Good evening, everyone. Q1 operating revenue was $125.9 million, up 15.2% year-on-year with 2.8% sequential growth, our 12th consecutive quarter of sequential growth, reflecting consistent execution even in a mixed operating environment.

INR revenue for the quarter was ₹11,524 million, up 23% year-on-year. Operating EBITDA was ₹2,652 million at a margin of 23%.

PAT stood at ₹1,643 million at a margin of 14%. The sequential margin decline was driven mainly by wage increases.

Strong revenue growth absorbed much of this impact, and we delivered healthy profitability while continuing to invest in our people and technology. New deals wins were $41 million, up 25% year-on-year, reflecting the momentum built over recent quarters.

Client conversations remain healthy across the business and our service lines, which gives us confidence going forward. Analytics and automation grew 7% sequentially, well ahead of the company average, and has now crossed a $100 million annual run rate, an important milestone for us.

Our goal is to steadily increase the share of technology-led services in our business and stay relevant for our clients. I'll also give a brief overview on the vertical updates and some of the client wins.

On the high-tech side, the outlook remains positive. Clients continue to invest in transformation programs.

Demand for our AI and technology capabilities remains strong in this vertical. Emerging business, led by finance and accounting, this business has delivered strong growth for the fourth consecutive quarter.

For one of our clients, we are expanding F&A support into APAC region. Our combination of domain expertise and technology resonates strongly with SMB clients looking to automate their finance processes.

On the communication, media, and telecom side, we saw growth across our international centers, Cairo, Manila, and Fayetteville, supported by strong delivery and execution. We are adding new inbound sales capabilities and seeing growing client interest in diversifying delivery across these locations.

On the BFSI segment, our Compliance Manager in the FCC space continues to receive a positive response. We are in discussions with several banks and asset managers, with some pilots completed successfully and others at various stages of evaluation.

We won an engagement to set up a contact center for a banking client in our Fayetteville center in US, one of our first examples of cross-selling CX services into BFSI. We also won work in mortgages area, an area where we have had limited presence so far.

We have started operations in Coimbatore, which strengthens our delivery network and positions us to pursue larger opportunities and tap talent from Coimbatore area. M&D and retail, these verticals remained relatively soft.

Clients continue to face supply chain challenges from the prolonged Middle East conflict, resulting in more cautious spending, longer decision cycles, and some delays in discretionary projects. Even so, client engagement remains active.

Fashion and luxury, revenue was flat sequentially and up 2% year-on-year. We see some early signs of recovery and expect gradual improvement to continue in Q2.

Technology and analytics, AI demand continues to grow, especially in high-tech and BFSI. We see strong demand for data preparation and exploratory data analysis, which is a foundation for implementing AI, and these are often the first steps before clients move to larger agentic AI programs.

In BFSI, we are deploying AI across document digitization, KYC screening, process workbench, and financials spreading, amongst many other areas as well. In CMT, we completed a successful QA360 pilot with one of our large clients, which is going live in Q2.

At full scale, it will audit around half a million interactions every month across sales integrity, retention, and credit compliance. In Creative Services, our AI-powered creative platform, Fluid4, now supports several of our clients in high-end fashion and retail.

In terms of awards and recognition, we received several during the quarter. At The Economic Times Future Skills Awards, we won a silver for excellence in industry-aligned skilling infrastructure and a bronze for excellence in learning platforms and business impact measurement.

Forrester featured eClerx in its Business Process Outsourcing Services Landscape report, recognizing our strength in AI consulting, analytics services, and industry AI services. At the Indian CSR and Sustainability Awards, we received the CSR Excellence in Education Award for our long-standing partnership with Sampark, which supports education in tribal and rural communities around Pune.

The macroeconomic environment remains mixed and clients continue to be selective in their spending. Even so, we expect another quarter of sequential growth.

We have also crossed an annualized revenue run rate of over USD 500 million, an important milestone for the company. While quarterly growth will naturally vary, we see good client conversations, a healthy pipeline, and encouraging momentum.

Over the last three years, we have made good progress, possible because of the trust of our clients, the commitment of our people, and the strength of our partners. We believe we are well-positioned for the next phase of growth.

Finally, we plan to host an Investor Day later this quarter, giving investors a deeper understanding of our capabilities, strategy, and the leadership team. We will share details soon with you all.

Thank you. Over to Srini.

Thank you, Kapil, and good evening, everyone. I will recap some of the revenue and margin numbers and offer more color specifically on margin and other operating metrics.

