agreements with multiple travel companies such as EaseMyTrip, you know, FCM, Riya Travels, and recently with TBO Tek to offer bundled expense and travel solutions to our customers, facilitating seamless travel booking, payment reconciliation, and filing of the expense directly into the GL.
We are also building a tightly bundled self-booking tool that will integrate with preferred travel suppliers, thus ensuring consistency and cost savings in travel bookings. Also want to take a minute and highlight that the current, you know, the Union Budget 2025 introduced important tax reforms aimed at boosting consumption. There have been many questions and queries about how does this impact our revenues and profits.
We want to take this opportunity to clarify that we see very little or no impact of this change in our sales business, which comprises of employee expense management, reimbursements, and benefits. The employees in the 5-15 lakh salary range only take meal benefits, which form a meager 0.48% of our current revenue. Incrementally, we see significant demand across our corporate customers for non-tax-dependent wallets and payments. We have recently launched a health and wellness wallet for our corporate customers.
Along with that, we have also launched a cafeteria solution, employee gadget solution, etc. We see a significant uptick in the number of wallets in our card, you know, to continuously increase, and a lot of these solutions which we have offered, you know, are or would be lapped up by a lot of employees within this, you know, corporate.
Also to state that, you know, we have not seen any kind of, you know, customer complaint or customers coming back to us and saying, you know, we want to do away with, you know, this particular program. So we have not heard that. Simultaneously, I also want to clarify that the OTR, which is the old tax regime, is still continuing, while we had expected, you know, since last two years that the old tax regime, you know, would be removed and only new tax regime would be used.
But, you know, contrary to, you know, our belief, it is that they are still continuing with, you know, OTR, which is, you know, which would be slightly beneficial to us. But we really, as we go forward, you know, in our business, we really do not want to depend on any, any tax benefits, you know, per se.
Additionally, we have partnered with multiple service providers in areas like financial services, healthcare, taxation, etc., to provide value-added services to over three million plus active users. We have recently enabled BBPS, Bharat Bill Payment System on our platform, through which users can pay their bills directly from the Zaggle app. Zaggle app also allows our customers to book FDs and multiple such instruments, and we are able to service them while offering very attractive FD rates of up to 9% per annum from various banks.
Now, I would want to take a minute and explain about the customer acquisition and customer updates. We, as you would have seen in our filings, we have signed significant marquee clients, including Blinkit, Thomas Cook, Mumbai Metro, Hitachi, Mahindra First Choice, Narayana, Hindalco, etc. Blinkit Commerce is gaining prominence in our day-to-day lives.
We have also tapped into this space, you know, by signing contracts with clients such as Blinkit, Zepto. Blinkit has signed up for our Zoyer, which is the, which is one of the most, newest offerings, you know, from, Zaggle's pool. It is called Branch Recurring Operating Monthly Expense. It's a solution which is a new face within our Zoyer product, wherein corporates or retail brands can effortlessly manage their branch storable expenses with secure payments, compliance checks, and real-time insights for better financial control.
You know, right now, as we speak, we have like hundreds of demos going on this particular solution, and we think that this could be a star performer in the coming year, next year, with no dependence on, you know, with absolutely zero dependence on, you know, any of the statutory or regulatory environment.
We have a strategic focus on Zoyer with a goal of deeper penetration within select industry segments. Our partnership with Zepto and Blinkit exemplifies this strategy. We are implementing an automated bill search and utility payment reconciliation system for Blinkit, providing comprehensive visibility and control across their 500 dark stores on a unified platform.
Given our strong performance, we are upping our guidance. You know, previously, if you remember the Q1, we had said, you know, we possibly will be growing at about 45%-55%, 45%-50%. Then in the quarter, you know, after the closure of quarter one, we had said that we might grow at about, you know, 50%-55%. And now we are upping our guidance that we might, we possibly will be able to do, in the range of about 58%-63%.
And this also may be a little bit understated, if the trends are to be seen. This is the kind of growth in our top line for FY2025. As we rapidly grow our top line, we continue to focus on protecting and growing our margins over time through increased operating leverage, enhanced efficiency, and cross-selling. Additionally, our focus on new areas of organic and inorganic growth with deep profit pools is also expected to contribute significantly to our margin expansion in the coming years. Thank you. With this, I now hand it over to our CEO, Mr. Avinash Godkhindi.
