Thank you, Darren. Good evening to all the participants on the call, and good morning if you're logging in from the Western side.

Before we proceed to the call, let me remind you that the discussion may contain forward-looking statements that may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Therefore, it must be viewed in conjunction with the business risk that could cause future result performance or achievements that differ significantly from what is expressed or implied by such statements.

To take us through the results and answer your questions today, we have the senior management of Tata Elxsi represented by Mr. Manoj Raghavan, Managing Director and CEO; Mr.

Nitin Pai, Chief Marketing and Chief Strategy Officer; Mr. Gaurav Bajaj, Chief Financial Officer; and Ms.

Neha V, Company Secretary. We will start the call with a brief overview of the past quarter by Mr.

Raghavan, followed by a Q&A session. We would appreciate your cooperation in restricting yourself to two questions to allow participants an opportunity to interact.

If you have any further questions, you may join the queue, and we will be happy to respond to them as time permits. With that, I would like to hand over the call to Mr.

Manoj Raghavan. Over to you, Manoj.

Thank you, Shashank. A very good evening to all of you joining today for the Q3 '26 investor call.

At the outset, let me wish you all a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year 2026. I'm happy to share with you that in the third quarter of FY '26, Tata Elxsi delivered a healthy performance, growing 3.2% on a constant currency basis over the previous quarter.

This was largely volume-led, resulting in better utilization and operating margins. Our transportation business, which now accounts for more than 55% of our overall revenue, grew 7.7% quarter-on-quarter.

This growth was led by accelerated ramp-ups in SDV-led OEM deals won earlier in the year, and also normalization of workstreams and programs with a strategic OEM client that was impacted in the previous quarter. Our media and communication business registered a marginal decline of 0.3% quarter-on-quarter.

This was largely due to some seasonal furloughs in the last 1 to 2 weeks of December, and delays in some deal awards and paperwork. We have continued ramp-ups and a strong foundation with the large deals we won in the year for this business, tractions with our renewed offerings, and a healthy deal pipeline.

Our healthcare and life sciences business has bottomed out in the quarter with the run-off from the end of some large regulatory programs. Our investments in future-powered, GenAI-powered regulatory workflows is seeing market success, with multi-million, multi-year deal wins during the quarter.

We've also seen strong new customer additions throughout the quarter and year, and we're confident of bringing back growth in this business starting Q4 FY '26. During this quarter, we performed well in key geographies of the US and Europe with broad-based growth across key accounts and verticals, while India did see impact largely from business from automotive suppliers.

Our EBITDA margin improved by 220 basis points to 23.3% in the quarter, backed by operational excellence and improved utilization in line with business growth. Our PBT improved 200 basis points to 24.2%.

This excludes a one-time exceptional item due to the new labor code. Overall, I'm pleased with the performance and resilience in revenue, margins, and customer additions throughout the quarter.

We are entering the last quarter of the financial year with our commitment for growth and confidence in our design-led and AI-enabled engineering capabilities. Thank you, and over to you, Shashank, for the questions.

Hi. Thank you.

A couple of questions. Firstly, on the auto vertical, obviously the growth was very strong this time, maybe because of ramp-up of the previously won deal.

How should we think about the momentum sustaining going forward based on the pipeline you see currently and the conversations you're having with the OEM clients?

Yeah. Bhavik, yeah, thanks.

I think we've been working really hard on building the momentum in automotive industry. The good part is, yes, a lot of things came together this quarter and we are able to show the strong growth.

It's not just, of course, automotive OEMs, we have been able to leverage on the large deals that we have won and really accelerate some of the deployments. At the same time, we've also really opened up some off-road and adjacency businesses for us.

That has also helped us in the quarter. I think we definitely expect steady growth moving forward.

We're really looking to see an accelerated momentum in the next financial year for the transportation business for us. I think we are working hard and we are pretty confident that look, we will be able to have a sustainable growth for us in the coming financial year.

Okay. Sure.

That is helpful. Secondly, just on the margins, Gaurav, can you just highlight what are the utilization levels you're operating at right now and where this can go if growth momentum sustains in auto as well as if growth comes back in telecoms and healthcare?

Just trying to understand where can the margins go back to in the next few quarters?

Bhavik. Hi.

I think on this quarter, we got a 35 basis point kind of a benefit from the exchange. I think operating leverage has been improving, including the utilization that we have been speaking in the last few quarters that, once the revenue start to go, demand comes back, the utilization will start to improve because we have been still installed capacity, which we don't need to augment further.

That is coming into the play and helping us in our bottom line. We almost got 200 basis point kind of a uplift from the operating leverage, including utilization point.