INR operating revenue, which includes the gain/loss on our hedge book, was ₹11,524 million at an implied FX of 95.1 rupees per dollar for the quarter. In constant currency terms, operating revenue is up 2.9% sequentially and 15% for year-on-year.

Including other income of ₹179 million, total revenue is ₹11,702 million, up 3.1% sequentially and 24% for the full year. Other income is lower during the quarter because of lower investible surplus.

The net operating cash flow for the quarter is ₹1,073 million. The OCF to EBITDA ratio is 38%.

As you must be aware, Q1 is lower than the average as annual variable payouts for FY26 are paid out in this quarter. Operating EBITDA Q-on-Q is down 260 bps, primarily because of wage increments, which contributed 210 bps out of the 260, spend on computers and network infrastructure, contributing 40 bps, and this was partially offset by reduction of 60 bps in SG&A.

On a Y-on-Y basis, operating EBITDA is down by 96 bps. EBITDA including other income is down 330 bps Q-on-Q and 64 bps Y-on-Y.

Utilization in Q1 is 76.5%, which is higher than what we saw in Q4. Total headcount is down by 0.6% Q-on-Q, but headcount billed to clients was up because of the higher utilization.

In this quarter, there is a slight reduction in seat count as some production seats were refitted. We are, in fact, adding additional capacity across our delivery centers in India, that is Mumbai, Pune, Chandigarh, Mohali, and Coimbatore.

These facilities will become operational in a staggered manner over the next three to four months and increase seat count by about 1,600 seats in aggregate. This is also the reason for the increase in Ind AS depreciation and interest costs for this quarter.

On other key metrics, DSO is at 79. Attrition is at 21%, which is about the same as the previous quarter.

For a few quarters now, our tech and analytics book has grown faster than firm average. As you are aware, we set up operations in Cairo and Lima about 12 to 15 months back, and we are very pleased to see the growth in these new locations.

Manila also has performed very well. Headcount there has doubled in the last 15 months.

As you may be aware, these locations operate at a lower gross margin than India, and the change in revenue mix will have some downside on margin. We are also seeing an uptick in G&A cost, especially for computers, servers, and networking infrastructure.

Despite all of these, we are confident of meeting the stated EBITDA range of 24 to 28% for the full year. Thank you, everyone, and with this, we conclude our prepared remarks, and we can now move on to the Q&A.

Back to you, Asha.

Thank you, Srini. Thank you, Kapil.

We'll now begin the Q&A session. Request to all participants to click on raise hand icon to ask questions.

We have first question from the line of Yash Goenka. Yash, please go ahead.

I have unmuted your line, but before that, please let us know your organization name.

Hi, this is Yash from Auriga Capital. My first question is on growth for the BFSI segment, which has been lagging behind the company growth.

Is this an area of concern, and by when do you see it catching up with the company growth or even going ahead of it?

Thanks, Yash. Yash, as you would see that this quarter, if you compare against Q4, it's a flattish growth.

We are flat. Q4 compared to the previous Q3 of the previous fiscal year was I think negative 3, 3.5%.

If you see the gradient is moving in the positive direction, and with the pipeline and the discussions we are having, we're confident to change the tide and bring it in the positive territory.

Any timelines on it?

I think we should see momentum build up and giving us benefits starting in H2.

Okay. Second would be there is an increase in tech services headcount.

Is this an investment which you're making? Can you talk more about this, which part of the business is this for and by when do you see it paying off?

Yash, yes, it's a mix of investments on AI, creating a AI CoE, doing a lot of pilots, also enhancing the functionality of our products as I have been saying in the previous earnings call. I think we are constantly looking at in terms of the value it is giving to our clients both in terms of the wins on tech and analytics as well as in terms of the conversions that we are having.

As you would see, our tech and analytics business, which is a primary surrogate for the investments that we are making on AI, is around 7%, which is higher than the company overall growth. That's number one.

Number two, in all our discussions, we are pivoting and leading it with AI and generative AI. I think it's hard to say, look, if I have put in x number of people, will I get y?

I think the growth momentum, the conversions, staying in the margin range of 24 to 28% are all the factors that will ensure that we are looking at the ROI and we are getting the right benefit. What is the mindshare you are getting with the clients when they are having discussions on the AI and how do they implement, which process or area they should pick in?

Can we help them accelerate on their AI implementation? That's are the metrics that we are looking at.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Yash. We have next question from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus Securities.

Sandeep, please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity. The first question is generally our coming quarters growth is dependent on the headcount.

This time headcount has marginally gone down. Is it to lead slightly softer quarter in the coming quarters or it is more to do with an effort to improve utilization and AI-led productivity, which is driving to slightly higher utilization and lower employees?