Thank you, Dr. Raj, for your comments. Over the years, we have pivoted from a product-based approach to a platform-based approach, where we provide a bouquet of offerings to our customers to address their multiple requirements through our spend management solutions: Propel for rewards, expense management, Procure to Pay, Zoyer, which is our branch recurring operating monthly expenses solution, Fleet, Forex, and much more.
The opportunity to digitize business spends through our software solutions bundled with payments is a highly attractive opportunity for us. During the quarter, our SaaS fee/platform fee/service fee contributed to about INR 8.9 crores. Our program fees contributed about INR 135 crores. Propel Points revenue consisted of about 70, 57% of our revenue, which contributed INR 192 crores. It is very heartening to see that Zoyer, which started clocking revenues only in April 2024, is contributing significantly to Zaggle's growth.
We have achieved high acceptance levels for this product among our corporate and enterprise customers. We are providing payment solutions for Zepto's rapidly expanding network of dark stores and branches, addressing the diverse spend needs through our Zoyer solution. Zepto also signed up for Zaggle Save solution to offer their employees expense management and benefits for a significant number of their employees using multiple wallets to enhance their benefits management.
Another significant win for the Zoyer use case is our partnership with one of India's largest retail players to digitize all their store expenses. The solution, once implemented, will be deployed across an extensive network of tens of thousands of stores.
On the Fleet side, we entered with an agreement with AG&P City Gas, Pratham Gas, and Shivg as, and successfully conducted the product launch in December 2024, with thousands of cards being issued and hundreds of gas stations being enabled to accept our cards. There are several other clients in the pipeline, and we see very good demand and deep profit pools in large addressable markets on the Fleet payment space. Going forward with our platform approach, we anticipate growth rapidly on the back of new client additions, along with much higher costs than our existing clients.
Our partnerships with multiple travel partners such as EaseMyTrip, FCM, Riya, TBO, Yatra, etc., also de-risk the travel options and provide numerous choices to large enterprises for our travel and expense solution. During the quarter, we also announced key collaborations that Dr. Raj spoke about.
We have signed a significant agreement with Mastercard, which is a seven-year partnership. Under this partnership, Mastercard will recommend our software platform and card solutions to their corporate customers and other entities like banks and fintechs. Mastercard did an extensive evaluation of solutions in the market before entering this partnership with us. This highlights our capability to provide value to our customers through multiple solutions such as expense management, Zoyer, our rewards programs, etc.
This partnership is a global partnership. Further, the much-awaited HDFC Bank partnership has come in as a major addition to the list of our partner banks. In this agreement, HDFC credit cards will be bundled with our software, expense management, and employee, and benefits, as well as our, Zoyer platform, and offered to their corporate customers. We also strive to build symbiotic relationships, and we believe in partnering with various industry players to stitch value-added collaborations.
We have entered into a strategic partnership with Strada, which is a large MNC, HRMS solution provider, working with multiple global Fortune 500 companies, wherein they offer the Zaggle SaaS and payment products to Strada's clients. I'm delighted to share that we have won quite a few awards this quarter. Zaggle won the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 2024 Transformation Tech Award.
We also won the 19th Employer Brand Awards, Telangana's Best Employer Brand. Zaggle also won the Best Use of Customer Loyalty Program, FinTech, at the FinX 2024, and the Best Use of Print Ad FinTech at the FinX 2024. These awards only highlight our ability to go the extra mile and provide value-added solutions to our users and corporates, and we continue to keep the momentum going ahead.
As always, our endeavor is to provide comprehensive solutions in the spend management space and to maximize our reach to new clients and increase our wallet share with our existing clients. With this, I now hand it over to our CFO, Aditya, to take us through a financial update. Thank you.
Thank you, Avinash, and a very warm welcome to everyone on this call. I'm pleased to share that our company has achieved another strong quarter of operational performance, driven by robust and broad-based revenue growth of 69% by year-over-year basis, reaching to INR 336.4 crores. This growth has fueled by healthy expansion across all three revenue streams, with program fee increasing by 54% by year-over-year, and the Propel Platform witnessing a significant 87% sequential growth in Q3 FY2025.
The rise in incentives and cashback aligned with business growth, driven by increased rewards offered to the clients' users for spending through our product offerings. Other expenses have risen due to higher sales and marketing costs during the quarter, while employee costs remained stable sequentially but increased by year-over-year basis, reflecting the additional headcount needed to support business growth. Our adjusted EBITDA grew by 38% to INR 31.5 crores in the quarter, compared to INR 22.9 crores in the same period last year.