Other expenses also continues to be cautious, cost-discipline behavior that we are driving within the organization, leading to another 80, 85 basis point kind of a margin upliftment. If you add all the positives, it comes to almost 310 basis point.

With that, we also have a wage hike done for our junior to mid-staff during the quarter, which has compensating impact of 110 basis point, which makes almost 200 to 210 basis point of a positive movement in the bottom line. Having said that, I think we continue to drive the operating model in terms of how we used to do it in the past.

We believe there is a still scope and runway to improve our utilization further as we see the demand coming back in the subsequent quarter. Hopefully, I think I cannot commit for the short to mid-term, but we are very positive that we can go back to the margins that we used to operate at, maybe by the exit of the next year.

I think everything seems to be positive. We are confident that we will be able to move back to that trajectory where Tata Elxsi used to operate.

Okay. Thank you.

Hi. Good evening to the management team, and very good quarter.

Congrats on that. I have a question on the transportation vertical, the 7.3% kind of growth that we are seeing quarter-on-quarter.

Can we get a qualitative breakup that how much is because of the anchor customer coming back and how much is because of the growth in the other customer, and what kind of growth you are seeing from the ramp-up of the recent T1 deals?

Yeah. There are multiple factors as I discussed in the earlier question, right?

Of course, it is the ramp-ups of the large deals that we have won. Of course, as we reported in the last quarter, one of our customers had an issue and in this quarter, we had some accelerated ramp-up of the deals that really were put off from the previous quarter, right?

That actually has also helped us. Apart from that, we have growth from our adjacency business.

I would say all three of that put together has really helped us to show this good growth for the automotive sector. I think, yeah, and that's the confidence that we have that look, moving forward and moving to the next financial year, we believe we are on the right trajectory and we should be able to leverage the capabilities that we've built, the teams that we've built, the sort of investments we have made in our platforms and products.

I think all of this gives us the confidence that look, automotive should really help us accelerate our growth rate in the next financial year.

Nitin, just a follow-up, if I just connect your transportation growth and Europe growth and top-five customer growth, it seems to be a large part of the delta in this quarter-on-quarter 7.3% growth is driven by the anchor customer. Is my understanding correct or it is equally distributed between the three segments that you have just explained?

If you look at the top five or the top 10 accounts and so on, what we've also been seeing is that we have seen a lot more automotive customers come into that band, right, especially because of some of the large deals that we've won and how we have been accelerating. Yes, I think it's a combination of multiple of these large wins that are really accelerating our top five and top 10 customer base.

Okay. YoY, the transportation vertical is still not back to the previous levels.

Is my anchor customer is back to the earlier trajectory or it is still one or two quarter away?

Sorry, what was the second part of your question? Sir,

my anchor customer is back to the previous run rate or it is still one or two quarter away?

I know we're still not up to the previous run rate. Still, as you rightly said, we have maybe a quarter or so more catch-up to happen, quarter or two, as you rightly said.

I think that is also something that we're working on and seeing how we can accelerate that part.

Sure, sure. One last question if I may.

If you see the geographical performance between Europe and rest of the world, it seems to be the two new OEMs that you have won, one out of Europe and one out of Japan. The Europe customer has kind of fired up, the Japan customer is still not fired up.

Is my understanding correct? If that is the case, if you can give me some trajectory of these two new OEMs that you have won recently?

You're right. I think the European customers, we've been able to ramp up.

The Japan customers, actually we've ramped up the previous quarter, in that it's not as if that customer has not ramped up. We've already ramped up.

I think we are at a phase of consolidation, and eventually moving forward there will be additional activities that we'll get involved in. We can't look at it from a one-quarter perspective.

Sure, sure. Understood.

Thank you very much for answering my questions.

Thank you for the opportunity, and team, great comeback, especially in the automotive vertical. Just wanted to get a sense, sir, you mentioned a lot of factors that have contributed to this revival.

What's the sense on macros? Are we receiving headwinds or has the performance being up to the mark despite the headwinds still being what they were in the past year that we've seen?

Yeah. I think at a very, very high level, macro level, headwinds are still there, right, from an industry perspective.

The good part is look, our value proposition stands out very strongly and, especially customers in Europe and US and Japan, right, to really look at, hey, Tata Elxsi provides the sort of best value from a best-cost country location and proven offshoring capabilities, and ability to execute large complex programs and so on. I think all of that is really helping us navigate.

Times are still tough, right, out there in these markets, but I think that gives us the confidence and our customers the confidence that look, this is the right step to take. Understood.

Sir, Manoj, on healthcare and media and comms, how should we look at these two verticals going forward? Your commentary suggests that growth might be on its way starting Q4, Q1.