Sandeep, I think quarter-on-quarter, like I said, that we are looking for sequential growth. There could be quarter-on-quarter variations.

I think for the full year, we are very confident of delivering the top-quartile growth. The headcount, if you see, yes, the total headcount has come down, but the billed headcount has increased, and our utilization has increased.

That's the reason for the headcount reduction. On the quarterly, I think I said in the beginning that we are confident of delivering sequential growth.

Quarter-on-quarter variations will continue, but with the discussions and the momentum we are seeing, we're confident for the full year in achieving the top-quartile growth of the industry segment.

Fair enough. Just the second question is in terms of ACV.

This quarter, there has been a 26% growth. Do you believe this kind of a Y-o-Y growth momentum based on pipeline may continue in the coming quarter, or if you can comment on the whole year ACV target?

Yeah. Sandeep, for full year, last year we delivered around $170 million ACV, and I think what we are aspiring for is to definitely do at least what we did last year and grow on that number because that will give us a good tailwind as we enter 27-28.

That's what we are expecting, and I think at this stage, I see no reasons as to why we are not marching towards the goal that we have set ourselves for.

Okay. I will come in the follow-up.

Thanks.

Sure, Sandeep.

Thank you, Sandeep. We have next question from the line of Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital.

Rahul, please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity. In terms of segments, you articulated one that BFSI you added mortgage as one of the new pieces.

If you could articulate what kind of a sub-segment opportunity in terms of market, customer size, or geographies, all of that which you are trying to chase within this sub-segment?

Rahul, I think on BFSI, we are seeing opportunities across the regions: APAC, EMEA, as well as in US, across FCC, across trade, and all of them, like in trade life cycle, we are looking at AI in terms of how they can use AI because we understand the front to back of the process and we understand the client's business. That's where the discussions are leading.

As I said that we also won a CX engagement for FS clients, which is the first cross-sell because CX was predominantly for our communication, media, and telecom, and we will continue to focus on that as well. We will continue to see how do we cross-sell, upsell our existing offerings into FS segment.

Broadly, that's the composition. I hope I answered your question.

Thanks for that color. One piece which I think you also mentioned that you are chasing mortgage as a area within BFSI if I heard it right.

My question was more specific to the mortgage customer opportunity.

Okay. Sorry.

Go ahead, Srini. Nah.

Let me take that, and, Rahul, thanks. What we mentioned is that we've had couple of clients talking to us about mortgages, and we've some momentum in that area.

We're going to start doing work in that. Now as it becomes meaningful, we will have to then decide who we go after and which clients do we pitch to.

At the moment, I think our focus is on making sure that these initial two engagements are successful. I think anything beyond that will come later.

Okay. This is in US, is that understanding right?

That's correct.

It's refinance or origination, anything if you could like to add?

I'll have to check that.

On the servicing side.

Servicing, yeah.

Yeah. The reason I was trying to understand that we have seen the volatility in the origination side of it is extremely high for the BPO companies, while servicing is definitely far more annuity by behavior.

That's the reason I was trying to understand. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Rahul.

Thanks, Rahul. We have next question from the line of Shradha Agrawal from AMSEC Securities.

Shradha, please go ahead.

Just two questions. One is on margins, when you called out the puts and takes for this quarter, rupee depreciation was not called out.

Didn't we see any mitigating impact of currency movement on margins?

Yeah. Excluding FX, I think the impact on quarter-on-quarter on delivery would have been 330 bps, of which majority would have been increments.

G&A, SG&A would largely have set themselves off. I think the impact of FX for us would have been 0.5% or so, 50 bps or so quarter-on-quarter.

Okay. Secondly, I think, Kapil, last time you had indicated that there's a US government regulation on offshore call operations that was being monitored.

What is the status on that? In relation to that, we've seen some softness in our CMT vertical.

Is it to do with some regulation change in the US?

Shradha, no. I think there is no further change in either direction from what we reported in the last quarter.

I think it's more quarterly aberration if you're seeing the growth in CMT business in Q1 over Q4 sequential growth from 7% to 1.3%. It's just a quarterly aberration.

It's nothing to do with the regulatory environment.

Right. Just last question if I can squeeze in.

The top five accounts have been relatively slow for some time now. Is it some particular client-related weakness, or what is happening actually in the top five client category?

I think it's not slow, because what is happening is that like I had said in earlier quarterly earnings call, that if clients are implementing technology, AI, we are not going to shy away from it. The fact that we are able to capture at the demand, and a lot of work that we do in the FCC area is also dependent upon in terms of how and when you are doing client refreshers, and it's linked to the regulatory environment, and that I think has slightly come down because of the overall regulatory environment.

