Cyient Limited

FY2026 Q3

2026-01-22 Transcript PDF
Moderator

Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin with the question -and-answer session. The first question is from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.

Equirus Securities

Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a good execution as well as good growth in the DET. The first question is, just wanted to understand , there is a consistent growth in the aerospace. So, what are the subsegments which is driving? And in a furlough quarter, if we have delivered 1.9% CC growth, there could be a possibility of recoup of furloughs in the 4th Quarter. So, is it fair to assume the growth in the 4th Quarter would be higher than the third quarter? And what is the impact of furlough? It would not have been there, what would have been the growth in 3Q?

Sukamal Banerjee

Yes. Thanks for your question. This is Sukamal here. Let me address your 3 parts to the questions. Firstly, on Aerospace. I think we are seeing traction across multiple areas of work across the product life cycle. Of course, with no major designs which are going on at this point in time, a large part of it is driven by MRO and aftermarket services. Many of our customers are experiencing significant volume ramp -up that they have to deliver with the growth in commercial aviation , and that is driving a large part of the growth. We are also seeing new designs coming from various parts of the world in terms of new aircrafts, more the midsized aircraft, and we are seeing traction in terms of doing design work over there. And of course, given the expertise we have now built up in the technology front with digital and AI , many of our customers have leveraged our domain understanding across the product life cycle and awarded us several digital programs that we are executing across manufacturing, supply chain, and documentation, aftermar ket support and so on. So, it’s a very broad set of areas that is helping us drive the growth in aerospace. In terms of the growth expectations for Q4, as we have maintained, we do not share guidance. We have obviously, the recovery of furlough, but also the number of billing days in Q4 is lesser. So, it will be a mixed bag in terms of ups and downs, but we obviously will strive to ensure that we continue our growth momentum.

Equirus Securities

Can you quantify the impact of furlough in the third quarter?

Prabhakar Atla

Sandeep, since we have not experienced that, we are not quantifying it anymore. All we are trying to say to Sukamal ’s point is the underlying business momentum is so strong that we are not seeing these impacts anymore. And we think this momentum will continue into Q4 and going forward also. This is all I would say for the Aerospace business. And there ’s also broad-based growth across various subsegments of Aerospace, not just in 1 sub-vertical or the other.

Equirus Securities

Okay. And just a follow up. In the 4th Quarter, is it fair to assume even strategic growth units and sustainability will also drive the growth?

Sukamal Banerjee

So, that is definitely our intention, is to make sure that we drive growth in a broad-based manner, and that is what the team is busy working on. And in terms of setting expectations, all I can say is if it’s a possibility, the answer is yes.

Equirus Securities

Okay. And just last 2 questions. Prabhakar sir, your target of achieving the EBIT margin at closer to mid -teens or 16% by Q4 of next year continues to remain intact? And second, on the semiconductor, one can assume at least in the 4th Quarter, there will not be any support from the inorganic and the large deal win . In that scenario, loss may continue to remain between $2 million to $3 million, which we have guided earlier.

Krishna Bodanapu

On the semiconductor, I will answer first. That is correct. We will not see any upside from the deals that we won or from the inorganic. So, yes, there will be a loss in Q4 along those lines. Like I said, our goal is to break even in FY27, and we are on track for that.

Prabhakar Atla

And Sandeep, on the medium -term goals we set for ours elves for a 15% EBIT for the current business we have, we very much remain on track to that.

Equirus Securities

Just to follow-up, Krishna sir, when you say breakeven in the semiconductor in FY 27 excludes the large deal and the inorganic, right? On an organic basis, you expect.

Krishna Bodanapu

Yes, on an organic basis. Absolutely. The large deal, obviously, is a part of that, because that’s ongoing business. So, the profit from the deal help break even, but not from any inorganic.

Equirus Securities

Okay. Okay. I will come in the follow-up. Thanks, and all the best.

Moderator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jyoti Singh from Arihant Capital Markets Limited. Please go ahead.

Arihant Capital Markets Limited

Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on the good show on the DET side. So, sir, just wanted to know that in DET, our EBITDA margin expanded to 12.4% despite wage hike s. So, what portion of this improvement is structural versus cyclical or forex-related. And another, will it be fair to assume, like high-single digit to low double-digit revenue growth trajectory for DET in s27. So, what’s your take on that side?

