Q1-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
This is our ninth earnings call, and I think we've answered it nine times. We expect our margins to remain in the range of 25%-27% over the medium term, and it shouldn't change that much.
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Q1-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
We wanted to emphasize these wins as they are meaningful for the future of both businesses, financially as well as directionally. The progress we made in only 2 years is quite remarkable, I mean, sometimes even to ourselves.
Q1-FY24 · Rohit Nanda
I suppose you were asking about the Novelic transaction. It is indeed delayed. We are expecting to close this next month.
Q1-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
We achieved our highest ever revenue and EBITDA. BEV revenue grew by a staggering 53% last quarter, year-on-year, and its share in revenue has increased to the highest ever at 33%. The growth in BEV revenue has been five times the growth in non-BEV revenue.
Q1-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
We want to make Novelic one of the world's most respected and valued sensing companies. We want to integrate radar with camera to provide a truly integrated solution. The chip used to do the heavy lifting. Now, a lot of it is actually shifting onto the software that enables that chip, and that's where a lot of people like Novelic have a place.
Q1-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
We are not turnaround people. We do not have the hubris to think of ourselves as people who can come in and fix something. What we have been able to do, both in Comstar and Novelic, is make it greater or better or faster than what it used to be. We can give them access to the right capital, deploy capital well, get the focus back on technology, and free them from short-term KPIs.
Q1-FY26 · Vivek Singh
Q1 was undoubtedly our worst quarter since our IPO. This is mainly due to the convergence of four adverse but, in our view, at least temporary factors.
Q1-FY26 · Vivek Singh
We've ended Q1 with our highest ever order book, including the highest ever net order book for the automotive business. Last quarter we received our single largest order in the past two and a half years.
Q1-FY26 · Vivek Singh
We are back to our run rate of where we were in April post previous crisis... It is only our fortune that most of our business is a two-wheeler, and even in two-wheeler, less than 5 kilowatt motor, which has been helpful.
Q2-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
We will like to remain in the range of 25%-27% for the medium term. Anything more is great, but that's our target range.
Q2-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
We have more than doubled our revenues every three years since FY 2016. FY 2019 over 2016, 2020 over 2017, 2021 over 2018, and so forth. This resolute performance, despite any external events, is because of our tremendous team.
Q2-FY24 · Rohit Nanda
Our revenue has grown by 20% year-over-year, whereas light vehicle sales in our key markets of North America, India and Europe grew by only 14%.
Q2-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
12 months into the EV slowdown narrative, our overall growth continues to be driven by BEV revenue. It has grown a staggering 53% last quarter, and its share in revenue has increased to the highest ever at 36%, which goes to show that sometimes narrative does trump data, but numbers are numbers.
Q2-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
The railway industry presents long-term growth opportunities. Indian Railways has the second-largest railway network in Asia and fourth-largest globally. The railway component market in India offers significant opportunity due to considerable entry barriers, especially in critical products like brakes.
Q2-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
This acquisition aligns with our goal of promoting clean mobility. Railways are among the most green and clean modes of motorized transport today. We will acquire RED at enterprise value of INR 16 billion, expected to be EPS accretive from year one itself.
Q2-FY26 · Vivek Singh
Three of our direct competitors in Europe have filed for insolvency proceedings. This has resulted in an unprecedented increase in inquiries from European customers to us. Hopefully, in the next few quarters to come, we can win significant new orders from Europe.
Q2-FY26 · Vivek Singh
If you see a duck in a pond, it seems as if it's gliding effortlessly. Same margins all the time, but it's paddling furiously under the surface. There is a lot of work that goes into it. Every single process there is some room to improve.
Q2-FY26 · Vivek Singh
Post this acquisition, I'll say between 24% to 26% is what we try to do.
Q3-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
On a like-to-like basis, EBITDA margins have now been higher than our usual long-term range of 25%-27% for the last five quarters running, and we expect this to stay above 28% in the near term.
