Thank you, [Rutwik?] .

Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Dolat Capital, we welcome you all to the Q3 FY '26 earnings conference call of IRCTC Limited.

I take this opportunity to welcome the management of IRCTC, represented by Mr. Sanjay Kumar Jain, who is Chairman and Managing Director of the company; Mr.

Sudhir Kumar, who is Director, Finance and CFO; we also have on the call Shri Rahul Himalian ji, who is Director of Tourism and Marketing; and Mr. Manoj Sharma, Director for Catering Services of the company.

Now I would like to hand the conference over to IRCTC management to take the proceedings forward. Over to you, please.

Thank you, Rahul. Good afternoon.

It's my pleasure to welcome you to the earning call of IRCTC for the quarter ended 31st December 2025. The financial results for Q3 '26 were announced yesterday and filed with the stock exchanges.

I will begin with a brief overview of our performance, after which our Director, Finance and CFO, Mr. Sudhir Kumar, will present a detailed financial and segment-wise analysis.

We will then open the floor for questions. Q3 FY '26 stood out to be extremely encouraging, with the highest ever revenue and profitability in the company's history.

This reflects the strength of our operating model, resilient business segments, and sustained momentum across core business verticals. During the quarter, PAT stood at ₹394 crore, registering a healthy year-on-year growth of 15.5%, driven by strong performance in internet ticketing, Rail Neer, and tourism, along with improved operational efficiencies and prudent cost management.

EBITDA stood at ₹465 crore, a jump of 11.5% year-on-year. Revenue from operations increased to ₹1,449 crore from ₹1,225 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, reflecting a growth of 18.2% with a robust contribution across all business segments.

This consistent performance is anchored in a citizen-centric business model, strong brand positioning, and continuous enhancement of our digital capabilities. We remain committed to expanding new-age offerings, improving operational efficiency, and leveraging technology to enhance customer experience while exploring emerging opportunities in tourism, hospitality, and value-added services.

We are confident of sustaining this growth momentum, supported by our strong financial position and commitment to long-term stakeholder value. Thank you.

I now hand over the call to Mr. Sudhir Kumar, our Director, Finance and CFO, for a detailed discussion on the financial and segmental performance.

Thanks.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the management team, I extend a warm welcome to all of you to this earning call to discuss our financial and operational performance for the third quarter of financial year 2025-26.

I'm pleased to share that the company has delivered a strong and resilient performance during the quarter, reflecting the robustness of our diversified business model and disciplined execution. Profit after tax stood at ₹394 crore, registering a year-on-year growth of 15.5%.

Total revenue for the quarter reached ₹1,449 crore, representing an 18.2% increase over the corresponding period last year. EBITDA rose to ₹465 crore, with a healthy EBITDA margin of 32.1%.

Although margins moderated slightly due to changes in revenue mix, particularly higher contribution from catering and tourism, our overall profitability remained strong and sustainable. Let me now briefly highlight the segment-wise performance.

Internet ticketing continues to be our most profitable segment and a core strength of the company. Revenue stood at ₹401 crore, up 13.2% year-on-year.

Nearly 89% of the reserved railway tickets in India are now booked through our online platform, underscoring our leadership in digital ticketing. The segment delivered an impressive EBITDA margin of 85%, reflecting strong operating leverage and cost efficiency.

Catering recorded revenue of ₹661 crore, achieving a robust growth of 19.1% year-on-year. Margins were impacted due to higher sales in train-based catering operations and pilot initiatives such as branded catering projects, along with our continued focus on enhancing customer value and passenger satisfaction.

Despite this, the segment remains a steady and scalable growth driver, supported by rising passenger volumes and ongoing service improvements. Rail Neer generated revenue of ₹98 crore, registering a 6.5% year-on-year growth.

Margin improved during the quarter, driven by economies in material costs and sustained operational efficiencies, along with strong brand acceptance in the market. Tourism delivered an excellent performance, with revenue of ₹289 crore, marking a 29% year-on-year growth despite temporary geopolitical disruptions.

EBITDA margins improved to 19%, reflecting a better product mix and focused cost rationalization initiatives. Our overall third-quarter results demonstrate the resilience of our business, disciplined cost management, strong digital backbone, and unwavering focus on operational excellence.

