The Chatter: A Strange Quarter With Very Real Cracks
Edition #35
Welcome to the 35th edition of The Chatter — a weekly newsletter where we dig through what India’s biggest companies are saying and bring you the most interesting bits of insight, whether about the business, its sector, or the wider economy. We read every major Indian earnings call and listen to the interviews so you don’t have to.
We’re always eager to improve—please share your ideas on how else we can innovate “The Chatter” format to better serve your needs.
In this edition, we have covered 18 companies across 11 industries, along with an international features.
Auto Ancillary
Olectra Greentech
Hero MotoCorp
Lumax Auto Technologies
Chemicals
PI Industries
Garware Hi-Tech Films
Healthcare
Dr. Lal PathLabs
Krsnaa Diagnostics
Metropolis Healthcare
Vijaya Diagnostic Centre
Engineering & Capital Goods
Quality Power Electrical Equipments
Metals
Tata Steel
FMCG
Avanti Feeds
Software Services
Kellton Tech Solutions
Financial Services
ESAF Small Finance Bank
Retail
Senco Gold
Textiles
Arvind Limited
Packaging
Uflex Limited
International
NVIDIA Corporation
Auto Ancillary
Olectra Greentech | Small Cap | Auto Ancillary
Discussing India’s EV bus market growth trajectory and future expectations with government support driving adoption.
“From 2019 to 2025, India’s EV bus market grew at a CAGR of 35%. The expected growth rate for the next few years is going to be about 40% CAGR. That is what the market scenario is saying. Primarily, it is due to the new initiatives taken by Government of India and state governments.”
- Mahesh Babu, Managing Director
Highlighting Olectra’s outperformance compared to overall market growth in the electric bus segment.
“While the market has grown at a CAGR of 35%, you all know that Olectra has been significantly higher with a CAGR of 63% so far and we expect to overdo the market in terms of EV adoption, continuing to grow in this segment.”
- Mahesh Babu, Managing Director
Announcing the company’s strongest quarterly performance across key metrics including deliveries and profitability.
“For specific to Q2 of this year, we are pleased to report our highest ever quarterly deliveries of 375 electric vehicles, including 25 electric tippers. In Q2, our revenue is up by 25%, driven by higher deliveries and strong demand.”
Announcing the homologation of blade battery technology, making Olectra the first to implement this efficient cell-to-pack concept in India.
“We are pleased to inform you that we have already got a homologation certificate for a blade battery technology, which is cell-to-pack in our electric buses. And we hope by Q4, these buses will be productionized and delivered to our customers. Blade battery is much efficient, and due to cell-to-pack concept, it will give one of the best efficiency in the country in terms of buses, and we are the first to do that.”
Explaining the critical importance of depot infrastructure readiness and how it impacts delivery timelines for EV buses.
“Unlike diesel buses, which are delivered and you can start running without any problem, you can fill diesel anywhere and EV buses cannot be done like that because our payment will come only when you start running. In the recent, I can give an example in the last CESL tender, some of our two competitors have delivered about 600 buses in Delhi and it was waiting for six months. So 600 buses is almost close to Rs.700 crores. If we hold Rs.700 crores of inventory on STU or not running for six months, you can understand without payment what will happen.”
Addressing investor concerns about Maharashtra order execution and clarifying the realistic timeline expectations.
“If you look at the whole of the country last year, the total number of electric buses delivered was 4,000. So, if Maharashtra wants 5,000 vehicles in one year, practically it is not going to happen. The reality is, it is going to take two to three years for that to happen, because the infrastructure at the depot and all that is going to be there. That they have realized and we have clarified to them as well.”
Discussing the company’s technology partnership strategy and future plans for developing proprietary intellectual property.
“We have a partnership with BYD, which is a technology partnership, by which we use BYD technologies in our products, which is a differentiator in the market. Going forward, while we are partnering with BYD, we are very clear that we will have Olectra IPR power trains going forward, and at the same time, we will leverage the BYD partnership to the best of our customers depending upon the application we need to do.”
- Mahesh Babu, Managing Director
Discussing cost management strategies if battery prices increase, ensuring margins remain healthy through negotiations.
“We continue to work on improving production efficiencies, bringing cost optimization measures. If the battery price really goes up, we have a mechanism to negotiate with our customers to increase the prices so that the overall operating margins remain at a healthy levels of about 10% to 12%.”
- Sharat Chandra, Chief Financial Officer
Addressing questions about import dependency for critical components while working towards localization.
“As far as eBus is concerned, battery cells and battery packs, including the BMS and some components of motors continue to be imported. So we source from our technology partner. So as far as the EV segment is concerned, this is what we are going to depend on imports, till an ecosystem is developed in India for manufacturing of buses, which is happening, which will take some time.”