The increase in depreciation expenses is attributable to the capitalization of new products. Our cashback, which includes net profit along with depreciation and ESOP expenses, increased by 34% on a year-over-year basis to INR 26.2 crores. Our PAT has increased by 33% compared to previous year to INR 20.2 crores.
For nine months FY2025, our revenue from operations reached an all-time high, recording a substantial 77% year-over-year growth to INR 891.2 crores. This was driven by robust expansion in program fee, which more than doubled with 110% year-over-year increase, along with impressive 62% year-over-year growth in the Propel Platform. Our adjusted EBITDA has touched by an impressive growth of 48% to INR 86.6 crores. PAT has more than doubled, rising by 123% year-over-year to INR 55.5 crores.
Notably, our cashback has seen significant growth in increasing by 56% to INR 72.0 crores. During FY2025, we expect to record total ESOP expenses in the range of INR 9-INR 10 crores. With that, I would like to conclude my update, and we are happy to 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 the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Ankush Agrawal from Surge Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, on the gross margins for Propel, I mean, in this quarter, the margins are now about like 3%, even though I think Q2 we have sort of indicated that based on volume-based discount that we get from merchants, the full year margin should revert to about 7%-9% when that happens. So your thoughts are.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Agrawal, but you are not that clearly audible, sir. Your voice is sounding very muffled.
Is it better now? Yes, please go ahead. Yeah, so the question was around the Propel business gross margins. So this quarter, the margins have come down to about 3%, even though in Q2 we have sort of indicated that, based on volume-based discounts that we will get from merchants, the margins should recover in next year, and for the full year, we should get to about 7%-9% gross margins for this business.
So your thoughts on why we are not seeing any improvement in this business, given that, you know, even at INR 192 crores of kind of revenues, we are earning about 6% of gross profit on this business, and we know that this business requires a lot of working capital as well. So I just wanted to understand what is happening in this business.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for your question. I heard part of it, but I think I got it. Basically, a lot of the ORCs, overriding commissions, are something that come in the Q4. In Q3, you know, very small merchants were able to cross some of the base thresholds. These are slab structures. So the real increase in the margins, we anticipate to see some of it, we anticipate to see most of it actually in this quarter. And then that's where, you know, that number is looking the way it is.
Yeah. But for the full year, do you expect that we will reach that 7%-9% on the full year?
See, it's a little premature for me to comment whether I'll absolutely reach there or we'll reach there or thereabouts, but we'll be more or less there or thereabouts, somewhere in that range.
Got it. Got it. The second question is on the overall cost base. The good part about that lower cashbacks is sort of that we have been able to curtail that we had guided earlier as well, that over time as the usage of Zoyer increases, we'll be able to curtail the incentive cost, which has been possible. But if I look at the other remaining cost base, that has been expanding at quite a rapid pace, even though in a business like ours, given that it's a platform-based business, the cost base will ideally expand at lower pace versus the revenues.
Now we are like sort of the cost base is growing at a faster pace than the revenues itself. So just wanted to understand where is this cost increase happening? Like, where are you investing because of which this cost base is going so high?
See, I think the cost base in a business, rapidly growing business like ours, where we are, you know, on the one side, trying to cross-sell more to existing customers, on the other side, developing capabilities like Zoyer, it's fairly understandable, I believe, that the cost base is going to grow. Overall, our focus is on our EBITDA and, you know, PAT, and that's growing very heavily. Of course, there's always room for improvement, and we want to improve on this in the coming years. But the investment obviously is happening in building capabilities.
As I mentioned in my speech, you know, when one of the largest retail chains in India, largest conglomerates in India, signs you up for tens of thousands of stores for your solution, then you don't worry about anything. You just see if the contract is, you know, highly profitable or doing well, then you deploy or you invest capabilities to be able to make sure that program works. And for Zoyer, for example, we've signed so many of these accounts.
I'm going to name the ones which we've announced: the Blinkit, the Zepto, the BigBasket, the Dr. Batra’s, the Berkowits, the Subway. So you can see that the number of these accounts that we have been talking of, that these are the only a small set of the ones that we've announced to the street, right? So there's a lot of traction there.
Okay. Got it. That was helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manish Ostwal from Nirmal Bang Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions on the business model. The first question on the, sir, when I'm referring to slide number 27 of the presentation, and when looking at the performance of the last three, four years, the company has grown strongly in terms of top line, but in terms of, operating margins, even the PAT margin, things not playing out the, in terms of improvement of the margin.