I think the overall regulatory environment for financial services in the US is slightly less onerous than it used to be, let's say, two or three years back. That's the reason.

Otherwise, there's no other reason for growth in the existing top five clients.

Got it. This is helpful.

Thank you, Srini. Thanks, Kapil.

Thanks, Shradha.

Thank you, Shradha. We have next question from the line of Vinit Thakur.

Vinit, please go ahead, and also request you to let us know your organization's name.

Hi, good evening. I am from Plus91 AMC.

Thank you for the opportunity. I would just like to know your overview on the emerging because there has been a growth year-on-year quite drastic growth.

Could you just comment on that?

Vinit, like I mentioned, our F&A we started with SMB, then we are gradually moving into mid-market segment. We have also built our financial workbench, which is resonating well with the clients in automating their processes.

I think we expect to see good momentum in the emerging market business on the back of our F&A capability.

Sir, coming to the other segments as well, there has been a very muted growth in other segments, not a lot, especially in BFSI. Could you comment on that as well?

I think the if you look at Q4, I know we were coming on the back of very strong quarter of Q3, we had a 0.6% growth, and this Q1 versus Q4 is about 2.9%. If you look at financial services was negative 2.8%, and this quarter it's negative 0.1%.

I, as I said in the beginning, we do expect to turn the curve and and and see how we can deliver a positive growth from H2 onwards. I think we are we are seeing good momentum and traction in FS.

On the CMT side, it's more quarterly volatility. We are seeing in our international centers, Cairo as well as in the Fayetteville.

I think that's that's And high-tech and M&D, I think, saw good growth, turnaround. I think I'm not worried in terms of the overall growth of 2.8, 2.9% that we delivered.

FS, like you rightly said, is a large area for us, and and H2 should we should start looking good from H2 onwards.

Okay. Sir, just last, what would be our capex guidance for next 3 years and our revenue growth also, if you could comment on that?

I think capex may be slightly higher. We're probably running at something like let me check.

While Srini is checking on capex,

on the revenue 130 crores is my estimate.

Yeah. On the revenue growth, the guidance stays the same.

We are confident given our capability and industry mix to stay in the top quartile of the growth.

What has been the Q1 top-quartile growth if you could help me with that?

I think you can look at the top 20-odd companies were listed in India with similar market cap, and you should be able to work out some of that number.

We think in Q1, we have delivered top-quartile growth.

Easily,

yeah.

Some of them have not released results yet. I think couple of them are today.

We'll have to wait for that picture to emerge.

Sir. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity.

Thanks, Vinit.

Thank you, Vinit. We have next question from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global.

Dipesh, please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity. Just two questions.

One is about any changes you are observing in roll-off trends considering the adoption of AI as well as technology transformation which you are helping? Which can have some application about efficiency gain prospect.

Second question

Sorry, First question was on change in roll-off trends, was it?

That's right.

Okay. Second question?

Second question is on the just outlook on two verticals. One is CMT.

Second is fashion and luxury. You said we are seeing early signs of green shoots.

Typically, Q2 is a seasonally weakness in that vertical. If you can provide context with that seasonality.

I'll do that on CLX.

You want to talk about I couldn't hear. Voice was not clear.

On CLX, you are right that Q2 is soft, but if we look at Y-o-Y comparison for H1 to H1, we think that we will still be up for fashion and luxury. I think full year for CLX is probably around 0 to 2%.

I think we should be able to do a little better this year. Your first question was whether we're seeing any change in roll-off trends.

Generally, roll-offs tends to be volatile because if you are doing some short-term work and that ends, then that will show up in the roll-off. It tends to be volatile.

It is not fully predictable. There are quarters where not much roll-off happens, and then there are quarters where there is a lot of roll-off.

Generally, if you look at in four-quarter period, then it is generally between 15 and 20% of the revenues for the year. We expect that that should broadly hold up this year as well.

Understand. Thank you.

Thank you, Dipesh. We have next question from the line of Rohit Thorat from Axis Capital.

Rohit, please go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity. First question is regarding growth in non-top 10 clients.

For past few quarters, your non-top 10 clients were actually growing at a faster rate compared to your overall company growth. However, this quarter, that cohort has seen some slowdown.

Can you give some color on what's causing that during this quarter, and how is the outlook going forward for this cohort?

I think as I had said earlier that given the size of our business and top 10, outside of top 10, quarter-on-quarter volatility will exist. Directionally, there is a strong focus on outside growing outside of top 10.