Highlighting the massive untapped potential in India’s bus electrification market with less than 1% currently electrified.
“Population of bus market is about 1.8 million buses. This is an old statistic which has been there. So, if you talk about replacement of all the diesel buses to EV, it is going to take some time. And as of now, it is less than 1% is electrified. So, out of this overall population of buses, there is a private segment which is also basically which is yet to take traction. We are hoping that traction is going to happen soon in the private segment. So, that is one big market which is an opportunity for Olectra and as well as the entire EV ecosystem as well.”
Highlighting strong growth in the insulator division with improving margins driven by export focus.
“Insulator business has been growing very well, last year, we had a top line of Rs.180 crores and this year H1, we have already touched about Rs.130 crores. So, we see good growth. We have a good order book.”
- Sharat Chandra, Chief Financial Officer
Hero MotoCorp | Large Cap | Auto Ancillary
Management expressed gratitude for the GST reduction announced before the festive season, which significantly boosted consumer sentiment and retail momentum across markets.
“This timely intervention significantly uplifted the consumer sentiment and revitalized retail momentum across the markets. Riding on this positive sentiment, we concluded the festive season this year with nearly 1 million retails on VAHAN in October’25.”
- V.S. Kasbekar, Acting Chief Executive Officer
The company highlighted broad-based market share improvements across all major segments including entry, deluxe, premium, scooters, and EVs during the quarter.
“We gained market share dispatch across all key segments - Entry, Deluxe, Premium, Scooters, EVs and even our Global Business. Our entry segment share in overall 2-wheeler industry expanded for the second consecutive quarter. We gained 3% market share in Quarter 2 and 5% in H1 in the segment.”
- V.S. Kasbekar, Acting Chief Executive Officer
Strong retail momentum led to exceptional working capital management with inventory and receivables reaching multi-year lows after the festive season.
“This buoyancy was clearly visible in our operations. Post the festive period, we now have the lowest inventory and lowest receivables in the recent years.”
- Vivek Anand, Chief Financial Officer
Based on encouraging trends from the festive season and improving macroeconomic parameters, management provided guidance for continued growth momentum.
“Based on these encouraging trends, we expect the 2-wheeler industry to grow 8% to 10% in the second half of FY’26 with Hero poised to outperform the overall market and continue to gain market share.”
The EV business achieved its highest-ever quarterly market share, demonstrating strong traction for the Vida VX2 EVOOTER across multiple markets.
“Hero MotoCorp Emerging Mobility Business continued its robust growth trajectory with highest ever EV business market share of 11.7%, led by Vida VX2 EVOOTER. We now hold over 20% share in 48 towns and are among the top 2 players in 56 towns.”
The international operations delivered exceptional growth, significantly outpacing industry expansion through focused market strategies and new product launches.
“The company’s Global Business continued its upward growth trajectory during the quarter with dispatch growth of 77%, which is 3x the industry growth, led by Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Colombia.”
- Vivek Anand, Chief Financial Officer
Management explained how the festive season saw a significant influx of first-time buyers, particularly in the entry segment, indicating strong demand recovery.
“The fence sitters who joined the mobility space, so that has really helped. I mean a numerical indicator, first-time buyers generally hover around 70%, 72% on an average. In the festive, it went up to 81%. So that’s really added new customers into our portfolio.”
- Ashutosh Varma, Chief Business Officer - India BU
After initial rain disruptions, rural markets showed strong recovery towards the later part of the festive season with crop harvesting proceeds reaching the market.
“Rural was a little slow to start with, primarily because of certain rain disruptions and festive also came in early this time. But as we have progressed late into festive towards Dhanteras and then early part of November, we are seeing all this crop harvesting proceeds reaching the market and it’s now responding really well.”
- Ashutosh Varma, Chief Business Officer - India BU
Strong retail performance translated into exceptional cash collections, bringing receivables down to just 12 days compared to 30 days in previous years.
“I think we’ve also seen the highest ever collections during the festive period, thereby bringing our receivables in the Indian business to close to 12 days compared to what it was 30 days in the previous years, right. So that itself really shows the kind of mood and the demand we are seeing during the festive period.”
- Vivek Anand, Chief Financial Officer
Management drew parallels with previous excise rate cuts to contextualize the potential long-term impact of the current GST reduction on industry growth.
“We had three rounds of excise rate cuts in 2003, ‘08 and ‘14, where the price cuts were 5% to 8%. And we’ve seen double-digit growth in the 2-wheeler industry for the next couple of years. And this time, the price cuts are the highest ever of 10%, right. In our product, it ranges from ₹5,500 to as high as ₹15,000.”