So basically, the operating leverage is not playing out. But when you talk about the platform business, any platform business, the basic, fundamental is the operating leverage benefit translating into the, PAT and the ROC and etc. But it is not reflecting our numbers. So can you help us, apart from the 65% kind of growth we are looking at, when you see your growth converting into the higher profit growth also, sir? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Manish. I think it's important to understand that the revenue mix has gone through a change. The Propel Points revenue that even the previous questionnaire was asking us has a much lower gross margin profile, right? That line of revenue, we have three lines of revenue, software/SaaS fees, program fees, and Propel Points fees. Propel Points fees has grown very significantly in the last three years, and that has a much lower gross margin profile. And hence, some of these metrics may not look as encouraging.
The way we look at it is, how is our solution bringing value to our customer? And overall, is our EBITDA and margins growing? We can see operating leverage kick in. It's just that the way the accounting, the Ind AS are, we need to account for Propel Points as a gross number.
Okay, sir. And, can you, can you guide us in terms of trajectory of our margin in the next couple of years where we see margins, playing out?
So we are, we are looking at margins of about, 15%-16% in the next four years. That's something that we've already, spoken of, and that's what we are aiming towards.
And lastly, on the, this recently equity raise, which we have done, so, what are the areas where we will be making the, investment, especially in the organic side of the side? So can you highlight the areas where we are putting our money?
So we are looking at, areas like the merchant card systems. We are looking at payment systems. These are the kind of areas that we are looking at.
Okay, sir. Thank you. Hello?
Thank you.
Yeah.
The next question is from the line of Parikshit Kabra from Pkeday Advisors Limited. Please go ahead. Parikshit Kabra, please go ahead with the question. Your line is unmuted. Parikshit Kabra.
Hello. Sorry. Hello.
Yes.
Yeah. Sorry. Hi, hi, Avinash. Congratulations on a good set of results. I was wondering if it was possible to provide guidance separately for your revenue guidance, separately for your two different businesses, that is the program fees and the Propel Points, instead of giving a collective guidance of 60%.
Thank you. Thank you, Parikshit. The guidance is very strong on both items, right? Both revenue lines are going to grow very heavily. As you can see for the nine months as well, the growth on both Propel Points as well as program fees has been extremely strong. Even our SaaS fees have grown pretty well. We are seeing growth across all three lines, especially program fees as well as Propel Points.
Got it. All right. Thanks. Then, but with the announcements that you have made and the fact that, you know, there are even more under the hood, I would have thought that your program fees should be outpacing the growth of your Propel Points. That's not something that you're seeing?
Current year, yes, that's going to happen. If you look at the nine-year numbers, I think, nine-month numbers, this has grown at about 111% program fees, right? That's higher than Propel Points, and the momentum is very strong.
All right. Great.
All right. Thanks.
Thanks a lot, Avinash.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devesh Kashliwal from Antique Stock Broking. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir. Congratulations on our great set of numbers. First question was like, what I understand is that the basis of the margin expansion is on the fact of reduction of cashback expense as well as acquisition cost. And I think you had mentioned around 33% of the overall revenue is cashback currently, what you're estimating. So what can that be over the longer period of time? Like, what can it come down to? That was the first question. See, the margin expansion would be through multiple ways. Obviously, operating leverage kicks in. Obviously, our cashbacks go down over time.
We'll see, a lot of our other costs also grow at a much smaller, lower pace than our revenues. The acquisitions that we are looking at are highly EBITDA-accretive, and they're a great, coming at a great multiple for us. So, those all would contribute in expanding margin.
Okay. Okay. So a much, much concentrated question then. So if you look at the acquisition and retention cost, given the fact that we were trying to get customers with a higher revenue potential, it had gone up in FY2024 to around INR 1.4 million, right? So what can that be? Like, will that be a consistent number now, or are we expecting that to increase given we're trying to achieve better customers and create a better system for them?
No, see, every year we keep adding new customers, and over time we see that a lot of these customers, the amount of revenue that we generate on a per-year basis, because we cross-sell, upsell, there is more deeper penetration for the same product within the organization. You know, the quantum of revenue grows, disproportionately, when compared with, you know, regular inflation, etc., right? So that's the benefit of a SaaS business, because this sort of a business allows you to acquire the corporate and then keep generating, you know, more and more revenues, on a year-on-year basis as long as your platform is valuable to the corporate.
Okay. The recent partnerships that we had at HDFC Bank for the three-year period and the other clients like Strada and all, so this will definitely increase the revenue per user that we are getting, right? Which has already seen an uptick from around INR 1,000 to around INR 1,066. What can the limit on that, on a yearly basis, be? Like, can it go to around INR 2,000-INR 3,000, basically?
