Tejas Networks Limited

FY2024 Q2

2023-10-20 Transcript PDF
Moderator

Thank y ou very much . We will now begin the question and answer session. W e have a first question from the line of Vimal Jamnadas Gohil from Alchemy Capital Management P rivate Limited. Please go ahead.

Alchemy Capital Management P rivate Limited

Thank you for the opportunity and heartiest congratulations on a very strong quarter. I would like to take this opportunity also to wish the best to Mr. Venkatesh Gadiyar. Thank you so much Sir . My questions firstly if you could just quantify the expediting cost that took place in this quarter for our supply and the expected credit losses of roughly 8 Crores how is this expected to pan out and what was the reason for the same that is question number one and secondly if you can just highlight what i s the progress being on the international piece w e have won a couple of very large orders if you just highlight the timelines of the execution that will be great? Thank you so much.

Venkatesh Gadiyar

On the expedite fees more or less it was in line with what we saw in Q1 where we have incurred similar kind of expedite fees. And secondly coming back to the ECL it is particularly related to two particular customers wherein the payments have got delayed and we do expect to get the payments during Q3 and Q4 of this financial y ear. And that ECL which has come as a provision expected to get that in the next one or two quarters and it is temporary in nature. And it is not a kind of write-off, particularly the payments have been delayed hence the provision has been made.

Arnob Roy

Just to add to the question on international orders, so the international orders are typically to be fulfilled in the next quarter within 16 to 20 weeks and that is the timeline for doing that. And also wanted to mention that these are very strategic orders , when you mentioned the large international orders. Yes they are relatively large from a size point of view but not as large as the others that you are looking at . B ut we consider them very strategic because as we focus on growing our international business significantly going forward these deals and these applications serve as very important references for us in the market that we are targeting.

Alchemy Capital Management P rivate Limited

Right Sir so just one clarification on the expediting cost for supply of components when do we see normalization, at what scale are our component suppliers comfortable, at what point will we be sitting at the same level as them in terms of negotiations in terms of being at having an upper hand in terms of negotiating well with our suppliers, I know as and when we scale but I just want to know what exactly is th at scale, is there a number that you are looking at , at what point will these component challenges normalize or reduce to a significant extent?

Anand Athreya

Vimal there are two components to this from a supply chain side there are some components which have very long lead items till 50 weeks around and there are some components where it has come down to let us say 20 to 26 weeks. N ow having said that I would expect this to be under better control in the coming quarte rs because we have two very large orders where we required to ship them in the next I would say 12 to 18 months and we have already begu n shipments so one quarter is done. So I would say the next couple of quarters we ex pect this to be under control because at that point we would have planned all of the production and those things will be in place.

Arnob Roy

It is to do with the supply chain management across components with widely varying timelines and as Anand said in a couple of quarters will be in a much better shape in terms of being able to manage this variability for sh ipment. I t is not connected to the size of the business you are delivering it is connected to managing the variability of lead times of components for our products.

Alchemy Capital Management P rivate Limited

Understood Sir. Thank you so much and all the very best.

Moderator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Deep Mehta from Bank of India Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.

Bank of India Mutual Fund

Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations for achieving highest ever revenue as well as highest ever order book. Sir if I have to take slightly longer term view that is three years or even five years how should the international part of our business plan both in terms of as a percentage of our revenue as well as if we can talk about that would be helpful?

Arnob Roy

Deep as you can see while currently our revenues are skewed towards India we are fully focused on growing the international business so our strategy is as follows. India is a growing m arket is one of the fastest gro wing markets in telecom and we do not want to miss out any opportunit ies in this market. So while having said that we are putting a lot of investment s in growing our international sales teams, in doing international business development, working with partners and so on, so our focus fully remains in making sure that our international business pipeline becomes very strong in the next few quarters. And our ambition is to make sure that this business becomes a significant portion of our overall business.

Bank of India Mutual Fund

Thank you Sir that is very helpful. I f I can just ask one more question what are the key geographies or key components or key technologies which we are targeting?

Arnob Roy

You asked about market and the technology so market point of view as you know up unti l now we have been focusing a lot o n emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa and lot of the international markets we have been working with OEM partners. But now our focus is to go direct in the markets in Europe and US and a lot of investment and focus is going on those markets because those are also one of the some of the largest size telecom markets out there. In terms of the technology that we are p ushing out there it is really all of what we have as you have seen there is a large growing market for all our technologies wireless and wireline and we serve a lot of pretty wide variety of applications. And all of those applications are applicable to those markets as well so we are targeting all possible applications that I talked about earlier.