- Vivek Anand, Chief Financial Officer
The EV business is making significant inroads in the scooter segment, with electrification now representing a meaningful portion of total scooter sales.
“I think in the last quarter, we ended close to participation of 25% of scooter sales was actually in the EV category. And again, here with Vida, we continue to outperform and outgrow that market and contribute with new product launches as well as segment share.”
Kausalya Nandakumar, Chief Business Officer - EMBU
Lumax Auto Technologies | Small Cap | Auto Ancillary
Announcing the company’s strongest quarterly revenue performance and revising full-year revenue growth guidance upward following GST rationalization benefits.
“In Q2 FY ‘26, our revenue recorded a healthy year-on-year growth of 37%, supported by strong demand, new product launches, integration of alternate fuel business and a continued shift towards premium products. Post the GST rate rationalization, for the full year of FY ‘26, we would like to revise our revenue growth guidance from earlier 20% to now 25%, well in line with our 20% CAGR goal.”
- Anmol Jain, Managing Director
Announcing the first major localization achievement in tubes and fittings, positioning as India’s first domestic supplier with significant cost advantages.
“We’ve already got one firm order for one of the new product lines, which we have been engaged with discussions with the customer for quite some time. This is a deeper localization effort, which also gives a significant cost reduction advantage to the OEM. We would be the only one and the first one in India to have localized this product for one of our customers. And I do foresee that once this is productionized, there will be a significant ramp-up in terms of the offtake from other OEMs as well.”
- Anmol Jain, Managing Director
Explaining the cyclical nature of Greenfuel’s school bus safety products business driving quarter-to-quarter revenue variations.
“Almost half of Greenfuel today, there is a revenue which comes from the safety products, which goes on to the school buses. It’s a regulated feature, which is on the school buses. And this is a cyclical nature where we see that quarter four and quarter one of the fiscal year has a very strong demand for such products. Such buses are made more in Q4 and Q1. And quarter two and quarter three are pretty much on a lower side. And that’s the reason if you’re looking at from quarter one to quarter two, you’re seeing a downward shift. But for the full year, this has been already forecasted, and we do expect to still deliver a handsome growth for the full year.”
- Anmol Jain, Managing Director
Highlighting progress in diversifying IAC India’s customer base beyond Mahindra to include Maruti Suzuki and ongoing discussions with others.
“IAC team continues to engage constructively in discussions across OEMs. We’ve already got certain firm orders from Maruti Suzuki for their forthcoming models. And that relationship continues to grow stronger, and we will continue to expand our wallet share with Maruti Suzuki. Mahindra, of course, is our key customer, and we continue to enjoy strong order book across various platforms of Mahindra as well. And we are in conversations with other customers like Honda Car, Tata Motors to try and pitch for some of their forthcoming models in the future.”
- Anmol Jain, Managing Director
Explaining the strategic initiatives driving acceleration in aftermarket growth from historical 6-7% to current 14-15% levels.
“In aftermarket, actually, the industry is still growing by around 8% to 9%, but we’ve done some aggressive work in the first half of this year. And there are 4, 5 things which we’ve aggressively worked on expanding the channel, focus on the secondary product innovation team building and we have launched a lot of new products. So all these results are going to come in Q3 and Q4. Actually, in the month of October, we did a 20% growth over last year. So between 15% to 20% is something which we can certainly look at in H2 also.”
- Sanjay Bhagat, Head of Aftermarket
Articulating the company’s ambitious target for clean mobility revenue contribution aligned with powertrain-agnostic product strategy.
“Coming to your specific question in terms of the product mix relating to EV, we are targeting a future clean mobility as we call it, to the extent of 40% running up to as early as FY ‘28 out of the total LATL portfolio.”
- Vikas Marwah, Chief Executive Officer
Chemicals
PI Industries | Mid Cap | Chemicals
Management discussed when they expect the global agrochemical industry to recover from the current downcycle affecting the sector.
“FY26 is expected to see a modest recovery in Q4, a full recovery is not expected to realise before 2nd half of 2026 or later.”
- Mayank Singhal, Executive Vice Chairperson and Managing Director
Explaining the severe impact of weather conditions on Indian crop production during the quarter.
“Over 1.2 million acres of crops were damaged in Punjab and Maharashtra due to excessive rains and consequent flooding.”
Highlighting the strong performance of recently commercialized products despite overall market challenges.
“The growth of new products commercialised over the last three years has registered a decent 38% Y-o-Y growth in H1.”
- Mayank Singhal, Executive Vice Chairperson and Managing Director
Describing PI’s commitment to building a leading position in the biologicals segment through the Plant Health Care acquisition.