We remain confident in our growth momentum and are well positioned to create sustainable long-term value for our stakeholders. With this, I conclude my remarks.

We will now open the floor for questions. Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on good set of numbers. Sir, my question is on the catering business, which reported a very healthy growth of 19% in this quarter.

If you can highlight the reasons behind that. Also in the opening commentary, you mentioned that margins were impacted due to the Vande Bharat project.

If you can just talk a bit about that as well.

Thank you, Mr. Joshi.

A very good question. We have seen that our revenue from Vande Bharat trains, this time the billing has increased by ₹70 crore, and so be the license fee.

The main reason for catering business revenue enhancement is introduction of additional 40 trains during the period. Far as margin is concerned, when we log the revenue for the Vande Bharat billing, it doesn't give us that much license fee.

Additionally, 5% GST we have to pay out of that. That is the main reason of the margin not very high which you have indicated.

Sure, sir. Secondly, you mentioned that 40 additional trains were introduced in this quarter, which basically led to a very good growth.

Sir, how to think from FY '27 and '28 perspective? Because if I look at our catering business in 1Q and 2Q, the growth was slightly weaker, and suddenly we have seen a very sharp jump led by addition of trains.

Can you give some color as to how many new trains are expected to be introduced in, say, '27 and '28? How to think from a two-year perspective, especially on the growth side?

Again, it's a very pertinent question, important question, how it look like in the catering business. You must have seen the budget announcement and the discussion thereon thereafter in the parliament and various media coverage wherein it is very categorically told by Rail Ministry that they are going to introduce 260 Vande Bharat train sets.

These trains are already in the pipeline, and that is certainly going to add good business for IRCTC catering.

Got that. Sir, one last bookkeeping question from my side.

If you can just give out the figures for number of tickets that were booked in this quarter and what was the share of UPI transactions, and also the breakdown between convenience and non-convenience revenue? That is the last question from my side.

Our convenience revenue is ₹251 crore, and non-convenience revenue is ₹150 crore during this quarter. Average daily ticket booking in lakhs is around 14.64 lakh per day, as against 13.59 lakhs last year December '24.

The UPI share has increased from 46.86% last year to 50.18%.

Thank you. Thank you so much, sir, and all the best.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, am I audible?

Yeah. Hi, yeah, thank you for taking my question, and congratulations to the team on the wonderful quarter.

I have a couple of questions. Firstly, on the payment aggregator license that IRCTC received the in-principle approval in the previous quarter, and it was said that by January end, there would be submitting the final applications.

Just the timelines update on that thing. Just wanted a view of how the management is looking at that thing from a strategic business driver potentially going ahead.

Our document submission date has been extended by RBI till to August this year. We have already engaged our technology service provider.

Most likely, we'll be submitting the documents at the earliest.

Right, right. One more question.

Again, sir, regarding Rail Neer, it was announced that the company will be undertaking four greenfield projects in FY '27, I think. Again, what are the timelines, because actually greenfield operations take a bit of time getting operationalized, and what sort of capacity expansion are we looking at once these plants get operational?

You see, first of all, we are enhancing the capacity of our existing plant at Danapur and Ambernath. We are doubling its capacity.

In addition, our board has already sanctioned for installation of four new plants at Mysore, Prayagraj, Bhagalpur, and Ranchi. We'll be adding around 25% to 30% capacity in, say, 1.5 years.

Right, right. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Hi, am I audible?

Congratulations on a wonderful set of numbers this quarter. I firstly just wanted to confirm the numbers for convenience, non-convenience, if I'm right, then it was ₹251 cr for convenience, and also for a daily ticket booking, if you could share that again.

I missed that.

I could not get you properly, but I think you want to know what is the share of convenience fee in the IT earning.

That

is ₹251 crore,

and

non-convenience fee realization is ₹150 crores.

Okay. Regarding your Rail Neer volume, could you share the average volume of Rail Neer bottles you sold per day in Q3?

How close are we to reaching that 2 million bottles per day capacity target?

Average is 12.68 lakh bottles.

Okay, 12.68 lakh. I had one more question around the Amrit Bharat station scheme.