Bank of India Mutual Fund

Sure Sir this is very helpful. Thank you.

Moderator

Thank you. W e have a next question from the line of C A Kanwaljit Singh from Balaji Finvestment. Please go ahead.

Balaji Finvestment

Good evening and congra tulations for the best topline numbers but when we will be seeing the profits and second we have completed a project in Italy are there any such projects in pipeline or we have bid for some similar contracts elsewhere?

Arnob Roy

As far as the first questi on is concerned as I told you the PAT loss in this quarter was connected to our forward looking investments that we have been making in anticipation of larger business growth and also execution on the business on hand . So while we do not give a guidance on the absolute future numbers as well as profitability as you can see we are in a positive trajectory and we hope to continue that going forward. So as we do more revenues and we shift more we should see a very positive direction in terms of the profitabili ty without having to say any absolute number right now. As regarding the international business of Italy a s I said this network in Italy is a very good reference and showcase network for us, we talk to customers we say that hey I am going to go and show you this network which is built using end-to-end Tejas products for access, the metro aggregation and core. So basically built out using all of our state -of-the-art technologies. So right now while there are other customers and business pipeline which are t here, there are a combination of small and large and all and as I said there are multiple applications that we serve with opportunities across wholesale operators, mobile backhaul, mobility and stuff like that, so that is where things are regarding the business internationally and specifically Europe.

Balaji Finvestment

There is another question what will be the strategy for Saankhya Labs?

Arnob Roy

Saankhya as you know is a very strong in satellite communications and broadcast technology and of course in se miconductor design so we are going to leverage all of their skills. Their business has also been also going quite well and they were independently profitable in this quarter . And they will continue to focus on the satellite communications as well as the broadcast business and we have some strategic decisions and options regarding the semiconductor design using the skill set that Saankhya has which we are finalizing and that is the part of the business we are going to focus on as well . B ut initial focus is developing chip s for our own internal products, for our internal consumption right now. But yes, in a nutshell, they are a very key part of our business strategy going forward.

Moderator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Agam from Raj Trading. Please go ahead.

Agam

Can you give the gross margin for this quarter versus the previous quarter?

Arnob Roy

We do not disclose the gross margin numbers but has been remaining pretty much the same across the last couple of quarters.

Agam

If you can guide to what will be the gross margin towards the execution of this order?

Arnob Roy

Which order?

Agam

BSNL order.

Arnob Roy

We do not disclose deal wise or customer wise or product wise margin . It is like a blended kind of thing and one deal in terms of having common components across deal s. Each and every deal as part of our sourcing strategy helps in the margins of all other deals so we could not usually break down details about customer wise or product wise margins.

Agam

All the best.

Moderator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of NGN Puranik from E nam I nvestments. Please go ahead.

E nam I nvestments

Hi Arnob Congratulations you have first stage of getting the topline hurdle you have broken I think getting the operating leverage is more important now from here on. So I want to understand a couple of things how is your deep IP factory working here because you have several IP s, several people working on it, you yourself are deeply into it how is that get ting leveraged because when I see you have a 9000 Crores plus odd book over time when these IP is leveraged there is a lot of potential profits and cash flows sitting in this 9000 Crores and if you use your IP because you have a huge IP character in your b usiness so how do you think that will pan out and also you must have done a profitability test and liquidity test on this 9000 Crores order so can you give you some sense?

Arnob Roy

So first of all thanks Puranik for your encouraging words . Y es I think th is pipeline is very important for us and gives us a runway for next several many quarters. So in terms of our IPs, the IPs that we develop goes into the heart of our products into our core products and these IP s also leverage across multiple pr oducts. As you know one of the strengths of our product portfolio is the convergence of products across different applications and most of the IP that we develop in wireless and wireline go into designing th ese products and making them very efficient . So you are right since this IP and the optimization of IP is what leads to efficient product design s and better margins and improves our product margins . The other question was that about have you worked out the financials of this deals and something so the answer is short….

E nam I nvestments

I am not asking you on a single contract I am asking you have aggregation of various contracts public sector India , government India, private sector India, private sector outside, everything so on a blended basis you must be having a lot o f profits cash flow sitting here so if you can give some sense of that?

Arnob Roy

Puranik we do not give financial guidance..