“In India, we are well on our way to becoming one of the largest biological products companies, both in terms of product portfolio and revenue. Our Peptides based Biological technology platform is unique and offers biological solutions for many unmet needs of the growers across the world.”
- Mayank Singhal, Executive Vice Chairperson and Managing Director
Providing outlook on anticipated recovery in domestic and export segments.
“We also anticipate a recovery in our domestic and agchem exports, particularly in Q4, to offset the decline in revenue and profitability in the first half.”
- Sanjay Agarwal, Group Chief Financial Officer
Clarifying the temporary nature of regulatory disruptions affecting the biologicals business in India.
“As you know, there was ban put on biologicals product sales with the regulatory framework in India. Those have now been sorted out, but now we are in the regulatory phase of getting the documentation procedures and once that comes, we see it moving from the fourth quarter and this is specific to India.”
- Mayank Singhal, Executive Vice Chairperson and Managing Director
Addressing concerns about potential impact of U.S. tariffs on business operations.
“The U.S. tariffs is a complicated conversation. At present, we are not seeing much issue, but clearly we are seeing uncertainity, both in the agchem and pharma sector to have a long-term clarity and which is creating slowdown in decision-making.”
- Mayank Singhal, Executive Vice Chairperson and Managing Director
Providing long-term growth expectations for the biologicals business segment.
“As you look at the biological business where we are today, we expect it to at least have it three - to four-fold increase. We have shown that kind of growth. If you look at the past, we have given a 25-plus percent CAGR on the domestic business.”
- Mayank Singhal, Executive Vice Chairperson and Managing Director
Explaining when the pharma business is expected to achieve profitability.
“We are currently in the investment phase. And we expect that this phase will continue for another year or so. And we expect that in next 1 year, we will reach to a scale that will be able to sustain and maintain profitable growth and also achieve positive EBITDA.”
- Rajnish Sarna, Joint Managing Director
Joint MD discussing advancement in the electronic chemicals diversification initiative.
“We are already doing electronic chemical products for the last few years. We have already commercialized 5-6 products and in the current year also, we are commercializing a few. And on top of it, we have a very good pipeline in R&D for scale up studies and development.”
- Rajnish Sarna, Joint Managing Director
Providing perspective on when the broader agrochemical industry is expected to normalize.
“We see recovery in the second half of calendar year 2026. And this is based on the discussions and the commentary we see from all the global players because the consumption is more or less getting normalised, destocking has already occurred in many geographies.”
- Rajnish Sarna, Joint Managing Director
Articulating the strategic importance and future potential of the biologicals business for PI Industries.
“Biologicals for this industry is going to be the next growth driver. Last 5 years, biologicals have been growing at double-digit, while chemicals have been growing at 2%- 3%. Next 5 to 10 years, biologicals will still continue to grow at that rate and become a significant portion of the overall crop protection play.”
- Rajnish Sarna, Joint Managing Director
Garware Hi-Tech Films | Small Cap | Chemicals
The company reported sequential quarter-on-quarter growth and limited year-over-year decline despite the unprecedented tariff challenges affecting exports.
“During the quarter, we navigated through the impact of the revised U.S. tariff structure, which increased duties by up to 50% on all product categories, yet GHFL reported a 15% sequential growth in revenue quarter-on-quarter basis and limited the year-on-year decline marginally to 8.2%, a clear reflection of our operational agility, strong market positioning and enduring customer trust across global markets.”
- Deepak Joshi, Director, Sales and Marketing
Management explained their philosophy of absorbing tariffs to maintain the 25-year customer base built in the US market rather than losing customers.
“So on tariff situation, so we are managing in a way like, whatever our customers can absorb, because they have to sell it to the end consumer in U.S. market. So whatever the number we are able to agree to pass it on with them, we are doing that and balance we are absorbing. And having said that, the aim is not to lose any customer because we have a very strong customer base in U.S. market. So we will continue to support them with whatever it takes for us.”
While US business faced challenges, the company’s diversification strategy showed strong results with non-US markets growing substantially.
“So that growth has been quite strong. I mean, other than the U.S., the market has grown roughly around 20%, I mean, as compared to last year.”
The tariff impact was more severe on PPF due to higher product values, leading to a shift in revenue mix favoring Window Films during the quarter.
“If we compare with last year same quarter, we had around 42% revenue share from Window Film, which has gone to 50% this year. So there is a big jump into Window Film, whereas PPF last year, the revenue was 31% from PPF. It has slightly gone down to 25%. But it is up as compared to last financial year, which was 20% for PPF.”
- Deepak Joshi, Director, Sales and Marketing
Management explained how they’re working with US customers to maintain flexible inventory levels to capitalize on potential tariff relief.