The partnerships will also help in a big way. HDFC, Mastercard, Strada, all these partnerships are great partnerships which would add both to our top line and bottom line. It's a little premature for us to attribute a, you know, certain number saying, this is how much we will benefit from these partnerships in terms of our per-user revenue.
But we are very confident that these are great names, great, you know, companies with great customer bases. And we are very confident that, you know, this is going to add a lot of value to our top line and bottom line in the coming years.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Srinarayan Mishra from Baroda BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
So my question was again on the revenue mix. So directionally in medium term, how do you see the revenue mix, and how big can the Propel revenue be of the overall pie, let's say in one or two years?
Sir, we have seen great growth in all three lines, right? but in the next two, three years, we see our program fees to grow at the fastest pace. And because there's a lot of traction there. And then, of course, SaaS is very critical for us, and that's growing heavily as well. Propel Points continues to grow. There's a lot of momentum in the ecosystem there, so that's also growing.
So hard for us to say how the mix would look in the next two, three years, but we definitely believe that program fees will be growing the fastest.
So the new customers which you are onboarding, is there any possibility to categorize? So most of them are, the revenues are going to Propel or towards program and software fees. Any kind of color on that?
Sir, so the customers that we are signing, for example, for Zoyer, their revenue sits with SaaS and program fees, right?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So most of the customers are there in those buckets. So this should go meaningfully. That's what we should read, right?
Yeah, because you can't earn Propel Points revenue on those products. So Propel Points revenue only comes on the Propel contracts.
Right. Right. And whenever you do cross-selling, then there are chances that the Propel Points could increase. But as of now, that's not how it looks like, right? So in near term, these two buckets would grow faster, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These two buckets would grow faster.
And just last question. So in Q4, so seasonality-wise, if we see Propel, so Q4 would be bulky, right? And
we lost you, sir.
Hello? Can you hear me?
Now I can hear you, sir.
Yeah. So Q4, Propel would have higher sales, right, in the overall revenue mix?
Not necessarily, sir. No. Revenue-wise, yes. Well, net revenue, net revenue-wise, obviously, it's lower margin, but on a gross revenue-wise, yes. Gross revenue-wise, yes.
So because for Propel, the seasonality is in Q4. So in, again, Q4, we can see, margins, to look optically on the lower side.
No, it's again premature. So Q3, Q4, both, is season for Propel, Q3 being the festive season in India, for rewards. So, I think it's hard for us to comment, right now, but what we are seeing is that, you know, the momentum is great across, Zoyer, across, our expense management platform, and as well as Propel is growing very well as well.
Okay. Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, just to understand your guidance for FY2026, because what you shared is for FY2025. So both on top line and EBITDA margins, how one should look at it?
So on the guidance, we just upped the guidance to 58%-63%, for our, top line, right?
Okay. For FY2026.
What's that?
For FY2026 as well, it's a similar guidance? I was thinking for FY2026. FY2025. This is FY2025, right?
This is FY2025. FY2026, you know, we'll come back to you on that.
Sure. Second was that, there was just recently an announcement from RBI where, prepaid card can be used in U.K. with a third-party payments app. So just want to understand its impact on our business?
Yeah. These are all great pieces of news, Rohan. This opens up engagement on our app, and there are certain steps to take to qualify and to get there. But we are in the process and, you know, those are all very positive pieces of news for us.
Right. So I understand that the additional market here maybe increases, but just on the interchange, will there be any impact here or do we have any bargaining power here? Just want to understand that piece.
So if you look at it, Rohan, you know, the interchange on UPI on prepaid is about 1.1%. You know, what we see overall is that, you know, when the mix happens, you know, and the number of, you know, transactions which will start happening, you know, on UPI, specifically, you know, from the system, I think it will have a very positive blend, you know, to the overall, you know, number, overall, interchange number. So there will be a positive spike on the number is how we look at it. And if you see, you know, one of the acquisitions which we are doing is also on these lines, you know, to be able to actually run the entire UPI switch, you know, per se.
Sure. Sure. Lastly, just on the OpEx line items for 3Q, the employee expense at 17 crores, which is higher than the earlier run rate of 14 to 15 crores that we were having. Is this a normalized run rate incrementally? Or does this build in the annual incentives and everything? This is something I just want to check. Also on the other OpEx, there's a jump from 17 crores to 22 crores. If you can explain that.