E nam I nvestments

No I am not asking for guidance see the potential see otherwise what happens you are such an IT company IP you may b ecome meaningful when it is monetized so one day it has to happen so you tell me what is IP doing otherwise IP is not working at all you are having several patents it is not people are not respecting that when they are not paying for that.

Arnob Roy

I think I understand your question to monetizing of the patents correct?

E nam I nvestments

Yes absolutely that has to come through your product network that you create and sell it because when you can sell cheap because you have an IP character so you can still comp ete well but you still need to get your supply chain this which most important to this business right?

Arnob Roy

Puranik as I mentioned the IPs that we develop and all our patents are first of all used in our products and right now we are building patents in terms of our innovative ideas and also it is like a kind of a defens ive portfolio. So right now with the focus on building products and selling and building networks globally the current focus is not in terms of going into where I can license IP or can I generate patent licensing revenues. We are not really focused on that yet because our hands are full in terms of product development and shipments and customer wins and so on. So to be honest we have not yet started looking at how do I monetize the patents individually.

E nam I nvestments

Individually but use them into your product so cost come down your buildup material comes down when there is IP already utilizing I am saying from that context?

Arnob Roy

Yes of course the IP that we develop ed it brings down our cost in multiple ways we reuse it across multiple products, brings down our product development time and since we also realize it on a similar kind of hardware we get the benefit s of volumes. S o yes, the IP that we have as I said our biggest l everage is in the products that we develop and the efficiency and the competiveness that it brings right now.

E nam I nvestments

What plans you have for Saankhya Labs will they be developing homegrown chipset for you, silicons for you long-term, they seem to understand DSP space also well?

Arnob Roy

Correct so as I mentioned there are three areas one part is the satellite communication products they are very innovative set of products for satellite communication and they are developing applications and bidding into very strategic deals using the satellite communication technology . The other part is 5G broadcast technology for multiple applications such as data distribution as a service, direct to mobile etc. They have an innovative portfolio through which they are addressing multiple opportunities. And the third part is their silicon design skills. So as I said for the Silicon design skills we are first of all focusing a lot on in terms of how we can apply those skill sets and the devices that they have for use in our pro ducts to get competiveness and this connects with your IP question . So our firs t goal is to leverage what they have and also the design skills in terms of developing new semiconductors into our products so that is the part of the strategy. We are not yet looking at how we can get into the semiconductor market of building chips and selling it globally.

E nam I nvestments

Then you can take them to the market if it succeeds internally for yourself?

Arnob Roy

Correct.

E nam I nvestments

Good so you are not telling me what those secrets are sitting in the 9000 Crores order book. Excellent. All the very best to you and the best wishes to Venkatesh on his future endeavor.

Moderator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Nitin Gosar from BOI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.

BOI Mutual Fund

Thank you for this call just taking from the previous participant question wanted to understand again on the IP part at what stage we are in terms of IP utilization or are the IP capabilities that we have developed allowing us to bid for complex projects or the IP capabilities that we have developed are allowing us to bid at a lower price, how should we distinguish between these two?

Arnob Roy

If you look at the IP that we have that consists of several things one is th e semiconductor IP that we have, the other part is the software IP that we have in terms of software protocols and related elements, then there is the system design IP that we have. So these are all the techniques and innovations that has resulted in those patents and the se are the ones that are also used in our products. So if you look at what does it give us three things : the innovative solutions which gives us competitiveness against our competitors, it gives us cost benefit by being able to use our internal IPs and using it efficiently across multiple products. So, overall, in a nutshell, it makes us more competitive both from a technology point of view as well as from a cost point of view . Thus the IP s that we use span across multiple areas including software, semiconductors, hardware and system design.

Anand Athreya

If I may add Arnob because of the leverage it also reduces our time to market.

BOI Mutual Fund

Got it and that is what you indicated the speed is the essence in terms of servicing the market . Second question is with regard to a cost metric s keeping in mind now we are in position to scale up our business should we expect the cost metrics at least the fix ed cost part to grow or to stay where it is how should we look at that?

Arnob Roy

As I said we have invested ahead of our growth curve so at some point of time this fixed cost will stabilize and when we know that we have invested adequately to take care of our growth it will be stabilized and the business growth will be addressed by what we have. So the investments that we are making in, people and infrastructure and manufacturing lines, we have to scale it to the level we need for executing on our business and then the cost increases will come down significantly.