Prabhakar Atla

So, on the margin expansion, thank you for the question. All of it is fundamental to our business, structural to our business. And secondly, at this point in time, we are not giving any visibility for FY27 as we complete the exercise that we will do for planning for FY27. We will come back and update this forum on what we see next in the medium-term view of the business.

Arihant Capital Markets Limited

Okay. Sorry, sir, I missed on the margin side.

Prabhakar Atla

Talking about margin for FY27?

Arihant Capital Markets Limited

No. On the explanation on the margin side, I just missed.

Prabhakar Atla

Okay. On the first part of your question, the current EBIT margin that we reported, the significant improvement or actually the improvement we have been showing quarter-on-quarter since Q1, Q2 and Q3 is all fundamental and structural to our business , in the sense that this is all driven by operational efficiencies, scale, cost optimization etc. And not much of FX-related headwinds or tailwinds in that. And for FY27, like you commented, we will take a position on the next year as we complete the current exercise we are currently in, for planning for FY27.

Arihant Capital Markets Limited

Okay. And sir, on the DSO side, that has improved Q-o-Q. So, what is the normalized DSO range that we are targeting, especially as a semiconductor and large program scale up.

Prabhakar Atla

The numbers that we have shown in this deck are primarily for DET. The current number is a fairly healthy number, compared to our previous track record, so to speak. And we aim to stay at the same or similar numbers going forward. And for Semicon, as the business evolves, we will report that metric separately because currently, it’s in an early stage, in terms of the pipeline, the nature of deals, the type of deals and the complexion, etc., and those we will report as they evolve separately.

Arihant Capital Markets Limited

Okay. Thank you, sir.

Moderator

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Shraddha Agrawal from Asian Market Securities.

Asian Market Securities

Congratulations to the team on a good quarter despite seasonality of furloughs. Sir, 2 questions. In our Networks and Infrastructure division, would it be possible to split the growth between connectivity and utilities.

Sukamal Banerjee

So, Shradha, we are not disclosing that number as we have talked about. But to give you some color, the growth was led by connectivity and utilities also had a solid performance.

Asian Market Securities

Because I suspect that there was some project rundown that was expected in utilit ies in this quarter, so are we behind that?

Asian Market Securities

Yes, so despite that rundown, we had a good growth in utilities.

Prabhakar Atla

Yes. It definitely contributed to the results that you see.

Asian Market Securities

Okay. And in terms of our sustainability portfolio, many other peers have been sounding very positive on this portfolio given power companies, which have seen good growth, because of the need for power consumption, because of data centers that have gone up. So, how do we look at the outlook for our sustainability portfolio going ahead?

Sukamal Banerjee

So, in terms of potential and pipeline that we see, we are definitely very confident. This may not be immediate term results for us. But mid-term, in the next 2-3 quarters, we feel very confident that we will see robust growth.

Asian Market Securities

Right. And so, of all the 3 segments, on which segment are we the most positive about as we get into FY27?

Sukamal Banerjee

I think it is something which is an evolving topic, as you can imagine. At this point in time, based on order book and immediate-term funnel, it will remain transportation and mobility. And some of this also has to do with some of our other businesses being a little more project-centric. So, when it comes to project -centric business, there’s always a churn that we have to earn our business back, that causes less of a visibility. So, I will probably say it is transportation and mobility. But in terms of funnel, it is pretty robust across the board, including in some of our smaller verticals.

Asian Market Securities

Right. Can we assume that from here on Strategic Units will get to positive sequential growth because you had 3-4 consistent quarters of sequential decline in this vertical?

Sukamal Banerjee

Sorry, which vertical it was? I missed you.

Sukamal Banerjee

Strategic Units. So, we are more or less there in terms of making sure that we get to growth and that definitely is our intention for next quarter.

Asian Market Securities

Got it. Thank you, sir. And all the best.

Sukamal Banerjee

Thank you.

Moderator

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.

Emkay Global

Yes. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions. I think first question, you partly answered, but just want to get more detail . Outlook and growth driver across vertical and subsegment, if you can provide, particularly strategic unit, subsegment if you can give same in Transportation and Mobility. Aero you touched upon, but if you can touch upon Rail and other segments there. Second question is about the 15% EBIT margin which you indicated medium -term, I am not very clear whether we gave any timeline to achieve that part. Thank you.