So employee cost is normalized. That includes 2 crores ESOP expenses, Rohan. This is factored in normal employee growth level, which we had to pay for. And OpEx growth, because as we are in the growth phase, right, we're investing so much in the products. There were multiple products which were launched in Q3 in terms of the fleet, etc.
All those investments are happening in that. That's what the Opex has been growing.
So this again would be a normalized run rate incrementally, or is there any one-off in this other Opex?
It's not like since the amount is not higher compared to if you look at it as in quantification, just 4 crores, which is like reasonable for our set of the peers. So possibly you might see a little bit of lower expenditure in the Q4, but as the business grows, even that will be under the percentage of revenue we look at it, that will be a normal number for us.
Okay. Okay. And lastly, the conglomerate account that we talked about where we are, we have entered into partnership recently, what kind of an annual revenue potential can this kind of an account have? If you can just share some outlook here.
So, you know, it depends on the conglomerate, you know, percent, you know, what kind of these, you know, conglomerate. But on an average, you know, per account you can take the potential could be to do about anywhere about INR 50-INR65 crores, you know, per conglomerate is how you can look at it. You know, that is the number which we have, you know, done basis one conglomerate, and we are thinking that in and about more or less, you know, the behavior would be the same.
Sure. Sure. Thanks. And then, sorry, sorry, just lastly, if I can fill in one more, the program fee revenue that we have, if you can give the breakup between the three business lines for nine months or is it?
Yeah, we'll do that offline. We'll send it to you, Rohan.
The next question is from the line of Debashish Mazumdar from Svan Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thank you so much for taking my question and congratulations on a very good set of numbers. And also congratulations for adding names like Zepto and Blinkit to our kitty. So I have three questions basically. First question is linked to the program fees. If I see my program fees post Zoyer launch in Q3 FY2024, we have reached a number of 137 crores on a quarterly basis. And since then, we are kind of at that range only. So the two points I'm trying to understand, one is, is it like Zoyer is not firing up the way we thought from the initial, the benefits that we got in Q4?
And the second question is, are we at the, I mean, this is a contrary to the first question itself. Are we at the inflection point for Zoyer's revenue to be booked going forward because of the big names that we have signed in the last two, two, three months? So that is my first question.
There's a certain amount of seasonality there at play. And overall, a lot of these contracts are going through their go-live, and you'll see, you know, the benefit or impact of that in Q4. I'll just leave it at that. So should we take it like this way that Q4 or in Q4, the sequential growth in Zoyer revenue would be or the program fees revenue would be significantly higher?
I mean, that would be too specific for me to comment, but I think, you know, the reads are good.
Okay. Thank you. The second question is, when you look at my margin, obviously currently it is under pressure or it is stagnant because of the Propel platform revenue, growing faster than our overall revenue. So just wanted to get some sense that what is the incremental revenue or what is the margin for the program fees or interchange revenue that we can book at the EBITDA level? Because we seem to be very confident of 15%-16% kind of EBITDA margin over the next four years. And this is like from 9%- 16%. This is like almost doubling our margin levels. So is it like our Zoyer margin or interchange margin is double of the Propel platform margin that we report?
You know, thank you for this question, and I'll give you a detailed answer for this.
Okay. See, one of the acquisitions which we are doing is on a merchant card system. Okay. When you deploy that particular SaaS, you know, product on, you know, at the merchant store level, you know, your Propel margins are going to increase significantly. Okay. So today, you know, we are just buy and sell. Okay. And that is why, you know, those incremental margins, you know, on the issuance side don't come to us. Okay. The ability to, you know, enjoy the breakage does not come to us. You know, when both of these come, the blended margin is much higher. Second is the rate of growth in SaaS as well as in program fees is going to be much, much higher.
As I just told to another analyst, is that, you know, these conglomerate accounts which we have started cracking have a huge potential of anywhere between 50-65 crores, you know, per conglomerate. Okay. If we are able to get about, you know, 10-15 crores over the next two-three years, we are talking about the 500-600 crores, you know, revenue coming from these conglomerates. Okay. Where the margins and these conglomerates operate more and more on the program and SaaS fee and less and less on the Propel. So the way we are looking at it is that the Propel margin has to go up, the revenue on the program fees and the SaaS fees has to go up. That is how we are.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Is it to your point?
Yes, we can hear you now. Please go ahead.