It's not to say that we are not looking to grow in top 10 or looking to share to get a larger share of wallet of top 10. I think we are confident in delivering a higher growth outside of top 10 as we continue, because that's a significant focus area for us to see how we can reduce the top 10 client concentration.

Okay.

I don't think there is anything to read on one quarter on the basis of that is it a trend or something slow or anything we are seeing, nothing of that sort.

Okay. The second question is related to other operating expenses which are there in your exchange filings, the P&L in exchange filings.

That has also seen some substantial increase quarter-on-quarter. What's causing that?

Communications, network infrastructure, some amount of facility buildout. It's all G&A-related spend.

Is it expected to go down as a percentage of revenue going forward or in the next two to three quarters or

Computing and networking expenses, I think the trend is generally not expected to go down. I think equipment has become more expensive.

I think some of it is also dependent on when we make the purchase. I think capex has been a little higher this time on.

Some of the opex also has been higher. We should see some goodness as revenue growth goes up.

Thank you for taking my questions.

Thank you, Rohit. We have next question from the line of Chirag Shah.

Chirag, please go ahead. Please mention your organization name, yeah.

Yeah. Hi, Srini.

Hi, Kapil. I'm Chirag from White Pine.

Just one question on the non-FTE model or outcome-based model or what you term it as technology and analytics part of the business. Any light you would like to share on it, what kind of interactions you are having, what is the pace of interaction versus last 3, 6 months?

I presume BFSI would be more active on this kind of discussions where outcome-based model becomes more prominent at least on some part of work.

I think the discussions are centered around AI-led deals in our client life cycle, FCC, transaction monitoring, fraud, and selling both the new services to existing clients as well as capturing and onboarding new clients. We have also had some industry recognition, which are also helping on the inbound inquiries.

In terms of the momentum that we are seeing is definitely higher than what we have seen in the previous two or three quarters, the question that you are asking. I think we are also looking and having discussions on the retail, mortgages, and the payment side of the business as well.

Those are the broad areas where we are seeing comments in the financial services space.

In this, what I was trying to understand is deal conversions, how fast they are happening, and what kind of differences there versus the traditional FTE-based deal that you have? Has the pace picked up on you winning those kind of orders, and because I presume you would get a better absolute profit over a period of time in outcome-based model if you're able to prove yourself very well?

I think I had mentioned this there are clients which are absolutely not inclined to go on outcome-based model and share the potential benefit or reward of the transformation that AI can bring. There are certain clients which are just beginning to start at least the starting conversation is that on AI, it should not be the traditional FTE model, and what is that we can bring in from an outcome-based and a non-FTE model.

We are confident in operating in either of the two models because the confidence that we have in our delivery and helping clients achieve the outcome that they are looking for in the areas that we operate in, like the service lines that we are operating in and the verticals. That's where I think is where we are driving the conversations.

It's not that we are having AI conversations here and then there's a traditional deal. Everything that we are talking today has an overlay of AI, technology, which always used to be the case even earlier, and which I had mentioned, the productized services that we offer, the technology that we offer, bringing human in the loop, amplifying human potential.

There what we have done is we are bringing in AI, agentic solutions on our productized services. Those are the discussions that we are having.

Okay. I'll get back in that queue.

Anything on the conversion side? How fast is this conversion happening?

Because if it is 15-20% of your revenue today, can it become 25%, 30% in 12 months' time or 18 months' time?

I think the deal sizes in AI are relatively small. You see what I'm saying.

What is happening is it's like icing on the cake. Can it become 20 or 25%?

I don't know, but I think can it lead us to higher conversion? Can it lead us to get the right mindshare of the clients?

Can it lead us to pivot our organization in the right direction? The answer is yes to all these questions.

Okay. Thank you.

You answered it. Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Chirag. We have next question from the line of Girish Pai from BOB Capital Markets.

Girish, please go ahead. Girish, we can't hear you.

Girish, you need to unmute yourself.

Yeah. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Yes. Uh-huh.

Kapil, you mentioned that we've hit a run rate of $500 million in this quarter. Obviously, you were probably aiming at $1 billion as a next target.

What would be the strategy from here on? From organization capability, verticals to address, enablers to function, and sales, and all that, what do you foresee from here on?

What should change, what should not change for your company to hit that billion-dollar target?

I think, Girish, overall, like I said, we are seeing good momentum in the capability areas that we have. We have also expanded into newer geographies, and we are seeing good amount of traction there.

We have started seeing momentum in adjacent areas. We were doing loans for institutional side.

Now I think we have had couple of wins on the mortgages side. We are seeing on the rent side.