“So in that way, I can say our customers and distributors are reducing the inventory, which used to be up to 3 months in some cases. They are going down up to 1, 1.5 months so that they do not lose the customer, but they take best the advantage of the situation where if any deal happens, so they will -- I mean, we will not have to bear that 50%. Rather, it can be like 15%, 20%, whatever the final number comes.”
Management outlined strong growth momentum in architectural films across multiple geographies with dedicated teams driving expansion.
“Europe market is growing with 20% to 25% CAGR on architectural business. And India, we are even faster. The growth has been faster. Though 3 years back, we can say the base was small, but we continuously improved that. We almost doubled last year as compared to previous year. And this year, again, we are moving with the rate of 30% to 40% in India market.”
- Deepak Joshi, Director, Sales and Marketing
The Middle East emerged as a key growth driver for architectural films through localized teams and focused market development efforts.
“So we have now hired like local people in Middle East. And the entire team and the distributor are local people, like local Marathi people, right, and in Saudi as well. So these 2 markets have been like the leaders for us in Architectural segment. So your question, where the growth has come in Architectural segment, #1 is Middle East, #2 is Europe.”
- Deepak Joshi, Director, Sales and Marketing
Management explained why PPF was hit hardest by tariffs compared to other product categories due to its premium pricing per square foot.
“So I would like to say that the maximum impact on our business vertical. PPF has hit -- I mean, it has got the maximum impact of tariff because the -- I mean, price per square feet of PPF is the highest among all other product category. So the tariff impact was also quite big on that.”
The company is seeing reduced dependency on physical employee presence as 40% of repayments now come through digital payment modes.
“Well, it is like this. The dependency of employees, I would say it is there, but it is coming down. What we see is that about 40% of our repayments are coming in terms of digital mode where customers are paying into their loan accounts using a GPay or some other payment mode. So to that extent, dependency on employees is coming down in terms of seeing the customers personally.”
- Deepak Joshi, Director, Sales and Marketing
Through careful inventory and supply chain management, the company successfully kept tariff increases from reaching end consumers in most cases.
“No, not really because the ultimate impact to consumer is either pretty low or there is no one because we are assuming -- like I said, because of the inventory, we are trying to work with the minimum one so that whatever the short-term pains are there will be there. So ultimately, by one way or the other way, in the longer term, we are -- our growth story is intact. So that’s why we have kept consumers away from this -- all these situations because we -- the aim is not to lose a single customer.”
Management indicated that architectural films command higher margins than the company average, supporting the strategic focus on this segment.
“Margins on the high product, we can go up to 25%-30%. So overall, if we talk of like the mix of architectural business, I think this will be slightly higher than the company margins, which is 22% to 25%. So we can assume 25% to 30% is the margin.”
India business grew strongly at 30-40% overall, driven entirely by industrial automotive and architectural segments as consumer products saw degrowth.
“Yes. So consumer products, there is hardly any growth. In fact, there is slightly degrowth. And industrial products, we have really grown well. So I can say on 2 different segments, there is a growth of 15% to 20% on automotive and 25% to 30% on architectural.”
- Deepak Joshi, Director, Sales and Marketing
Healthcare
Dr. Lal Pathlabs Limited | Small Cap | Diagnostic
Transformative policy shifts like Ayushman Bharat are significantly broadening healthcare access and opening doors for organized diagnostics in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, creating a structural tailwind for Dr. Lal PathLabs.
“Healthcare in India stands at a crucial inflection point. The sector continues to expand at a healthy pace, shaped by both demographic realities and transformative policy shift initiatives like Ayushman Bharat are significantly broadening access with millions of new admissions under coverage and hospitals being empanelled at a fast pace. This is opening the doors of organized healthcare to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India, creating a structural tailwind for quality diagnostic services.”
— Brigadier Dr. Arvind Lal, Executive Chairman
The diagnostic sector is consolidating with rising demands for quality and digital readiness, driving migration from unorganized to organized providers, which benefits established players like Dr. Lal PathLabs.
“The diagnostic sector is undergoing gradual consolidation. Organized chains still account for less than one-fifth of the overall market. However, the bar for quality, digital readiness, and compliance is rising fast due to consumer and institutional demand. This shift is continuously helping the migration from unorganized to organized providers.”
— Brigadier Dr. Arvind Lal, Executive Chairman
Dr. Lal PathLabs is pursuing disciplined network expansion, strengthening its presence in core North and East markets while simultaneously expanding into Tier 3 and Tier 4 towns for future scalability.