Should we look at a similar trajectory what transportation has delivered or will it still take some time?

No, we're working really hard on it, right? So 50% of our business is now in a decently good shape, right?

The remaining 50% is something we are hoping that will come in good shape in a quarter or two, right? Definitely the media and communication business, some of the large deals have actually ramped up.

We are in the process of bidding a couple of large deals and outcomes will come out pretty soon in this quarter, right? I'm pretty confident that look, Q4 we should see some positive signs in our media business, and it's been a long, long journey, a lot of hard work the teams have put in.

There is some light at the end of tunnel, I would say, and hopefully, Q4 we'll be able to show some good performance in the media and communication space as well. Healthcare, again, healthcare is something that we're really, really working hard, and I think we have bottomed out in this business in Q3, and hopefully, right, the turnaround will again happen from Q4 onwards.

Definitely, from a next financial year perspective, we are definitely focusing on both of this business also to accelerate, right? That's what we are working on.

I think we have clear line of sight of where both of these business are heading to. I think I'm pretty optimistic, at least in the midterm, right, that we will be able to turn around both of these businesses.

Great to hear that, Manoj. Just one question on hiring.

In this particular quarter, Gaurav, if you can just quantify or maybe give a qualitative comment on how much of margin improvement has happened because of the headcount rationalization that we've seen? Given the fact that we are now seeing growth ramping up, do we see hiring coming back into positive trajectory?

Will that offset some of the gains that we've seen in terms of margin gains?

Yeah. Vimal, I think I answered that in the previous question asked by Bhavik.

I think this quarter we have an operating leverage of about 200 basis point helping to our bottom line. We still have a little bit more scope to improve our utilization from here on.

I think the future model itself should not be looked revenue tag to the headcount, that should not be the proportionate or the linear way of looking the revenue to the headcount. I think that model is undergoing a change and we are very cautious, and we are looking in terms of the productivity of whole, including the AI kind of a productivity into our business models.

I think that we'll continue to work on those models and, when the headcount will increase, I think we will take approach where we need the people, the specific skillset are required, niche expertise are required, very calibrated hiring we will do from here onwards. Depending upon the demand, we will see how many people have to be brought in.

I think going forward, our methodology would be to calibrate the demand, the supply, and then what would be the most optimal model to continue to deliver on almost towards 80% utilization.

Yeah. Just to add that, I think we still have leverage from improving our utilization.

I think it's a quarter or two away before of course we'll start thinking of hiring and so on, and we would do it in low numbers, right, especially to meet certain specific customer requirements and so on. Large hiring, I think, is still either a quarter or a couple of quarters away.

We would want to leverage on improving our utilization in the short term, right? That's where our focus is.

Perfect. Gentlemen, congratulations once again and best wishes for the quarters ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

Sir, my question is on the transportation vertical. Obviously, we have seen very healthy recovery, but in this recovery, all the deals that we have won has been fully ramped up, or we can see some more ramp-up in the coming quarters?

Also in terms of the top OEMs in the Europe and the US region, how you are seeing the spending patterns in terms of recovery, in terms of their discretionary spends and in terms of decision making? If you can provide some color on that, how this has changed maybe a quarter back?

I think some of the large deals that we've been talking of, I think we've had significant ramp-ups, happening towards the maybe the later part of last quarter and, and of course in Q3. Those ramp-ups are sort of, we've what do you say, I won't say peaking, but, we've we've reached a steady state and so on.

Of course, there is still, opportunity to grow further, again depending on some new opportunities that that we're talking to our customers and so on. I I think we've managed to, really, really, match the customer expectations in terms of ramp-ups to meet their specific needs and so on, right?

Having said that, as I said, there are a few, adjacency businesses, off-road businesses, and so on that we have entered recently. That is an opportunity once again to scale and and so on in the coming quarters, right?

Yes, it's a work in progress in some sense, but I think a good part of the ramp-ups have been baked in, in this quarter, last quarter, sorry.

Okay. In terms of the OEM commentaries and the spends in the specific areas, and in terms of the decision making and how you're seeing in this quarter versus what it has been six months back?

See, decision making at times are still, I would say, a little bit slow, right? Of course customers are making decisions and so on, but they're making very careful, calculated decisions, right?

To that extent, I think it all depends on the value proposition and what you stand for, right, what sort of problems at the customer end are you going to address based on your business model, right? That's the key, and that's something that we have been sharpening over the few quarters, right?

I think we have a very, very good value proposition for our customers. Yes, decision making will still take some time, but customers are definitely willing to spend based on the value proposition that we're putting on the table.