These are some early green shoots that we are seeing. I think F&A, we were doing SMB, now we are seeing traction in mid-market.

I don't think that there's a very fundamental shift that is required in terms of what we are doing. I think we have to continue to invest in our sales.

We have to continue to maintain strong delivery focus, continue to invest in our technology, AI capabilities, which we are doing. I think that's what will get us to the overall goal that we have set for ourselves.

It's not like that we Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

Please go ahead.

No, I had covered it in terms of what I had to say.

You mentioned that you would want to be in the top quartile in terms of growth, but if I look at your ACV numbers, they've been trending down for few quarters now. What are you going to change to get that trajectory up for your top-quartile growth to remain there?

I think focus on large deals. Analyst, as I had mentioned, that industry recognition is helping us get inbound inquiries.

I think that's what will help us increase the trajectory on ACV. I have always said that quarterly aberration will stay, but $40-41 million in Q1, and if you look at Y-on-Y growth, is substantial.

Our aspiration is to do higher than $170 million, which we did last year, which will give us good tailwinds as we enter FY27 and '28.

Right. From a margin standpoint, will it kind of mimic last year's trajectory in terms of quarter-on-quarter margin improvement?

It will

The margin will continue to improve because this year this quarter is when we gave out the increments. From now on, if everything stays equal and there's revenue grows, then margin should.

Right. My last question, I don't know maybe I missed this.

BFSI, most other peers of yours, large and small, have been indicating fairly strong growth in the BFSI space, whereas we've seen, I think, two successive quarters of weakness, if I'm not mistaken. What's happening here, and how will things change here?

I think we've already beginning to see the change. I mentioned, if you look at quarter 4 decline over Q3 and Q1 decline over Q4, that trajectory or the gradient has already started moving in the right direction, and with the pipeline, momentum, conversions we have, I'm confident that we will turn this around from H2 onwards.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Girish. We have next question from the line of Vamshi Krishna from Kotak Securities.

Vamshi, please go ahead.

Sure. Hi, Kapil and Srini.

Kapil, just to start off with, I think you have formed a new AI organization. Then if I see the tech capabilities you have, that's largely Compliance Manager and Market360 platform, which have been doing quite well for you.

Then you're talking about moving into CX in financial services vertical. Now can you just share if there is something in the pipeline or any platforms that you are going to leverage given that this can be an incremental opportunity for you?

Girish, I think in terms of it's not just that our AI or agentic AI

Vamshi, sorry.

Vamshi, sorry, is restricted to Compliance Manager or Market360. For one of the high-tech manufacturers, we are their agentic AI implementation partner.

On the entire supply chain, order management side. It's not just restricted to these two areas.

These are our IP or products that we own, but we are having discussions outside of that as well. What was your second question?

Sorry, Vamshi, What was your

Since you're entering CX within the financial services business, is there some platform or any IP that you are going to leverage given that this can be an incremental opportunity from traditional ways of working?

In terms of partnership and alliances, we are continuously talking to the hyperscalers. We have our own IP on the ATR business, which we will continue to leverage for quality monitoring and audit.

We have our own proprietary platform QA360, which we are continuing to invest in, and I think I had in my opening remarks, I had mentioned that we have had our win, and the number of transactions we'll be able to monitor on the back of QA360. Last is our Agent Assist.

That's broadly what we're doing in the CX space as also working with the client-led technology platform, because what is happening is in CX, a lot of clients are implementing technology at their end, and because we work with large clients and then they are leveraging multiple partners, it's better use to scale and build the technology at enterprise on their side. We are being leveraged for experimentation as well as testing of the technology, being a credible partner.

The implementation is predominantly happening on the client side.

Got it. Srini, one for you.

You have started the year with about 90 bps lower gross margins Y-o-Y, and you just indicated that given the diversification in your delivery, the gross margin will be lower at this locations, and second, higher G&A costs for the year. How should we think about the margin trajectory for the year?

Will it effectively or essentially mimic the improvement on a Y-o-Y basis, or will there be some divergences here?

One is that margin trajectory for us, at least, depends a lot on how growth shows up. If growth shows up like it did last year, I think we did the three quarters of close to 5% or exceeding 5%, then trajectory will be sharp.

I think we were also coming off a base of in FY25 significant investment. FY26 numbers that way appeared much stronger.

I think we ended up FY26 at 27% margin, which is actually higher than the midpoint of the range. I think right now, if you're looking for some information, we would advise you that that midpoint is what you should pick, because higher than that is going to be a little difficult.

Sure. Thanks.