“Our network expansion is disciplined, driven by a selective based approach. We are reinforcing the depth and breadth of our leadership in the core markets of North and East, including Delhi NCR, and are seeing higher revenue contributions from these segments/clusters. Parallelly, we are intensifying efforts to deepen our reach into Tier 3 and Tier 4 towns to secure future scalability.”
— Mr. Shankar Banerjee, CEO
Company management on whether GLP-1 drugs going off patent will become an opportunity on diagnostic front
“So, I think the GLP-1 drugs going off patent is definitely an opportunity, very right for the pharma industry. I think on the diagnostic front, I would still say that there are many bundles that were already available from our side rather in the market, which can help monitor the health of the different organs and multiple sets of organs. Will there be a need for any specific testing bundle just for people who are on GLP-1 or can be on GLP-1 drugs is something which we haven’t really still come to a final conclusion on.”
— Mr. Shankar Banerjee, CEO
Dr. Lal PathLabs focuses on “realization per patient” rather than “realization per test” as the more relevant metric, reflecting a strategy driven by patient volume and mix rather than individual test pricing.
“So, Karthik, realization per test is not a metric we are actively tracking or also even trying to bump up. For us, the more relevant metric that we look at more closely is the realization per patient. And the reason is that the cost to serve, et cetera, is more driven by the number of patients that we will be handling in our own network as well as the franchisee network, their cost structure also is about handling more patients.
You see realization per test metric that you are looking at is not something that we are even actively trying to manage or trying to push up. So, the mix improvement that you see is a resultant, which is at the patient level, the realization per patient is a resultant of higher test per patient, geography mix and some test mix improvements. All those are bundled in the realization per patient.”
— Mr. Shankar Banerjee, CEO
A price increase is unlikely this fiscal year as the company plans to pass on GST benefits from reduced rates on reagents and chemicals to customers.
“I don’t think in this year this price increase is on the card because another development on account of GST, where people like us are getting some benefits from the reduction of GST rates on our reagents and chemicals and obviously that has to be passed on to the customer. So this is the other way around at least which I can think of. So we have to pass on this benefit to the customer, and we are in the process of evaluating how much and at what stage we have to do this. So definitely price increase in this year is unlikely.”
— Mr. Vivek Prakash Goyal, Group CFO and CEO International Business
“We have no intention of using any benefits through GST to flow through margins. It will get passed on to customer, client, etc.”
— Mr. Shankar Banerjee, CEO
New CGHS rates, effective late September, are expected to have a beneficial, though currently unquantified, positive impact on Dr. Lal PathLabs’ revenue.
(The CGHS is a government-run health scheme providing comprehensive medical coverage to central government employees, pensioners and their dependents in India.)
“So the new CGHS rate which has been announced, I think effective around towards the end of September, definitely has a beneficial impact on Lal Path Labs. We have CGHS business as a part of our portfolio. So we are still evaluating the level of that impact, the quantum of that impact because some of it would flow maybe quickly but some of it may come after a lag. So we will definitely see some positive impact, but the quantum of that is something which we are still trying to work out.”
— Mr. Vivek Prakash Goyal, Group CFO and CEO International Business
Krsnaa Diagnostics Limited | Small Cap | Diagnostic
Receivables have increased to 150 days due to new central government payment guidelines but are targeted to reduce to 100 days by year-end, indicating a temporary working capital challenge.
“On the working capital front, our receivable currently stands around 150 days, which we aim to bring down to around 100 days by year end. The current positions reflect a temporary timing impact largely arising from the implementation of a new central government payment guideline...”
— Pawan Daga, Chief Financial Officer
Krsnaa aims for its retail business to contribute 40-50% of total revenue within the next five years, indicating a significant strategic shift towards D2C.
Krsnaa’s business is still dominated by PPP and institutional contracts—long-term government and hospital tie-ups that are volume-heavy and asset-intensive—whereas its retail D2C arm serves walk-in consumers directly and delivers far higher margins.
“Yes. So, over five years, we are looking to having close to 40% to 50% of contribution coming out from the retail straight up.”
— Mitesh Dave, Group Chief Executive Officer
The retail business is not yet at breakeven but is expected to reach it by year-end or when revenues hit around Rs. 100 crores, after which it will drive robust bottom-line growth.
“Not really. As I said, we are still not at breakeven for the retail. However, in the coming end of the year or in coming times around one Rs. 100 Cr or so, we are looking to even breakeven and then driving the robust bottom line from thereon.”
— Mitesh Dave, Group Chief Executive Officer
Metropolis Healthcare Limited | Small Cap | Diagnostic
The diagnostic market is stable with no new major competitors, and consolidation favors organized players like Metropolis due to increasing compliance and technology demands.