Sukamal Banerjee

So, I will address the second question first. On the EBIT part, we had talked about Q4 of FY 2027 with our current business mix that we have is what our target is. For the first part of the question, in terms of different segments, we touched upon Aerospace. From an overall funnel perspective, I would say almost all of our industries have very strong funnel. Certain industries are leading with regards to large deals, which means 2 things. One, possibilities of significant growth in the future, but also a question mark on timing, because large deals, as you know, can slip a little more than regular deals tend to do. So, I think to say a quarter-over-quarter for each of these verticals will be a little d ifficult, given that we do not talk about guidance in general. But our overall approach remains that as a portfolio, we will continue to drive the quarter-over- quarter growth momentum that we have built up for Q4 and beyond. In terms of some of the segments like Rail, and the only point I will make is the growth driver will come back with substantial deal wins, which we are working on. But without those deals, the business will probably remain in the current trajectory without those transformation deals that we have developed. Only when we convert will we be able to change the trajectory.

Emkay Global

Sir, just on the large deal intake, we have a healthy momentum and everything. Can you share some numbers? And if you can give context also, let’s say compared to prior period, 4 quarters, 3, 9 months, whichever way you can give some sense about how this deal closure is changing and how pipeline is changing.

Sukamal Banerjee

Was your question on order intake, sorry, you were not very clear.

Sukamal Banerjee

Yes. So, we stopped sharing order intake numbers, as you are aware. But to give you some color, our Q3 quarter order intake was robust. It was better than what we experienced in Q3 of last year. What was the second part of your question again?

Emkay Global

The pipeline also , because you said pipeline is at all -time high. If you can give some context, let’s say, whether it is growing 10%, 20%, 30% or 1%, 2%, 3% percentage or something of that sort, to give some sense.

Sukamal Banerjee

Pipeline growth is in double digits. I think what matters more is the qualified pipeline and the large deal contained in the pipeline, which has seen definitely robust growth, which is what makes us feel confident , but we will be able to guide those into revenue only once we start converting them as deals.

Vikas Ahuja

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, coming to your opening remarks, it seems like the outlook has turned a little bit more constructive. You talked about spending, order intake, record funnel, rising contribution from top clients. But in the past, we have seen the growth has been dragged because of the portfolio churn, muted client spending. So, what, according to you, has changed this time or any risk you want to highlight? Thank you.

Sukamal Banerjee

See, first and foremost, obviously, if there are any macro events, that always remains a risk, like what we experienced in April of last year where we pretty much lost 2 months of momentum from a business deal cycle perspective where there was a complete stall. So, any such event always remains a risk. Leaving those kind of risks aside, in terms of the conversations we are having with our customers and the areas we are having conversations with our customers, these are more or less essential investment areas for them. So, we may always have some projects which are future ROI -related, which tend to be from a technology perspective, which can get right-shifted from 1 quarter to the other. But the deal pipeline that we are working with, the part which are qualified, I think we feel pretty confident with the timelines and the deal cycles we are dealing with , in terms of their closures. But again, there may be some industry -specific or account-specific things which can come up. For example, in Q3, we were impacted by one of our top customers ’ CEO change, which happened, which put a halt to several of the initiatives that we were expecting to close in the last quarter. So, those are very difficult to call out. But leaving those kind of risks aside, I think we do not see any at this point in time beyond the macro and account -specific situations that may come up from time to time.

Krishna Bodanapu

And if I may just add to that from sort of previously what happened to now, I think there’s a lot more focus on not just on pipeline, but quality of pipeline and not just execution but readiness and execution. So, I think a lot of what we are talking about this time around is really based on some very solid numbers, which is what gives us the confidence that they execute. We w ill not have the execution hiccups that we have had in the past or the misses that we have had in the past. So, I think it ’s the quality of pipeline and the quality of, execution that at least gives me confidence to substantiate what Sukamal had said at the beginning of the call.

Vikas Ahuja

Sure. Thanks a lot.

Moderator

The next question is from the line of Pratik Kulkarni from Kosh Wealth Management. Please go ahead.

Kosh Wealth Management

So, I had two questions regarding the semiconductor part of our business. So, we have created a bit of holistic ecosystem regarding new partnerships and acquisitions in the semiconductor part. And as the deals come through, which part of the business are we most positive about?