That answers questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Vamshi. We have next follow-up question from the line of Sandeep Shah.

Sandeep, please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity. Kapil, just wanted to understand, many of the large peers, specifically in this earnings call, has been talking very bullish in terms of agent-led business operations.

What is driving this growth for the industry per se? Is it clients are outsourcing more newer services with the help of agentic AI?

Second, if that happens and big players enter this game, are you seeing more competitive pressure in terms of smaller deals, even larger deals, because Accenture in their earnings call has also called out they want to enter into small, medium-sized enterprises? Both on the industry and competitive pressure if you can explain.

Sandeep, sorry. What was the question?

Sorry, I'm not clear.

Yeah. You can hear me?

I can.

Yeah. What I'm saying is the larger peers in the recent earnings call have been talking very bullish in terms of the agent-led business operation opportunity.

First question is, at industry level, what is driving this? Is clients are outsourcing new services incrementally versus what it used to be earlier because agentic AI helps to reduce SG&A and some cost of revenue as a process?

Second, if larger peers enter in this business, are you witnessing a significant competitive pricing risk on a going-forward basis?

Sandeep, on the first question on the industry, see, clients are investing. There's massive amount of money that's going in AI, and there is a lag between when the investments are happening and when the benefits will start showing up, the ROI.

It's like then the investors, the CFOs are asking where is the ROI. That's one lever that's driving outsourcing.

Second is because of technology transformation, scale becomes important, there is consolidation that we are seeing. Some players are winning in some area.

Some players are winning in some other area. That's the second lever whereby the agentic operations and the third one, I think in terms of looking at the process and looking at where you can bring cognitive, how you can use deterministic from overall agentic graph perspective is what I think there's a lot of conversation, but like I said, the ROI is still yet to be seen, there's a lot of promise in terms of commitments that are being given.

That's on the overall industry. On the second question, are you seeing pricing pressure because more and more players?

Obviously, there's always competition determines the price at which you win the deal. Yes, there are pressures that we are seeing, but nothing untoward to say, and then operating model, you have to see what operating model you want to use to deliver to the outcome that we have committed to the street and also deliver to what we have promised to our clients.

I am not seeing any extraordinary pressure over and above what we have seen in as we were doing our business. I think if you deliver value to the clients and your total cost of ownership is what clients look at, I think price then becomes a secondary driver in terms of discussions around price.

Okay. Fair enough.

The last question is when you talk about setting up a contact center for one of your BFSI client, will this increase our contribution of revenue from voice, which has been much lower, maybe less than 6-7%? Can that increase?

What is a roadmap and planning in terms of balancing non-voice versus voice? Because what I understand, correct me if wrong, voice business has a higher percentage of disruption through AI versus non-voice.

I think it's a mixed feedback, Sandeep. I think there are clients which are reducing non-voice and increasing the voice component.

Depending upon where clients are on their journey and what is important for them, is it retention, is it cross-sell, upsell? Now all these are important, but then the question is which is a primary metric that the client is chasing.

I wouldn't say that directionally non-voice is going to be less disrupted than voice. We are seeing clients moving from non-voice to voice.

To answer your second question, will it increase on voice? Traditionally, if you look at, our percentage of non-voice was higher, substantially higher than voice.

We are not worried if it increases, because as a percentage of our total CX revenue, still I think we are in a very comfortable zone between voice and non-voice.

Okay. Thanks, and all the best.

Thanks, Sandeep.

Thank you, Sandeep. We have next follow-up question from the line of Vinit.

Vinit, please go ahead.

Hi, sir. I could not get the capex number for the next 3 years.

You said 130 for this quarter or this whole year itself?

No, whole year. 130 to 150, let's say.

For the next 3 years, it depends on what we decide to do as a firm, so that will get finalized only in the budget for next year.

Okay. Sir, going forward, which will be our most growing segment out of the all five segments that we operate in?

From an industry perspective, I think, like I said, emerging will continue to grow. BFSI, we have to turn the tide.

It's a large segment for us. CMT and I would say high-tech are the areas that we are confident in continuing.

The

fashion and luxury?

Fashion and luxury, see, it's a small segment, and Q2 for fashion and luxury because of the holiday season in Europe is usually soft, and it's just seeing some green shoots, but I am cautiously optimistic on this, but I think Q1 was a flat quarter for us from a -2% growth. I think even if it grows, it will be a modest growth.

You asked me for high-growth segments. I think those are the ones that I would pick.

Sir. Sir, what would be the impact of AI going forward on our headcount?