“The competitive environment continues to remain stable with no major new entrants. We’re observing a natural consolidation in the market, where many smaller unorganized labs are finding it difficult to sustain due to rising compliance, technology and quality requirements. This trend is accelerating the shift towards organized and trusted diagnostic players where Metropolis is well positioned with its brand equity, clinician trust and superior quality standards.”
— Ameera Shah, Chairperson & Whole-Time Director
Metropolis anticipates a long-term diagnostic opportunity from GLP-1 therapies for metabolic and weight management, requiring regular monitoring.
“On the GLP - 1 therapy front, we are closely tracking developments as this class of drug expands its presence in metabolic and weight management treatments. These therapies necessitate regular and repeat diagnostic monitoring to assess their efficacy and safety. And we see a long - term structural opportunity here to leverage our deep clinician network to co - create testing protocols, packages and wellness plus disease management pathways aligned with GLP - 1 -based treatments.”
— Ameera Shah, Chairperson & Whole-Time Director
Slower-than-expected fever-related test volumes due to lower infection incidence were offset by a strategic pivot to Specialty testing and TruHealth offerings.
“Speaking of the second quarter, fever - related test volume did grow, but the growth was slower than the usual monsoon season and per expectations, primarily due to lower incidence of common infections such as chikungunya, malaria, dengue and viral fevers. Despite this, Metropolis remained well positioned by quickly realigning focus areas and emphasizing growth in Specialty testing and TruHealth offerings.”
— Surendran Chemmenkotil, Managing Director
The B2B market currently shows stable pricing and no new disruptive entrants, despite ongoing competitive intensity.
“So on the B2B side, while some existing players are intensifying their efforts, we haven’t seen any price competition escalation. We are seeing some amount of stability for that in the last 1 or 2 years now. So it’s still obviously an intensely competitive environment, which it always has been, I mean, for many, many years to come. But there’s nothing new or nothing disruptive that actually spoils the market.”
— Ameera Shah, Chairperson & Whole-Time Director
Metropolis is investing in AI for non-medical productivity and efficiency improvements over the next year, viewing AI as a tool to empower doctors rather than replace them in medical diagnostics.
“When you’re talking about AI in non - medical, I think there are real use cases for it... We are early in that journey, but there are a bunch of things that we are trying to implement that will hopefully get us there over the next year or so. And that obviously will be a continual journey work in progress. So we are investing resources and time in that area. The second part of AI, which is using AI for medical tests where you don’t need doctors is a very hypothetical scenario. In our minds, AI is a tool to empower doctors to make better decisions, not a tool replacing doctors.”
— Ameera Shah, Chairperson & Whole-Time Director
The diagnostic industry faces high barriers to profitable scaling, leading many rapid entrants to reduce aggression or exit, thus contributing to market consolidation.
“What people realize after spending 2, 3 years in the industry is that while the barrier to enter is low, the barrier to scale is not so low. It’s actually hard. And the barrier to scale profitably is extremely high. So therefore, after a few years in the industry people who entered quickly, land at sometimes losing interest in the business because they feel that, okay, this is either going to take extremely long and it’s not going to be so easy to actually make money from it. So therefore, then people slow down their aggression in the market and some of them shut down and some of them just continue to stay there, but they don’t stay very aggressive and active.”
— Ameera Shah, Chairperson & Whole-Time Director
Vijaya Diagnostic Centre Limited | Small Cap | Diagnostic
The Q2 growth was slightly muted due to lower incidence of monsoon-related diseases, early festive season impact, and a higher comparative base from the previous year’s 23% YoY growth.
“So, Anshul, yes, entire India had a great monsoon. But what we have experienced in the regions where we are present is that because of the continuous rains, there was lower incidence of monsoon - related diseases. And that is why there was a little bit of muted growth. Secondly, a little bit of growth was also impacted during last week of September because of the festive season coming slightly early this time around. And also, thirdly, we are also looking at a higher base where last year we grew at 23% year - on - year. So, these three put together resulted in slightly lower growth this time around.”
— Dhiren Gala, Assistant General Manager (Strategy & Investor Relations)
While overall growth was muted, radiology revenue grew strongly at 16%, with the drag primarily from the pathology segment due to a decline in fever-related testing compared to the previous year.
“And just to add, Anshul, to what Dhiren said, if you actually break down the revenue and see, we still grew at a higher double - digit in radiology. So, the radiology revenue growth was about 16%. The drag actually happened in pathology because last year we had a lot of dengue and malaria - related cases, which was not the case in the current financial year.”
— Sivaramaraju Vegesna, Vice President (Operations)
The company is taking a cautious approach to GLP-1 weight loss management testing packages, observing no customer demand yet and preferring to await clinical guidance before developing specific offerings.