BOI Mutual Fund

Got it and Sir last bit I know you a re not for the competitive reason in position to dwell out on the gross margins but would it be good enough to understand the current quarter where we are and the gross margins we could be having are the appropriate margin the business would command or there is some kind of one-off or something?

Arnob Roy

Yes in the sense that as I said gross margin has remained very similar across the quarters. A nd if you see one of the factors you also mentioned was the expedite fees component and supply chain variability. So once that part comes under control that will help us in reducing our product costs and improving our margins.

BOI Mutual Fund

Perfect Sir this was very helpful.

Moderator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Arpit Kapoor from Ashmore Investment LLP. Please go ahead.

Ashmore Investment LLP

Thanks Anand and Arnob and congrats on numbers on the topline specifically but just continuing with Nitin’s question the last one on the gross margin bit at least in the near term so given that a lot of chip shortage which was probably impacting in the last 18 months that has been addressed but given the order book that we have which we need to execute in the near term how comfortable are we would be in a position to execute the order without let us say incurring those extra cost because of the delays in supply chain which may get addressed let us say in the next 3 to 6 months?

Arnob Roy

First of all for those large orders the good thing is that we have already placed our purchase orders, we already kind of lock ed the prices and working towards pulling in the compone nts as per our shipment plans. A s I said if your question was that are we going to continue to pay expedite fees over multiple quarters we do not expect that, I think that portion of our cost will slowly come down as we get more predictable in our ordering and our supply chain management. Earlier the whole chip s upply situation was so unpredictable and so variable that it hit us badly. We are as I said reaching the tail end of these issues . The variability was a key factor. While the lead times are still long but as long as they are constant we are able to plan more effectively and that is what is happening . So we expect that slowly quarter -by-quarter we are getting under into better control on supply chain and the expedite costs will progressively come down.

Ashmore Investment LLP

Related to this is some of the incentives that the government of India had given on the PLI front so would that have any impact on the numbers so let us say what we would have produced l ast year and what we would be producing this year in the next so would part of our business qualify for some of those incentives and how would you want to account that?

Arnob Roy

Yes we have been approved for PL I so all products that we manufacture and do business in qualify for PL I incentives. As of now we have applied for the PLI incentives for last fiscal and that is currently going through the process . We took some time to fill in the application because we wanted to go through our internal and externa l audits and then we finally put in the application and are waiting for clearance. We will announce it once it is approved but yes PL I is something that we are applying for all products and all shipments that we make.

Ashmore Investment LLP

Last one slightly on the medium term so as Anand said to the fact that we also want to build a big export order book so how should one look at it on the medium term in terms of the margin profile for the company so would you want to be someone like some other telecom equipment manufacturers which have been there listed across other geographies or how to look about how to look at the margin profile let us say 3 years or five years down the line when the order book is much more diversified and not reliant solely on Indian order book?

Anand Athreya

Yes so look as we begin to grow and we have better purchasing power or bargaining power and also we have a good mix of both domestic and international government and non -government customers so we will definitely see better margins . A nd al so as you do more international business if that split becomes good then I am sure we will be comparable to other large OEM s in this world and our goal is to strive to get there. Now I think with a complete portfolio and with this delivery especially with BSNL I think we will be viewed as a very credible player in the wireless place also in addition to the wireline space and as we build more I think we will be recognized as one of the leading OEMs in the world.

Ashmore Investment LLP

Sure thanks and best wishes to you.

Moderator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Sachin J ain, an Individual Investor. Please go ahead.

Sachin Jain

Hi my question is once you have done with the B SNL order and roughly execute in 18 -24 months you are talking about 4000 Crores plus kind of topline and once you are done with this order are you confident of sustaining these kind of run rates that is just my question?

Anand Athreya

The answer is look I think it is imperative that we deliver successfully and this is a huge win and a lot of things are at stake here. So it is imperative that we stay focused, but my belief is that once we execute this we will also achieve a lot of credibility which means we expect a lot more companies to trust us to deliver more and I think opportunities will come that is a belief. Now do we have that on hand today, no.