I see AI as an opportunity for us because of the clients are looking for a partner that understands their business upstream, downstream, has a technology mindset in terms of delivering to whatever we have been delivering. It's not like I'm saying I can bring in technology today.

We have always been seen as someone who brings productized services. I see impact of AI as something that is positive for us.

In terms of headcount, Srini mentioned, while overall headcount has come down, the billed headcount has gone up. It's a function of utilization, and it's just as quarter-on-quarter aberration.

I don't see any concern as we move along on the headcount.

Sir. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Vineet.

Thank you,

Vinit.

We have next follow-up question from the line of Girish Pai. Girish, please go ahead.

Kapil?

Yes, you're audible.

Okay. Kapil, slightly long-term question on margins.

You have probably among the best margins amongst your peers. When you look at growth from $500 million to a billion or maybe even higher going forward, what do you see is a directional view on margins?

Do you think it's going to trend down, or you're going to hold up broadly in the same range? What is going to help you from a slide on the margin front going forward?

Girish, I think at this stage, we think that we would like to stay, and I don't see any reason going outside of the range between 24 to 28%. As we will pivot the organization into more tech, analytics, AI, which is currently I think it's growing faster than our regular business.

Today, we are making a lot of investments. There is a lag in terms of when you make the investments and the benefits that you see.

I think if we continue in this direction and if we are able to get to 30 to 40% of our revenue coming in from tech, analytics, AI, I think despite the competitive pressure, we should be able to hold the margins in this range. I think the unique thing why we have been able to deliver higher margin, we operate in competitive environment, is because of the technology that we bring in and the domain and understanding of client business.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Girish.

Thank you, Girish. We'll take last question from the line of Varun Bang, an individual investor.

Varun, please go ahead. Varun, I have unmuted your line.

Yeah. I am from Bandhan Life Insurance.

My first question is basically one of the focus areas for us was to sort of move from domain-specific opportunities to cross-selling. How do you see the cross-selling initiative has started playing out for us?

Is the biggest growth opportunity today winning new clients, or it is sort of increasing wallet share within the existing ones? How do you see it?

I think cross-selling, as I had mentioned, the CX opportunity that we got in financial services, MarTech in CMT, which we had mentioned in the previous quarters, our Compliance Manager in non-financial services clients, I think there is a good amount of opportunity for cross-sell because the service kit that we have is relevant across industry segment. That's number one.

What was the second question? Can you repeat your second question, please?

Yeah. Is the bigger opportunity sort of winning cross-sell

or It's on both. I see the growth aspirations that we have, we have to win new logos.

We have to continue to grow in our existing clients outside of top 10 because that'll reduce our client concentration. We need to continue to get larger share of wallet and cross-sell in our existing clients to de-risk single-service line, single location, and see how we can deliver a greater value to our clients by a mix of different service lines and as well as hybrid location, a multiple location.

For example, if I am helping a communication media client on servicing side in terms of taking a chat or a call, can I help them on the client onboarding, which is a marketing stack service offering that we have? It becomes then end-to-end capability that I can bring in.

I can help you onboard a client. I can help you service a client.

I can help you on the entire servicing side, retention, and so on and so forth. That's really what we are looking at on existing clients in terms of different segments, but we have to focus on all three.

Got it. Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but what I recall management mentioning once is that once eClerx sort of crosses half a billion dollar revenue mark, we would be eligible for larger opportunities and bigger-size deals.

Is that the right way to think about it, and does that thesis hold?

What was the last thing? Does that Thesis hold.

Yeah.

No, I got. Yes, I think absolutely.

Like I had mentioned that with the analyst recognition we have got, we are getting inbound leads, and we are seeing increase in the deal size. I think that thesis still holds, and we are still confident in participating in deals that are larger in size than that we have participated in the past.

Got it. Last, in terms of growth, would we look for acquisitions to accelerate sort of capability building, or our growth will be predominantly organic?

I think when I'm saying industry-leading growth, we are looking at organic growth. If acquisition comes in, absolutely, we are looking at acquisitions.

I think it's just the timing or the opportunity. We are conscious in terms of the company that we acquire, capability, synergy, culture, price.

There's a lot of things that have to align. I'm not saying that the growth will only be organic, but at this stage, I think we don't have anything that we can tell you about that, look, this is the percentage of organic or inorganic.

For now, I think you should go with organic, but we are constantly looking at acquisition targets.

Got it. Thanks for answering my questions.

Thank you, Varun. As there are no further questions, I will now hand over the floor to the management for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, and we'll see you again next quarter. Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, everyone. This concludes eClerx Services Limited Q1 FY27 earnings call.

Thanks, everyone. Bye.