Indus Towers Limited

Prachur Sah

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Prachur Sah

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Prachur Sah

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Prachur Sah

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Prachur Sah

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Prachur Sah

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Prachur Sah

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Vikas Poddar

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Vikas Poddar

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Vikas Poddar

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During the quarter, we also conducted a double materiality assessment and a climate risk assessment as part of our broader ESG road map.

— Prachur Sah

Adjusted for the write-backs and common control accounting impact of the acquisition, our EBITDA grew 13.6% year-on-year and 0.6% quarter-on-quarter.

— Vikas Poddar

Please note that Q4 included accounting impact of the common control transaction, which I alluded to earlier, and normalized energy margins stood at -2% in Q4.

— Vikas Poddar

So somewhere talking about Q1 trend, I think sequentially, the decline that you see is driven by, of course, more sharing because we had a significant sharing growth, co-location growth.

— Vikas Poddar

So there's no incremental impact of any renewal.

— Vikas Poddar

Q

Thank you, Avirat, and a very warm welcome to all participants. Joining me today are my colleagues, Mr. Vikas Poddar, CFO; Mr. Tejinder Kalra, COO; and Mr. Dheeraj Agarwal, Head Investor Relations on the call. I'm pleased to present our business performance for the quarter ended on June 30, 2025. We are pleased to have started the financial year on a strong note, continuing the momentum built in FY25. Our operational excellence and customer-centric approach have enabled us to maintain a majority market share in our customers' rollouts, resulting in healthy tower and co- location additions from

Vikas Poddar

Thank you, Prachur, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to present our financial results for the quarter ending 30th June 2025. We had an encouraging start to the year with the momentum seen in co-location additions of the previous few quarters continuing in this quarter as well. This, in turn, has translated into a steady financial performance with healthy cash flow generation. Turning to the financial performance of the quarter. Gross revenues grew by 9.1% year-on-year to INR 80.6 billion. Core revenue from rental were up by 10.1% year-on-year to INR 51.1 billion, underpinned by anothe

Q

Two questions. Number one, I just wanted to double-click on management's point of not returning cash back to shareholders in the near term. On two aspects, one, what has changed in terms of management thinking in terms of stability of that one particular customer? Because we know for a fact that the customer has been clearing dues on time, paying backlog. So, if anything incremental has changed in the last 3 to 6 months, I would love to actually understand that. And second subpart of the question is management did mention on certain inorganic growth opportunities. Any broad aspects we could ge

Prachur Sah

Thanks, Sachin. So the first question was - I think when the committee made a decision, it was not just based on one factor. There were many factors that were considered which included the stability of the customer. And the opportunities that you mentioned. So I think there was no specific change per se, but I think it is a conscious call that the Board has taken in terms of conservation of cash, and they will revisit the decision at the end of the financial year. From a tower additions point of view, there are two aspects. One is the seasonality, as you mentioned in Q1, it did impact the towe

Q

Just touching upon again on the inorganic growth, Prachur, you mentioned that it's largely because of industry consolidation -- the scope of inorganic infrastructure business, which is TowerCo. or does the scope expand beyond this and you may look at entering any other businesses, allied or non-allied? Any thoughts there will be helpful. That's one. Number two, on the tower addition...

Prachur Sah

I'm not able to hear you very clearly. I think your line has a little bit of a breakup happening. So we couldn't hear the question properly. So first on the inorganic growth, Prachur, you mentioned that you would look at further industry consolidation if any opportunity comes around this. But is inorganic limited to the tower industry or we are open for doing inorganic in a non-allied business, any other businesses other than the tower industry? That's number one. Number two, on the tower growth for FY26 and the capex for this number, the capex appears to be higher. Is that indication that we

Q

Just on the macro tower addition comments, given that you mentioned that you have a backlog, which is fairly robust, are you able to provide any range of how your footprint could look like in the next, say, maybe 1 year or perhaps in 2 years? And I guess the related question to that is, would these kind of tower additions be all largely single tenancy?

Prachur Sah

No, I think while I cannot provide you the numbers, because it all depends on the customer plans, we have a strong order book. So as I said, the tower rollout will remain robust, at least we have visibility in the next 4 to 6 quarters, it will remain robust. What was the second question? Single tenancy. No, I think it's going to be a combination. I think as you saw in this particular quarter, we had a rollout of close to 2,800 towers and 6,000 tenancies. So we expect both tower and tenancies to grow. I don't know the ratio in which they will grow, but these towers will continue to have an opti

Q

Vivekanand, I'll take that question. So I think, first of all, on the maintenance capex, your observation is right. I think the important point to note is, obviously, we have an aging portfolio. And there are basically years when we will see a lot of focus on tower strengthening, maintenance etcetera. So this is one such year where we are focusing a lot on strengthening our towers and basically making those towers ready for any tenancy growth and so on. So that is one. Two, I think as we had shared earlier also, I think as part of our strategy, we are transitioning from the old tech batteries

Vikas Poddar

Yes. See, just to give you a sense, typically, we would replace, let's say, almost one-fourth or one-fifth of our portfolio in terms of batteries. So you could probably expect 3 to 4 years of sort of high maintenance capex and then things will obviously subside because then the useful life sort of takes over.

Q

My question is on the energy margins. If we have to see how the energy margins are -- how much contribution or the loss in the energy margins coming from, say, diesel pilferage and say, versus the reconciliation of the units between you and the clients, which bucket is contributing more to this energy margin? Second, if by doing more and more solar, directionally, are we planning to reduce the energy margins because of the diesel pilferage that's happening? And third, how do we charge back this to the customer? For example, if in solar, obviously, the operating cost is very lower after the cap

Prachur Sah

Arun, from energy margin, I want to clarify. I think there is a factor of timing. There is a factor of reconciliation. There is a factor of different commercial model that we have the customer with. So I don't think we should be looking at a split of where the energy margin is coming from. I think we have a holistic plan that we are working towards to make sure that we are more energy efficient towards the customer and we improve our margins. As far as solar is concerned, I think solar is service revenue for us, because we are deploying a capex and we are getting a service revenue out of it. H

Q

Just a follow-up on the dividend policy. So last call, you had indicated that the amount was lying idle and therefore, being used for the acquisition instead of funding it through the debt, that is the normal route that was indicated. And as the Board decides, this acquisition will be routed through the debt and the cash flow will be given for dividend payment. Now that we are, I mean, shifting this to '26, should one assume that basically the '25 cash flow that was used towards the acquisition will now remain there or that will also be available along with the cash flow being made in FY26 for

Vikas Poddar

I think there's no change in the stance. I think, like I said, the cash has been generated. We have collected all the backlog receivables, most of it. And as part of our cash management, instead of keeping that cash idle, we have either reduced our debt or used it for a very strategic acquisition. But as and when this decision of distribution happens, I think all that will be utilized. So it is only a cash management thing that we are doing. I mean there's no change in our stance from that perspective. Got it. So both '26 cash flow generation as well as what was available in the previous year

Q

Thank you. To conclude, we are encouraged by the strong start to the year marked by healthy co-location additions, and we remain focused on executing our strategic priorities with discipline and agility. We are also sharpening our emphasis on automation, AI, laying the foundation for a more agile and intelligent operating model. At industry level, structural growth drivers like rising data consumption, increasing 5G adoption and the network gap between operators continue to create meaningful growth opportunities. With our scale, strength of execution and readiness to adapt, we believe we are w

Vikas Poddar

Thank you.