We had previously noted that static catering units were being impacted by these station upgrades. Has that normalized here in Q3 now?

Or are we seeing some revenue flow back from these upgraded stations yet, or are we yet to see that?

Earlier, we were having our presence at 543 stations. It has now increased to 563

stations.

Okay. All right.

I had a few more questions if you could give me the time to ask them. I also wanted to confirm the UPI transaction share, was it 50.18%?

Yes.

Okay. Also regarding the labor code impact, you had mentioned in the footnotes that you are still assessing the labor code impact, and I've seen a lot of peers taking provisions this quarter.

Could you give me a broad range of quantum of any potential liabilities in this case in Q4?

I don't see there is any major impact because we are still examining the impact as such in detail. Because there are two things which may come for us, like earlier gratuity used to be given at 5 years, it has been reduced to 1 year, and health check-up.

For our regular employees, we have no problem because we will see to that. Whatever the impact be, that will be adding to our cost, but that way we will compensate by increasing the volume and revenue of the business.

Tourism did really well, and how much of this do you think this influx of seasonality, would we be able to carry over to Q4 for Maharaja Express and Bharat Gaurav?

You see, all our segments have shown a very good increase, and we are targeting to achieve 15% sustainable growth this year.

Okay. Just one last question from my end.

This is a little generic in nature, but just wanted to ask. You have a huge database, and are there any anonymized data insights or products that you've created for third parties that you would like to use, or is it strictly for personal IRCTC use due to privacy concerns?

You see, we have to see DPDPA compliances. We have planned to introduce our unified portal and taking use of data available with us to cross-sell our products, but this will be in compliance to DPDP guidelines.

Okay. With these Swiggy-Zomato integrations and e-catering going, do you see this as cannibalization of your onboard pantry car sales, or is it purely incremental?

You see, there is no dearth of market for both kinds of things. As I showed you the figure of this quarter, both our normal catering also increased and our e-catering also increased by, say, 25%.

The difference is in basic catering, we serve the dal chawal, khana type of thing, but in e-catering, you can add to what you eat. This both the things are complementing each other, and I don't see any downside anywhere in both the segments.

It will be win-win.

Regarding the OTA platform that you had mentioned, are you aggressively looking to compete with private OTAs on non-rail inventories like hotels or flights this year? Or the focus will primarily be on cross-selling existing rail passengers?

You see, our forte is rail passengers. Now at the moment, our rail passengers are utilizing travel-related services from other OTA sites and from unorganized sector.

Even if we are able to capture some of the value-added services to our customers, this is a very good business proposition for us. Around 16 lakh tickets we are booking every day, and our total other transactions are only 10,000 a day, which includes hotel, airlines, tour packages, and all.

If we put a unified portal, then we will be able to at least offer our services at a platform, a single platform, to our passengers. Whatever packages we are working at the moment, we have got a very good feedback from the customers, and most of these customers are our family and friends kind of things more from the word of mouth.

When we will be able to provide a platform, we are very sure to encash the cross-selling. Thank you.

Just one final question from my end regarding Vande Bharat. As you see Vande Bharat take larger share of the catering mix, how does the unit economics actually differ if you compare it to standard or express mail?

Like the prepaid nature of it, is it working better for you? How does it compare to what you had otherwise with the express trains and standard meal that you have?

You see, there are two kinds of trains. One is prepaid, another is postpaid.

Vande Bharat trains are prepaid trains where we know the assured number prior to departure of the train. We get the assessment of volume, and we accordingly get a higher revenue share.

Whereas in postpaid trains, we are not sure of the volume. In the process, passengers, they may or may not ask for the meals.

That does not give us that much confidence. Increase in Vande Bharat trains, as I told that 260 Vande Bharat train sets are getting introduced, so that business is better for our company.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. This was it.

Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulation to the management for very strong results. I have few questions.

Firstly, on the catering business, you said there was launch of more Vande Bharat train. This 40-odd number which you mentioned or the 70-odd crore number, is the increase we saw on a YoY basis is what I understand and not on a QoQ basis.

Is that understanding right?

All 40 trains are not Vande Bharat. There are certain TOD trains are also there.

Only 19 trains are Vande Bharat out of this.

Sure. The 260-odd trains—

This is a year-on-year basis.