Yeah. So I'm saying that, you know, there is a, you know, maximum possible expansion of margin in Propel. Beyond that, it might not go. But, you know, on the program fees, you know, the ability to grow is much higher. So how we look at it, you know, and why we are confident we have guided about 9%-10% EBITDA margin, you know, for this year. And we had said that, you know, maybe 10%-11% next year.
So, you know, our range remains between 9%-11% for this year and, you know, next year. But post that, you know, there will be significant expansion as both these acquisitions, you know, which are in play, you know, would come into action. And the blended margins would be much, much more higher.
If you remember, if you have tracked this for some time, please look at our 2022 margins. 2022, you know, we were at 16% EBITDA. Okay. And from that 16% EBITDA is what we came down when we started investing heavily, you know, into the various kinds of other programs which we started, you know, to sell more and more. And there was significant cost, you know, which we had to incur in developing Zoyer.
Plus Propel also, you know, started expanding. If I were to go back to those 2022 days, it is not very difficult for me to see how we will achieve about 16% EBITDA. And that is our stated, you know, goal that we will reach about, you know, 15%-16% EBITDA in the next three to four years.
Sure. Sure. So thank you very much for the detailed answer. So just one addition to this. You must be tracking your interchange fees, EBITDA separately. Has it already reached to that 14%-16% bracket that you were talking about?
In terms of, if you could just repeat the question or rephrase it.
So what I'm saying is the interchange EBITDA margin for your interchange fees or program fees that you must be tracking is much higher.
Oh, no, no, no. Much, much higher. Much, much higher.
Okay. Okay. Okay. So that is what is giving us confidence of, kind of.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. You put that, you remove Propel, it's much, much higher.
Okay. Okay.[Foreign language] . And the last question is, you have said that two announcements of acquisition, I mean, two announcements which are the final stage of discussion. Can we expect the acquisition announcement to happen in this financial year itself?
I mean, this financial year may not be, you know, possible while we will try our best. You know, there are as I explained earlier, also various, you know, processes which we have to follow. So all those processes take time. You know, we are at advanced stage. May not be able to tell you exactly, precisely that we will be able to do it within this quarter. But we are very, very hopeful that all the three, actually two are big ones, the third one is a smaller one, that we should be able to complete all three in the next year.
Sure. Sure. Before the next year ends, we should be able to close it.
Sure. Sure.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for answering my question. I wish you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aman Saifi from Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir.
Yes, yes, you are audible, Aman.
Thank you so much, sir, for the opportunity. And congrats on a very good set of numbers. Sir, I wanted to understand on your program fees business. Sir, what I see is that you are consistently expanding your customer, you know, numbers quarter on quarter basis from past four quarters. And your existing clients GMV would also have been increasing. Then, sir, why is your program fees number have been flat from past four quarters? It has been in the similar range of INR 136 crores.
So I think, there is a lot of seasonality, as I mentioned, on the call as well.
Looking at it from comparing Q4 of a year with Q1, Q2, or even Q3 of the next year is not necessarily a fair comparison. The other thing also, of course, is a lot of these contracts that we have signed are large enterprises. So they have their own gestation period to go live. And many of them, they go live, but they don't start, you know, the cards, for example, on the prepaid cards. The cards need to be first of all issued, then loaded, and, you know, the whole training has to be done from the software. And then the card usage starts, right? So we see that and a lot of the usage happens in the Q4. We anticipate Q4 program fee numbers to be much more robust.
So Avinash, you are trying to say that the customer which you would have signed in the quarter of March 2024 wouldn't have actually started contributing to you yet?
See, there is a lot of different behaviors. Many of them have started to contribute. Many of them can contribute a lot more. Some of them, you know, are in the process of contributing, right? Because you're talking of hundreds and hundreds of corporates here. So behavior will be different.
So what is an average gestation period to come live onto your business?
Completely depends on the nature of the contract and whether they are taking only one solution, two solutions. We are also trying to now bundle solutions. Like I gave the example of Zepto, where they are both on Zoyer and Save.
It's very effective to try and sell both, or all three solutions, right at the time of sign-up, right? So it's that's our endeavor now.
So Avinash, when you say about the seasonality, what is it exactly? Because when I see your program fees business and I divide it by 1.71%, which is generally your interchange income, from the past four quarters, your GMV would have been at INR 8,000 crores, which is not growing. That means your spends are not growing at the customer end. Is this the right understanding?
No, it is not the right understanding because if you do 1.71, that is what you have, what that is a blended rate, you know, which is coming. Okay. So there will be spends, you know, which are happening at a lower interchange. There are spends which are happening at a higher interchange.