Okay. Sir, in terms of the operating leverage, obviously we have seen some good operating leverage coming out in this quarter.

Just because we have in last year when we saw a decline, we have maintained the capacity. Till what level of growth we are funded in terms of capacity and we don't need to add, if you can give some color on that?

What is the kind of margin expansion we can see?

I think we have addressed that question in the previous question as well, right? We are operating at around 75% today, and we can go all the way up to 85%, right?

We are targeting to look at at least moving around to 80%, right, before we start adding capacity and so on. I think still we do have operating leverage from a bench perspective.

Yes, and

it is not that we are not hiring at the moment. We are hiring, but I think we are hiring selectively where we have those positions required to be fulfilled.

As we mentioned, the large-scale hiring probably can be seen after maybe a couple of quarters from now.

Sir. Thank you and all the best.

Hi. Am I audible?

Yeah. Thank you for taking my questions.

Congratulations on a good set of results. My first question is on the transportation vertical.

Would you put down this performance, which was mostly because of an anticipated ramp-up that we were expecting from 1H itself, or would you also attribute it to some extent to an improvement in the demand environment? Do you see that?

In a similar vein, now having registered a strong growth in 3Q, it sets up a high base as we head into 4Q. Would we be able to see growth on this number?

How do you look at it?

I didn't get the first question clearly, but okay, from a second question's perspective, yes, of course, I think based on the order book that we see and based on the sort of funnel that we're looking at, right, I'm pretty confident that look, we will be able to grow over the numbers that we have delivered, right? That's of course what the teams are focusing on.

What was the first question about? Was it demand environment?

Yeah. My question was that the growth was primarily driven by the ramp-ups that you were already anticipating, or did you also see an easing in the demand environment to some extent?

It's both, right? I think, of course, we've we we we were able to successfully ramp up some of the deals that we've closed and and that was really, and also, we we've pulled down, as right, we had an issue in one of our customers, and that really, there was a lot of pent-up demand, which we really pulled in in in this quarter, in the last quarter, right?

That also helped us to really accelerate in the quarter. Regarding new demand and so on, yes, of course, there are deals that we have won and, we've talked about especially in the adjacency space that we're looking at.

Those are all new deals that will add, add revenue streams again in the subsequent quarters.

Sure. Thank you.

My other question is on utilization. Now, it's an important margin lever going forward, but given that we work in three different verticals with not a lot of fungibility between employees, you ideally would need even the media and communication growth to pick up before you can actually move utilization to north of 80%.

Is it possible to move it upwards to 80, 85% without a proper recovery in the media and communication vertical?

That's what we've talked about, right? We are hoping that both media and communication and healthcare, which contributes, whatever, 45, 50% of our revenues, right, that is something that we are very confident that we should be able to recover.

We've been working over the past few quarters, I would say, in terms of new customer outreaches and some large opportunities that we have placed our bids, right? We strongly believe that look, some of that will turn around in this quarter, in Q4, and that will also help us improve our utilization.

It's not just only automotive business. It is both media and communication and healthcare, which is going to help us achieve a better utilization.

Definitely.

My final question is in 1Q, you had aspirations of a double-digit growth in both transportation and healthcare vertical heading into FY '27. Does that remain intact, and for the overall organization?

That is the aspiration from our next financial year perspective, if I understood your question right. That is what our internal planning and that's what we are aiming for, and we believe that look, if we can get a strong momentum in Q4, right, and leading into quarter one of next year, I think we should be able to achieve those objectives.

Thank you. Perfect.

All the best.

Yeah. Hi.

Can you hear me?

Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a great quarter.

The first question is on the media business. If I heard you correctly, did you mention that part of 50% of the business has recovered and you're hoping for the recovery in the balance?

Is that comment related to one of the larger accounts, and if yes, any status in terms of bottoming out of challenges in that account? That's first.

The second, to Gaurav sir, you mentioned the wage hike impact for juniors in this quarter. Can you also quantify the impact that could come in the fourth quarter for the wage hikes for the remaining people?

Thank you for taking my question.

If I understood your question correctly, you're talking of the media and communication business and you're talking of the challenges in the top account, right? I don't think we have any challenges there in that account.

In fact, that has been growing pretty well. The confidence is from a number of other customer outreaches or a number of other bids that we're placing, right?

We strongly believe that look, a few of them will come to a closure in this quarter and that will sort of start the sort of recovery for our media and communication business. Healthcare business as well, we have a similar sort of a situation, and we definitely want to get both of these businesses also on a growth path as we enter the next financial year.

That's what we're focusing on. Regarding, yeah.