Sure. On the 260 train, of course, these would come over a period of years.

It won't happen in the current fiscal alone. Is that also a fair estimate?

Yeah. That I told when they are asking about 2027, '28 estimates, there I have told.

Sure. Then moving to the Rail Neer segment, can we have any assessment in terms of what percentage of total demand for the segment is currently served by Rail Neer, and what more untapped opportunity exist for us as more and more plants will come?

Around 50% and 60%, depending upon seasons, is being served.

Basically, even if we increase our capacity by close to 100%, we will still be able to accommodate on the demand side of it.

That's why our management is going to add capacity, add new plants. We are further thinking because not yet done anything, but thinking we are thinking to tie up with certain other brands also.

Discussion is going on, but not fructified anything at the moment. That we'll let you know once the things happens.

Sure. In the tourism segment, we saw significant growth.

Can you give some break-up in terms of the revenue mix, how much it came from luxury train or Maharaja kind of train, how much it came from Tejas, Bharat Gaurav, any breakup on the tourism segment, State Teertha and all, would be great to understand.

Maharajas' revenue grew by 39%, and in absolute term, it is ₹53.14 crores. Our State Teertha and Bharat Gaurav train revenue grew by 51%, and it's ₹118.91 crore.

Our air ticketing business also grew by 41%, but the figure is ₹6.74 crore. Our budget hotel and Rail Yatri Niwas business grew by 38%, in absolute term, ₹5.3 crore.

Other packages enhanced by 19%, which is ₹55.26 crores.

Sir, anything on Tejas? What was the revenue for Tejas?

Tejas revenue is ₹50 crores.

Thank you. From I can understand that catering momentum should broadly continue given that this has come from more train launches.

From a tourism point of view, how the pipeline looks like? Do we expect the Q4 to see some moderation because the seasonality would be lower?

Or you think there is enough routes that are identified for Bharat Gaurav or State Teertha even in Q4 to continue the momentum?

You see, overall this year, we'll be able to achieve 15%, and I don't see any dip because you see, Maharajas' Express is also running in this Q4, and that is giving us the highest ever revenue. Our State Teertha and Bharat Gaurav trains are In fact, we have added one train, Bharat Gaurav train.

That will add to our revenue.

Sure. Lastly on the ticketing business, we said that payment gateway business would be taking some time before we commercialize that part.

In the interim, do we see any driver for this segment to grow other than train network expansion that we already covered? Is there any other subsegment or any other driver for the segment?

No, payment gateway will be enhancing in arithmetical mode only, not in a geometric progression mode, till we get a license. We are more focusing on non-convenience fee revenue, which has grew by 26% this quarter.

We'll focus more on non-convenience fee.

Any specific part of that revenue stream that has seen this growth in this particular quarter?

You see, all segments has grew. Like in our marketing and ad revenue, it is ₹24.78 crores, as against ₹13.29 crores we achieved in December '24.

Agent business also grew by 62 is achieved ₹62.47 crore we have achieved in this business, as against ₹52.53 crore. Similarly, our loyalty program has given ₹21.88 crore, as against ₹15.35 crore.

All our segment has shown a good increase. Thank you.

Those were my questions, and best wishes for the time ahead.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations on good set of numbers.

My first question is on the ticketing business. You said that 89% of tickets are already booked online.

What are the key growth drivers we are seeing in this business going forward?

As I told earlier, we are focusing more on non-convenience fees. In fact, this quarter, it has increased by 26%.

That's the main thing we are looking at, looking forward.

Okay. Could you just share the current occupancy trend for the Tejas Express train?

Just a moment. Lucknow percentage is 69%, and Ahmedabad is 109%.

Are we planning to add any new route?

What's your question, please?

Are we planning to add any new route for the Tejas Express, like any new service?

No, not yet.

Okay. Thank you so much.

A very good evening to everyone. I am Rahul Himalian, Director, Tourism and Marketing.

I would like to congratulate us for doing quite well. In Q3, we had a revenue from operations growing at 18.29% and PAT at 15.54%.

What is more important that Q1 to Q3 also saw a growth, and we are all now motivated, inspired to do well for this financial year 2025-26. Wishing you all the best.

Thank you.