Q3-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
This is clearly a case of narrative trumping data. EV sales grew by 31% last year in calendar, which is not slow. For us, based on customer schedules and our strong order book, we are certain that electrification will continue to drive strong growth in the immediate, in the medium, as well as the long term.
Q3-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
The very short answer is no, because there is a lot of recency bias in the way we analyze information. This thing that has happened is only about one and a half months. In automotive industry, you are playing essentially long-term objectives with other long-term players. These things don't happen in haste. No one is coming to us and talking about pricing for motor.
Q3-FY25 · Vivek Singh
If we are not losing share of wallet with our customers and our customers are not losing market share, there is absolutely no reason to worry. In fact, it is an opportunity for improving product design or increasing our share of wallet with that customer.
Q3-FY25 · Vivek Singh
It is a matter of great pride, and I congratulate Vikram and his team that our global market share in differential gears has grown from 8.1% last year to 8.8% now. Despite most automotive volume growth coming out of China, where we have negligible share, and several new competitors have emerged from India and China, despite all this, we have nearly doubled our market share in these five years.
Q3-FY25 · Vivek Singh
The only thing I can share is, of course, we would like to be electric first as we are in every other market. In China, it makes sense. If you look at even our past strategy, we shut down our starter motor line one and a half years ago in China to focus only on suspension motors because we realized that that market to have an ICE product makes no sense.
Q3-FY26 · Vivek Vikram Singh
This has been our best quarter ever across all financial metrics, and proud to report that we have, for the first time, crossed INR 1,200 crore in quarterly revenue and INR 300 crore in quarterly EBITDA.
Q3-FY26 · Vivek Vikram Singh
Our current RFQ pipeline is the strongest in the history of the company and almost three times compared to the same time last year. What it means is the pace of new inquiries is the highest we have ever seen since COVID. This reinforces the hypothesis that I laid out last quarter of anti-fragility, that we have built a business that tends to emerge stronger from these periods of disorder.
Q3-FY26 · Vivek Vikram Singh
North America, which was the largest market in FY25, has nearly halved for us, while India has doubled in our revenue mix. And we have achieved this without sacrificing growth or margins.
Q4-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
What that means is, while we were very concentrated on EV exposure to a few customers and programs, today, our BEV exposure is truly diversified across customers, programs, products, and geographies.
Q4-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
Our BEV revenue has grown by 4.3x in absolute terms because we've managed to double the number of EV customers from 10 to 30, and EV programs have increased a remarkable 3.6x from 15 to 54.
Q4-FY24 · Vivek Vikram Singh
Look at what people do, not what they say. I think that's always true for anything... I think the fact that we have closed our starter motor line in China plant and we are going away from it should tell you how the world is actually moving, not what they are saying, what they're doing.
Q4-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
Risk can be modeled. Uncertainty is not modelable. In the last one and a half months since this started, I've had 20 times the calls from investors and journalists than I have from customers.
Q4-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
We firmly believe that many weaker players may not survive this disruption. This should lead to further consolidation in the hands of companies with strong technology needs. Indian companies like ours that can provide world-class product performance and quality and have robust margins and healthy cash balances should emerge from this period much stronger than before.
Q4-FY25 · Vivek Vikram Singh
25% tariff is not something that can be absorbed by anyone because nobody makes 25% net margin, which is why eventually the consumer, the end consumer pays for it in the form of higher end product prices.
Q4-FY26 · Vivek Vikram Singh
The tide's shifting very, very fast and in the opposite direction. I don't think there is much concern we have.
Q4-FY26 · Vivek Vikram Singh
Tariffs are paid by importers and not by exporters. As long as our pricing or tariffs are lesser than China, it is a good thing.
Q4-FY26 · Vivek Vikram Singh
Write-downs which are balance sheet write-downs of prior investments have really no bearing on suppliers. Does it affect demand if a model is discontinued? Of course it does. But if you apply the same product across multiple customers and geographies, you are far more de-risked.