Abhishek, on your second question, we already did for our junior to mid-staff, which covers almost two-third of the organization. For the balance, that will happen in this quarter, current quarter, quarter four.

You can expect the impact for that would be lower compared to what we have in the quarter three, maybe probably 60, 70% of that only.

That is helpful. Just a follow-up on the answer.

Sir, if we look at the increase in the revenue by contract mix type and also see the recovery in utilization and the recovery in the top accounts, is it fair to assume that in many, let's say, in large accounts of each of the three verticals, primarily our mix is towards time and material?

No, it's a combination, right? It's not that all the large accounts are time and material.

A lot of them are fixed-bid and outcome-based projects as well. It's a combination.

Perfect. Thank you for taking my question, and best wishes for the rest of the year.

Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity.

Just a few questions on the transportation vertical. Sir, you mentioned about normalization of spends going ahead.

Just wanted to pick your brain around the areas which you are seeing good traction in, be it hybrids, EVs, AD/ADAS, connected. If you can share some thoughts there.

In the pipeline, are you seeing large programs on the SDV front?

A lot of the growth that we've seen is primarily coming from the closures that we've had on the SDV side, right? Of course, as we also have our own SDV suite called Avenir and that is also bringing in a lot of traction for us.

Apart from that, of course electrification is another large play that we see, both BEVs and hybrid platforms. New platform development is something definitely we are seeing.

AD/ADAS of course continues to have traction. These are the, I would say, top three areas that really are pushing our automotive.

Of course, the connected car platform and the applications around it is also another area that we see a lot of traction moving forward.

Okay. Thanks for that.

Second thing is for the outlook for this automotive business, is it broad-based across your, let's say, top 10 to 15 accounts or is it more concentrated between, let's say, 2 to 5 accounts where you are seeing deal ramp-ups?

I would say it's more in the top 5 to 10 accounts, right? That's where we're seeing the ramp-up.

These are happening across the geographies. It's not limited to any one geography.

That's positive for us, because we're de-risking ourselves from a geography-dependent situation as well.

Perfect. Thanks.

Thank you a lot, sir, and all the best.

Good evening to the team, and congratulations on the quarter. My question is with Tata Elxsi's focus on design-led technology and recent partnerships in automotive and media, how do you see client convergence evolving?

Are they shifting from cost efficiency to co-innovation? What should the stakeholders expect as the defining theme from your leadership in this phase?

Yeah. Thank you.

That's my first question. I'll ask the follow-up question after.

Sukriti, if you just repeat that point, please? This is Nitin here.

I will take that, but I didn't hear the second part clearly.

Okay. My question was with Tata Elxsi's focus on design-led technology and recent partnerships in automotive and media, how do you see client convergence evolving?

Are they shifting from cost efficiency to co-innovation module? What should the stakeholders expect as the defining theme from your leadership in this phase?

I think just to clarify, I think the two are not exclusive, in the sense that they tend to run together. I think in both industries there has been extremely strong pressure on bottom line, especially because the top lines are not growing too well, market share is known to be climbing, given the competition, for example, in the automotive space from the Chinese and so on.

There's a clear mandate that look, whatever you do, we'll have excellent technology, but at the same time, we'll have to deliver on cost. I think in that sense, whether it's the media and communication vertical which has seen that pressure on the top line for quite some time now, and therefore, the cost takeout and the bottom-line improvement has been a focus for some time now, I think you're finding this need to find right partners delivering from a best-cost country, but delivering outcomes and results rather than just delivering headcount.

I believe that is really what we carry as

focus. Thanks.

My second question is to Mr. Bajaj.

On the financial side, speaking beyond margins, how are you thinking about capital allocation in this phase, like balancing dividends or investments in automotive innovation centers or any digital partnerships down the line? Do you see scope for a shift in capital deployment over the next one to two years?

I think we have been discussing internally within the organization management and also along with the board. Of course, there are certain plans that has been put into the place and we have been tracking on those plans.

At the appropriate time, I think we will let you know in terms of any outcome or change in the capital allocation approach from our side. Probably we announce during the quarter four, year-end in terms of or during our AGM in terms of what would be the another distribution that we do.

There are some strategy internally that has been discussed, probably I think we may not be able to disclose at this moment of time, but at the appropriate time you will get to know in clear what kind of plans and what are we thinking about that.

Fair enough. Thank you for the guidance, and I wish the entire team best of luck for the next quarter.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions.

Can you name a commercially successful idea that initially looked unbelievable or irrational, but it became commercially successful thereafter?

Sorry, we couldn't get the context of your question.