Bodanapu Krishna

We are positive about the whole Semiconductor business. Like you said, it’s a holistic business that goes from design to sourcing the chips, which includes many other things in the middle, including testing, packaging etc. So, we are quite confident about the whole value chain of the Semiconductor business. We have also clearly identified where we want to focus on , more mature nodes, power-related applications, etc. So, I think we have a very strong and well-defined focus, and we feel quite confident that we will be successful across the Semiconductor value chain, in the areas that we are focused on.

Kosh Wealth Management

Okay. And another question is what I have seen is we are more focused toward power -based semiconductors, creating a more niche for us. So, any reason to focus on this segment rather than going for general semiconductors that are manufactured by NVIDIA or AMD?

Bodanapu Krishna

Okay. So, it is a different scale and a different focus what we are talking about. If you look at the chips that we work on, the chips that we work on are typically, like I said, more mature nodes, which means that they are typically in 180 to about 400 nanometers. So, the design cost of each chip, for example, will be in the $5 million-$10 million range per chip. Now, if you talk about NVIDIA or AMD, the AI and those kind of chips that they make are really the 5 nm -12 nm chips, and each chip costs about $1 billion to design. So, our intent is, look, every chip that goes into the world now will need a power chip next to it. So, yes, it’s not as sort of glamorous as being an NVIDIA, but we believe that this is a much more stabler way for us to break into the chip industry, not just the semi, chip meaning the entire chip lifecycle. So, I think it’s not going to be easy for anybody to replicate what an NVIDIA does, unless they are willing to spend tens of billions of dollars even to have a chance of success. So, I don ’t think we are playing that game. We are playing a more sort of manageable game at a part of the value chain where there is going to be a significant amount of growth.

Kosh Wealth Management

Okay. Thank you. That’s all from my side.

Moderator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hasmukh from Tata Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.

Hasmukh

Yes, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is around the quality of business. So, in past, we have called out that mechanical engineering forms a good chunk of our business. So, what we are doing to diversify from that, and whether there is any material change over the last 9-12 months, because end market for mechanical engineering may not be growing as fast as what we want to grow from an overall business perspective, so?

Sukamal Banerjee

Yes. Just to confirm, you mentioned mechanical engineering, right?

Hasmukh

Yes.

Sukamal Banerjee

Okay. Yes. So, we have several initiatives going on, and some of the wins that I shared with you, if you look at it, none of them were about mechanical engineering. So, it is not that we are not winning mechanical engineering programs, but some of the larger programs we are winning are in the new technology areas. They are about software development. They are about platform software. They are about data engineering. And of co urse, several of them are on AI or at least influenced by AI. So, I think we have a robust pipeline which is built up for technology, as we call it, which is in significant double digits as a percentage of our pipeline. So, we think that both from the wins that we have talked about, the funnel that we have for near-term closure, we are definitely seeing a diversification in our services portfolio. Also, as we have talked about in the past, we definitely are also active from an inorganic perspective to shift our service portfolio in a way that moves away from some of the traditional areas which have a slightly moderated growth, I would say, compared to the new technology areas where the growth vectors are more robust.

Hasmukh

Understood. Understood. Thanks a lot.

Moderator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankur Pant from IIFL. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. My first question is for Sukamal. Sukamal one of the problems that has impacted Cyient in the past, is the predictability in terms of revenue trajectory? Could you highlight what you are doing to improve on that front? And related to that, is the revenue growth cadence that you look at now. So, is it that your aim to improve growth with each quarter versus the last quarter? Or is it to keep it in a band as you move along each quarter? What kind of predictability are you looking at in the business?

Sukamal Banerjee

Sure. So, let me first address predictability. It was not that it was not there , I think we just had to do some tweaks and changes , to ensure that we have a predictable mechanism for our forecasting and, more importantly, the governance around tracking on that forecast, what we are doing in terms of executing within the quarter. I think from a predictability perspective of how we feel at the beginning of the quarter and how it ends up at the end of the quarter, I think we have come a long way, and probably from my past experience, I can say we are on par with anybody else. When it comes to the second part of the question you asked, obviously, there are always ups and downs in our growth. It’s not always possible to keep increasing the pace of growth each quarter, even though that is our intent. But the first goal that we have taken for ourselves is that within our immediate peer group, we would like to be the top performer in terms of growth on a consistent basis in the future. That is our first goal. And obviously, we have ambitions beyond that as well. But as the first goal, that’s what we want to achieve.