Arnob Roy

Also wanted to add that in terms of business opportunities that we see in front of us in India of course after the 4G and the 5G upgrade there are other opportunities com ing in 5G from where BSNL themselves are looking at a larger 5G Network. There are government investments coming in BharatNet Phase-III which government has an nounced which could again be large opportunities. Apart from that all the 5G-driven bandwidth growth in the country and upgrading of the backhaul networks are strong opportunities for us in India . I think the question is how do we accelerate our international business growth based on these successes and whatever we have done in India with especially w ith deals like this has given us a huge international visibility as well because this is one of the largest single 4G wireless network orders so our brand is getting a lot more recognition elsewhere. So while we have this huge pipeline of India business to really leverage, our focus is that we leverage our success over here to build a similar kind of pipeline internationally.

Sachin Jain

Thank you.

Arnob Roy

In a nutshell o pportunities are all visible it is a question of really winning them converting them and building on that success.

Moderator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Aditya Mehta from G.K Capital. Please go ahead.

Good evening Sir Congratulations on a good set of numbers . S o Sir can you please share the quantum of expedite fees and the investment that we have done in this quarter?

Anand Athreya

So we do not really disclose the specifics of ex penses in each of those categories whether the investments or the expedite fees etc. As you mentioned that had an impact on our product margins and as the next few quarters get over as our supply chain processes get more and more mature and the supply chain stabilizes I think we expect that to steadily reduce and go away in the future. But unfortunately we do not quantify what is the quantum of the margin hit due t o expedite fees.

Secondly how much of the order book do we plan to execute in FY2024?

Anand Athreya

Wireless 50% of the wireless roughly and then wireline is over 24 months. I think this is more of a 24-month pipeline of wireline and wireless that we have.

Moderator

Thank you . We have a next question from the line of NGN Puranik from Enam Investments . Please go ahead.

E nam I nvestments

I have a follow on question what is the feedbac k on the ground level feedback on 4G implementation today from the user?

Kumar N Sivarajan

The customer has not publish ed the details I would say that, pretty much it is satisfactory. Many commercial user s are using it, l ot of data is being downloaded but exact figure since it is customer confidential, I would not like to disclose, but yes the initial deployments have gone.

Arnob Roy

Also the fact that the customer has existing wireless network so he compares us with his existing deployments as well from other vendors.

E nam I nvestments

I was coming to that next question so you answered it so it compares very well with other vendors on a 4G basis?

Arnob Roy

Yes that is very minute and detailed comparison that we go through in terms of our performance.

E nam I nvestments

How long will the implementation take to complete on next 2 year -3 year one or how long will that be?

Anand Athreya

I would say 18 to 24 months.

E nam I nvestments

18-24 month s and my another question is about from 4G to 5G when you developed is it an incremental effort or is it a long haul effort to develop your backhaul?

Anand Athreya

So there are two components to it there is an incremental effort to upgrade from 4G to 5G but there is also a new development that has happened for the last couple of years already so we are going to get ready with even 5G radios and stuff very, very soon.

Anand Athreya

As Arnob said earlier the R&D investment is ahead of the ROI.

E nam I nvestments

So when do you see that 5G launch?

Arnob Roy

It will happen sometime next year. In various phases so because there is one part of it is a 5G upgrade of the 4G side and the other part is 5G for the newer bands and then multiple different radios.So there is a wide range of 5G products that we will be launching over next year.

E nam I nvestments

So there are a lot of upgrades from 4G to 5G so that is again incremental while you are implementing it?

Arnob Roy

So lots of IP we are going to leverage of course, in te rms of software, in terms of design. In 5 G because of the support of new bands and many new applications there will be a good amount of new development that is also going to happen both in h ardware as well as software . But a lot of the core technology and development and designs will be reused.

E nam I nvestments

Most of these implementations are outsourced or?

Anand Athreya

Everything in-house.

E nam I nvestments

In house so how many people you added in the last six months-one year?

Arnob Roy

We almost doubled R&D team and then similar kind of growth in all other manufacturing…

E nam I nvestments

On the implementation team?

Arnob Roy

Implementation meaning you are talking about field teams or?

E nam I nvestments

The people who implement this at the network level.

Anand Athreya

So the primary investment has been in R&D but there have been marginal investments support and other functions but in this particular case because we were using TCS they will do the deployment.

E nam I nvestments

TCS will be doing the deployment?

Anand Athreya

Yes.

E nam I nvestments

Excellent. Thank you. All the best.

Moderator

Sir there are no questions currently.

Anand Athreya

Again all great questions and thank you very much and thanks for your support.

Moderator

Thank you. On behalf of I CICI Securities that concludes this conference . Thank you for joining us. You may not disconnect your lines.