The context of the question is, I just need an example, preferably in healthcare, but even automotive or otherwise, maybe a commercially successful idea that you have in the organization today, but initially that was deemed kind of irrational or unbelievable. Any example?

Yeah. I strongly believe and I hope that as an engineering company we are quite, quite rational.

To that extent, there's very little that we do that is irrational. Having said that, if you look at it, most of the bets that we've taken in products and platforms are future-looking, because ultimately we are tracking standards, we're tracking technology convergence, and we are taking bets in advance.

That is why you tend to have mixed successes with products and platforms, not because they are not right, simply because many a times we are simply ahead of time. A good example is the investments that we made in Neuron, which is a network automation and orchestration platform.

We believe it's ahead of its time, simply because that's the most elegant way to reduce costs in network management. While telcos have been going after cost takeouts simply by throwing larger and larger deals for lower and lower cost, we believe the smarter way to go around it is to actually start investing in automating and orchestrating your network with technology and with automation rather than with people.

We also know that it is ahead of its time, why? Because telcos are not going to be so keen to throw numbers on another platform.

Unfortunately, they've seen enough in life. That is where I feel most of the time we are ahead of time rather than irrational.

That's very helpful, a great response. Thank you for that.

My second and last question is there is always some sort of a tension between creativity and delivery discipline. When creativity conflicts with delivery discipline, which one loses and why?

I think this is in many ways two sides of a coin. The tension between creativity and discipline or engineering, I think is a good tension to have.

I can tell you this from my own experience as a designer. We always used to have this debate when we were young as to which designers are better.

Were the ones that came from IDC, IIT Bombay better because they had an engineering degree first, or was it the folks who came from NID because they were pure creativity, they were not schooled in engineering? Opinion is divided, but I still believe when you're schooled in engineering, the concepts that you come out with are a lot more manufacturable, feasible, productizable.

Pure creativity at times is great for the heart, but doesn't work for the mind.

Engineering, the practicalities, and the scale up and the actual commercial viability is far more important than just having plain on paper kind of a creativity, if I understood it correctly.

Absolutely, anytime. That is the whole basis of industrial design.

That is the whole basis of the manufacturing world, that it has to be realizable. Otherwise, it just becomes luxury art.

Absolutely. It does.

Thank you so much for all the responses. Wish you all the very best.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, guys.

I'm new to the company, excuse my naivety if any. On the healthcare front, we'd seen a disruption in the past on the regulatory extension being given in Europe, which if I'm correct, it ends in 2026.

Do you expect any sort of a pent-up demand on that regulatory front coming for you in the coming year?

No, I don't think there is as a pent-up demand. In fact, the regulatory piece of our business is over a period of time really gradually coming down.

In fact, what is happening is we are moving all the sort of manual regulatory effort to more a AI-based digital sort of a focus. I think we've been able to successfully move there.

I don't think there will be a pent-up demand per se, but we are hoping that using AI, GenAI, and so on will really help capture a larger piece of work that otherwise would have to be done manually and so on. There could be some sort of acceleration based on the digital technologies that we bring in, but it's not due to the run-off in 2026 and so on.

Understood. Secondly, I wanted to understand our rationale on the defense business.

In the past, you were a bit non-committal. I'm talking about 5, 6 years back when you said that there's a receivables issue in the industry, plus some export issues to the US.

What has changed for us in maybe the industry or in our view or in our working, which is now making us commit to the defense aerospace industry?

Globally also, we see aerospace and defense as a great opportunity area, primarily because of the spend that the industry is going through, right? There are a lot of new technologies that are coming in.

There is UAVs and drones, and warfare is changing. There is also commercial applications of many of this in air taxis and so on.

What we see today is a lot more technology coming in, technologies like electrification coming in in a big way. Of course there are challenges with cycle times for the deals and if you're doing defense sort of projects, especially in the US, you need to be ITAR-compliant and so on.

There are still some of the challenges that we need to address. Otherwise, I think fantastic amount of opportunities exist, especially in India, the sort of both DRDO and labs and companies like HAL, and of course a lot of global companies, right, who have set up their capability centers in India, in Bangalore, and so on.

That also opens up a lot of good opportunities for companies like us, right? I think we are doubling down our focus on the aerospace and defense segment, and we have done some fantastic work in this space.

Credibility is there. Capability is being built.

Now really we need to see how to have some commercial success. That's something that we're working on.

Manoj, do you think this will be an ROCE accretive? Will the margins compensate for the receivable cycles in the future?

It's still still early days. It's still still early days.

I think I I think if if we if we look at the overseas market, I don't see, any concerns on either profitability or, payments and receivables and so on, right? I don't see any.