Thank you. And my second question is in terms of margins, Prabhakar , what kind of a growth are we penciling in to get to our margin target in DET business? How much are we dependent on a particular growth number for getting to that target?

Prabhakar Atla

See if you look at the margin trajectory , and thank you for the question, Ankur. Two things I will say. One about the past, and second about the future. The immediate past, you have already seen, the revenue momentum is coming back. The margin expansion program is kicking in and showing some tangible results. And we have 2 sequential quarters of margin expansion. That’s about the immediate past in the current financial year. The second thing is going forward, we have 3 important levers that we believe will work in our favor. One is the revenue momentum, though we will not quantify at this point in time what we are going to capture as an assumption for FY 2027 for a 15% exit for Q4 , b ut revenue momentum is just one part of it. The tech adoption, both internal and external, is another part of it. And whatever investments we made so far in technology solutions, we are yet to fully monetize them. And that’s the third lever. These 3 will be the levers that we will be actively working on in FY 2027 and beyond to expand the margin. Of course, there are other, so to speak, very attractive lever is to work on offshoring. It is a significant lever for Cyient, because the offshoring percentage currently is less than 50%. But we are comfortable where we are , because where the world is today, we are happy to be a global company. We are proud to be a global company. And the local content of work we do in various geographies , acts as a significant buffer for us against the current trends we see of localization. So, net off, we would have had 4 levers, we are focusing on 3 of them. The fourth one will be one that we will take as we go forward.

And any sense of the exit margin for this year? Any target on that front?

Prabhakar Atla

We are not commenting on the full year numbers, as you know, Ankur. But I will just repeat what we said in the previous call, our H2 margins will be better than H1 margins.

Thank you, sir. And just 1 final data keeping question. So, you have quantified new business as a percentage of total deal?

Moderator

Mr. Pant, I will request you to kindly rejoin the queue for follow -ups, please. There is a queue, sir. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Karan Uppal from PhillipCapital India. Please go ahead.

PhillipCapital India

Yes. Thanks for the opportunity. Sukamal, you spoke about on the verticals outlook. Just wanted to check on the geography front, there is a lot of noise around the tariff war against restarting between U.S. and Europe. So, macro uncertainty remains high. So, within that, if you can provide the outlook on various geographies in terms of U.S., Europe and APAC. And also, a related question is in terms of the confidence on the pipeline conversion , given this macro backdrop. So, are you confident of converting the pipeline in Q4 and beyond. Yes, that ’s the first question.

Sukamal Banerjee

Sure. So, firstly, as you are obviously well aware, that tariff is not a direct topic for us, but it is a topic for our customers across the board. I think most of our customers, if not all of them, have a far more robust mechanism in place than they had last year or beginning of last year, in terms of dealing with tariff. So, their ability to take decisions despite some of these, I would say, macro discussions that keep coming up once in a while is far more robust, and there is much more confidence they have in that process. So, that’s the first thing I would say. To answer your question in the second part, if the level of uncertainty is where we are and which are more short- term bursts of uncertainty and things settle down very quickly after that, I do not see that as concerning or challenging. But if it gets extended and drags out for a few weeks or months, obviously, it delays some of the deal processes. But if it is just a one-week surge and quietening down, that should not make a huge impact on our deal cycles, so to speak.

PhillipCapital India

Sure. Any color in terms of the geography front in terms of the pipeline?

Sukamal Banerjee

Sure. No, I think, obviously, in Q3, our growth in the U.S. has been higher or North America has been higher, which is largely U.S. But from a pipeline view perspective, it is quite evenly distributed, which is reflective of the current distribution of our revenue across the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific. And from a large deal perspective, it is both across North America and Western Europe.

Moderator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Krishna Bodanapu for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Bodanapu Krishna

Thank you. And I can confidently say we are back in the phase of stable growth after the challenges of the last 2 years. Our stated aspiration is to be an industry -leading growth player, which we are working towards. But I am proud and pleased to say that we are steadily making progress in the last 3 quarters, and this is an important step of achieving our stated goal of being an industry-leading growth player. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for your support in this journey. And we will again speak at the end of next quarter. Thank you.

Moderator

Thank you, members of the Management. On behalf of Cyient Limited, that concludes this conference. We thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you. This is a transcription and may contain transcription errors. The transcript has been edited for clarity. The Company takes no responsibility of such errors, although an effort has been made to ensure high level of accuracy