So while our GMV has been constantly growing quarter on quarter, you know, the blended margin which comes in, you know, certain areas like on fuel, you have a, you have like a surcharge on fuel. Okay. So if you look at the grocery, there is a, less percentage, you know, which is, there. You know, like, like that, there are various categories. Okay. Only the e-com category, which is higher, is like you, you have about, you know, 2.2%. Okay. So looking at that, what happens is it's not GMV if you track on, you know, quarter to quarter basis is consistently and constantly growing. What, what the mixture which you are seeing is, this is the spends happening on lower interchange category and the spends which are happening on higher interchange category.
That blend which is coming looks like to you. It will look like as if, you know, the spends, there is no growth in the GMV. Whereas we are seeing, you know, very, very decent about 15%-17% growth on a quarter to quarter basis.
I understand, sir. Sir, just a last question and my request from my side. Sir, is it possible for you to share the, say, Propel and Zoyer's contribution on the program fee side? Because, sir, as an analyst, it's very hard to track how the growth is happening on the program fee side because you see your Propel revenue has been increasing on a very healthy state, right?
Yeah. So it is likely possible that your Propel program fees would have been increasing, but not the Save and Zoyer one. So it is very difficult.
You know, see, on Propel, there is hardly any, you know, the program fees is a limited part of, you know, on the, on the Propel platform. And Propel points, there is, you know, the margin is always a little bit here and there. There is no on Propel points per se. You know, we, we don't see that there is any deviation there. Okay. But in terms of, if you look at Save as well as this, they have been growing very, very healthily. So both of these, Save as well as Zoyer. And we'll be very happy to share, you know, please set up a, set up a call with us separately, and we'll be very happy to give you any detailed information which you may want to seek.
Sure, sir. Sure. Thank you so much. That's it from my side. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Karthik from Bandhan Asset Management. Please go ahead. Yeah.
Hi. Sir, just one small question on your software side of the business. Look, the growth rates are quite muted. Are they tracking the number of corporates which you have onboarded, or, or it's slightly lower? Can you just talk a bit about that?
So we are tracking, obviously both the number of corporates as well as, number of users. And, the nature of SaaS businesses is that, because we are dealing with enterprise and, not SMBs, you know, these, these are very sticky types of revenue. But, their growth rates obviously will, will be, will take longer for those to grow at a much faster pace than, you know, say, our program fees or prepaid.
Just, with the Zoyer OPEX product which has been now live and you're onboarding quite a few of customers, will we see an inflection? I think that is what you were trying to hint on the software side of the business, that in the next couple of quarters, we could see an inflection over there where the growth rates would be quite higher than what they are in the previous past?
Yes, yes, absolutely . We, you know, we will definitely see that, you know, it will next two quarters, three quarters, there will be a marked improvement in terms of the, specifically in terms of the software contracts. And, and, you know, all contracts which we have signed, you know, on, in the last three, four quarters are also going live at a hectic pace.
So overall, we see a huge positive in terms of next two, three quarters.
Got it. And one last question. I think you called out other expense increases because of investments which you are doing. I would have thought the nature of your business such that the employee cost would have been major heads in which you would do investments, right, in terms of building out software, etc. So just curious, why other expenses? What is this which has led to this increase of INR 4 crores on a quarterly basis, QoQ?
So basically, Karthik, there were a couple of products which went live during the quarter, right, that requires one kind of, and which can't be capitalized. Those are ad hoc expenses which we need to put in every time when the new product launch happens.
Especially in the Q3, we have launched fleet solutions with a couple of clients who also went live on that process. That requires an additional cost.
Understood. Understood. And given the healthy gross margins which are there in the software side of the business and what we just discussed, next couple of quarters, we will see margin expansion happening, right? I mean, just inferencing from what you said. Obviously, it depends on the other parts of the business is how they will shape up. But a lot of it, of the software should slow down, right? That's a fair understanding.
Yeah. The software, literally almost everything slows down, and that's the intent that we, you know, we expand on the margins. That's what is our continuous focus internally with all our, you know, teams. That's what we are pushing for. That's the end of it, Karthik.
Yeah. Fantastic. Thanks and best wishes.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you all for participating in today's call. We hope we addressed all your queries, and provided some valuable insights. We remain extremely optimistic and focused on the future growth of the company. We are excited about the opportunities ahead.
For any further information, we request you to get in touch with SGA, our investor relations advisor. Thank you and have a great day and a great weekend. Thank you. Bye.
Thank you. On behalf of Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.