If you really only focus on on the on the on the defense segment in India, then yeah, we do have some some some tweaks in our business model that we need to take care of. Otherwise, I think it's a it's a great business and and especially the type of opportunities that we see in India, it's a great opportunity to build capabilities and and really and then really, explore the same globally, right?

I think it's a good opportunity for us.

That's great to hear. Finally, just a quick one on the non-PV transportation, which is the off-highway construction equipment railway that we had entered into.

We'd guided for 20% of our transportation revenue coming from this segment. I think we'd guided for 3 years back then, but I think we've overshot.

Just wanted to understand, where are we in that journey? Are we still tracking that 20%, and when can it be achieved?

We're still tracking that 20%, right? I think today we are about 7?

7.5% or 8 8% is where we are today. I think there's an opportunity in the next couple of years or 3 years to really look at 20%.

The difference this time is that we really have some good logos that we've opened up, and good opportunity in this space. The spend in this industry is also growing, right?

I think that's positive for us.

We are at that point where we have a right to win that business, we've gone through that phase where we've established ourselves, and do you think this adds up to our revenue in the next couple of years and we get to that 20, an extra 5,

10%? That's what we hope for.

Of course, it's a smaller market as compared to the automotive market. To that extent, we need to be a little careful, but I think the opportunity exists.

All right. Great.

That's good to hear. I'll come back in the Q4 for a more conceptual question, but if there are others, you all could go ahead.

Yeah. Hi.

Am I audible?

Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on a good set of results. I had a couple of questions.

First is with respect to growth in the near term. I just wanted to check my understanding if that is correct.

What we spoke about from a 4Q perspective or a near-term perspective is that we are expecting a recovery in both media and healthcare verticals versus what we did in the third quarter. Even in the transportation vertical, while the SDV deals are largely in the steady state, the top account still has to return to the peak run rate and there are other deals in adjacencies which are ramping up.

Should 4Q be similar to better than 3Q from a growth perspective? I'm just trying to understand, is there anything we should keep in mind which can change that trajectory as we enter into 4Q?

No, we don't want to give any indicator at this point in time, right? We don't do that.

You have rightly paraphrased all what we've talked about, right? I think your analysis is perfect.

Sure. Thank you.

The second question is on the utilization bit. In the past, we've always talked about reaching a peak utilization rate of 80% odd, while today it may be the first time we ever spoke about potentially reaching a 85% levels.

Just trying to understand, is there anything which has changed structurally for you in the delivery organization, from a workflow automation perspective, which is changing this thought process on the utilization levels?

If I may, and if you can hear me, Sulabh, this is Nitin here. I think historically we have said 85, 86% at the peak of our growth.

It's just that at that time we did not have all the benefits that come from what you have now as tools and technologies. Technically, at that time we felt a little constrained that look, 85, 86% kind of stretches a little too much and we don't have enough room to maneuver.

I think given the context that we are in today and the kind of work that we are doing, and the kind of investments we are making with AI and GenAI, that stretch is not as tight as what before. So 85 feels comfortable.

Sir. Understood.

Thanks for taking my question.

Thank you.

Yeah. Hi.

Can you hear me?

Yeah. My question is on the anchor client.

Now, I understand last quarter there was an issue and then sorry, last to last quarter, and then last quarter it sort of came back. Given the issues ongoing there and the kind of debt situation that's developing, for the next year on a whole, do you expect the anchor client to grow from the from this year's level, or do you expect it to be stable?

How should we think about the trajectory on the anchor client side?

I think there are too many changes that are happening in the marketplace also, right? If you ask me, our focus is to definitely ensure that all customers, including our anchor customer, at least the top 15, top 20 customers, right, be on a steady growth path, right?

That's definitely the focus. We don't have any indication at this point in time saying that look, we will have some difficulties or we'll have some surprises.

We are hoping that we will be able to grow our top five, top 10, top 20 customers. We'll be optimistic there.

Just last question on that anchor client again. Are you sort of gaining share of the work being done there or is the share stable and the growth depends on the increase in tech spends by the anchor client?

If you look at it over the last 5 years, or even a little more, our share in the overall spend of this customer has only increased. I think again, it all comes down to the value proposition, right?

Especially in tough market situations, the value proposition that we bring in is very, very strong, right? I don't think we have an issue on that front.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks for the opportunity. Hope I'm audible.

Yeah. Congrats on a good set of numbers.

Sir, first question was with regards to this one-time adjustment for the labor law changes. Are we done for all the prior-period adjustments or there is something which comes in the next quarter also?

Second part to it was what would be as a going concern incremental impact because of this in people cost or on the margins we expect?

Hi, Jalaj. This is Gaurav.

Let me answer your question. I think we have made the provision in line with our accounting norm and also assessed by our auditors for the new acts on the new labor code got enacted during the quarter.

We believe that one-time catch-up is already been done in this quarter, and hence we have also called this out as an exceptional item because this is something not going to be a usual line item in our financials going forward. However, given the change in the labor code and the definition of the wages, on the going-forward basis, we expect this impact not to be more than 15, 20 basis point.

Probably that will also get compensated with the other levers and the utilization factors that we still see is a scope for the improvement over there. At large, we don't think there should be any impact for the new labor code going forward in the subsequent quarter.

However, we continue to monitor. We continue to track in terms of the more clarifications that probably would come around in this quarter or maybe the next quarter, because the rules got pre-published, but those rules are still not notified and still not enacted.

Once we have a little bit better clarity, rules gets notified, then we have to assess if there are certain more changes or adjustment to be required. We believe that the larger part of it is already baked into the numbers, and as such we don't see anything potential or significant coming in the coming quarter.

Got it. That explains it.

My second question was with regards to the business side. I wanted to understand on the transportation side, we understand that the top client has come back and has come back strongly, and there were a few projects which were stalled.

If you could give us some flavor as to these stalled projects, have they ramped up to the maximum, or there is more to do, more to come from that? Just trying to understand on the sustainability of the growth.

I think, as we explained earlier, there definitely has been some catch-up in terms of pent-up demand that we have fulfilled in this quarter. A part of it will definitely continue as is baked into the subsequent quarters as well.

Again, the focus for us is to really look at the larger basket of customers, our top five, top 10 customers, and see how we can ensure growth across these customers as well, right? I think that's where we are.

We are over a period of time constantly trying to diversify our concentration risks, if you may, in some sense. We are trying to diversify our geography risk, if you may, in some sense.

I think each of those strategies are working out for us. Especially when times are tough in say some geographies like US or Europe, our focus on Japan and India has really helped us.

I think at this point in time, if you look at it, a basket of customers and the various geographies that we operate in, I think we are in a decent situation, good situation to be in, I would say. We need not be overly dependent on a particular geography or a particular set of customers.

To that extent, I think we are de-risking and diversifying our overall portfolio, which will in the mid-term to long-term, I think will really help us.

Fair enough. Just a quick one on that.

The newer projects, what we alluded to, the newer ramp-ups and the new clients, are the margins for these projects comparable to the peak margins we used to do historically or they are slightly at a lower price or lower margins because of whatever has happened in the transportation vertical as well as because of tariffs and otherwise pressures? How should we understand that?

It's a basket of accounts, right? There is no one answer there, right?

Depending on criticality of a particular customer or the skills or capabilities that we need to bring in, we look at margins accordingly, right? There's no set rule that look, this is the only margin that we would operate on and so on, right?

At the end of the day, it's our responsibility to really uplift the overall margins in the business, right? That's what we're focused on.

How we do it, we take a portfolio approach or how we do it is entirely dependent on what do we see in the marketplace, what skills do we need to bring in, and what value are we creating to those customers, right? Based on that, we would really price in the deals, and the margin movement will be according to that.

Understood. Sir, you alluded to that one of the reasons of the growth coming in transportation was the comparatively better macro or the comparatively better demand situation or discussions from the clients.

How should we understand that over the past 2, 3 quarters, has there been any improvement in the demand scenario or discussions, or at least have the clients started to think about, talk about signing newer deals or discussions, because I understand newer launches or a complete portfolio was postponed by a few quarters to a few years for a lot of clients or OEMs?

No, I think for us From an automotive perspective, we've already, indicated the the, that that yes, there are discussions happening, there are new deals, new new discussions, new customer additions, and a lot of that is happening, right? We we are hoping that both in both media and communication as well as healthcare, we will be able to, turn around that business, right?

Our focus is to really get back all the three businesses of ours to a growth situation, which will give us a lot of, leverage, from an investment perspective, from a from a growth perspective, from a utilization perspective, from a return to higher profitability perspective. A number of things that we are really focused on, and and I think, in the in the in the in the next two quarters you will see a trajectory or a trend, right, that will give you an indication in terms of where this is moving.

Got it. Thanks for the answers, and best of luck.

Thank you to all the investors who dialed in today evening. We really look forward to having a more detailed conversations and towards the end of the next quarter.

We are really really confident that look, we have done a number of things right. We have done a number of investments right.

Now, how do we leverage that and how do we move that into revenue growth and profitability growth, that is what the team is really focused on. Thank you so much, and look forward to interacting with you again in the next investor call.