“So actually, we do about close to almost over 10,000 walk - ins a day. And in the last few months with all of this going on about GLP - 1, we have not seen a single request come in either from a customer walk - in or a consultant or probably a CME that would have been conducted for us from any of the endocrines or the doctors to actually say what goes into a package. So, all of these packages that we see in the market today are varied in kinds of testing. So, there is something that they have come up with. So, we would like to give it some time, understand this, get some guidance from the specialists and the clinicians and then probably look at how we would want to address this.”
— Suprita Reddy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Vijaya Diagnostic’s higher revenue per patient stems from its 95% B2C model and a strong 60:40 radiology to pathology mix, differentiating it from B2B-focused national players.
“So, Krishna, the basic fundamental difference is that we are a 95% over B2C company with a mix of both radiology and pathology in a ratio of almost 60:40, with all of our patients actually walking into our facilities. If you are saying national players, I am assuming that some of the other labs mostly do B2B samples and have B2C customer bases in their co - geographies. Because of the radiology and pathology mix and being a direct B2C - driven company the per revenue mix per patient is higher. So, that is the key differentiator here.”
— Suprita Reddy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Engineering & Capital Goods
Quality Power Electrical Equipments | Small Cap | Engineering & Capital Goods
Management acknowledged industry-wide supply chain constraints affecting the high-voltage electrical equipment sector, particularly regarding critical components.
“The industry is witnessing delays in critical inputs. HVDC magnet wires now require BIS license, which has slowed import approval since the Indian capacity is already booked out for the next year, while insulators and bushings remain tight in global supply.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
CBO discussed landmark order achievements in the HVDC segment, representing significant technological and market validation.
“During the quarter, we achieved historic order wins in the HVDC segment, including high-voltage smoothing reactors from Rihand-Dadri LCC HVDC project, which is one of India’s most critical transmission corridors, and converter reactors for a VSC HVDC project in a G20 nation.”
- Sanjog Mhatre, Chief Business Officer
Management announced a strategic collaboration to bring Gas Insulated Instrument Transformer technology to India, positioning for future growth.
“We have entered into a strategic partnership with Hyosung to bring gas insulated instrument transformer technology to India. This partnership positions Mehru at the forefront of the fast-growing GIS market as utilities and industries transition from AIS to GIS substations for enhanced reliability and compactness.”
- Sanjog Mhatre, Chief Business Officer
Joint MD explained the significant market opportunity and competitive landscape for the GIS instrument transformer business.
“The GIS is between INR 200 crores to INR 300 crores import substitution product, which is currently being developed by Mehru in collaboration with Hyosung. We believe that globally the markets are between INR 2,000 crores to INR 3,000 crores for this product, again with less than half a dozen competitors outside of China.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
Joint MD explained the company’s approach to penetrating international markets with high-voltage products before entering domestic utilities.
“Normally when you develop a high voltage electrical equipment, you don’t run to India. What we intend to do is, we try to first smuggle ourselves into Africa, then LATAM, and then get into some places in Europe before coming to India.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
Management explained their strategy of maintaining order book duration to protect against raw material price volatility and execution risks.
“We would like our order book not more than a year’s time. Most of our orders are fixed cost orders. We do not want to take a much longer term where our margins are; A, under pressure; and B, our supply chain is also at a risk.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
Joint MD provided confidence on the structural demand drivers for the company’s core HVDC and FACTS product lines.
“Tailwinds at the high voltage, especially for HVDC and FACTS is going to be there for at least five years, if not more. Whether are we attempting an aggressive growth pattern? Yes, we believe in it. We are putting into it. Most of the expansion will be funded by the profit or soft loan of 20 years.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
Joint MD candidly discussed the company’s primary competitive threat and strategy to achieve cost leadership.
“Always it what keep us awake in the night is Chinese, because Chinese are not working on margins. They are working on global domination. One of the reasons why we expanded capacity, why we went backward integration is to be getting closer to the Chinese of being the cheapest producer across the world.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
Management explained the strategic rationale behind the Sukrut acquisition, focusing on customer access rather than immediate revenue contribution.
“What did they bring together is about in excess of 1,000 customers in the transformer business. What is more important strategically for us is the access to customers, a new set of customers. What we have actually bought is the customers.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
Management confirmed that the company is operating at peak capacity across all facilities, driving the need for expansion.
“100%, my dear friend. Every day we are trying to find some corner in the factory where we can install machine, add people and facilities. So we have turned every location where we could find every factory. So any incremental capacity is not being left around.”
- Bharanidharan Pandyan, Joint Managing Director
Metals
Tata Steel | Large Cap | Metals
Describing the challenging global steel market environment driven by geopolitical tensions and massive Chinese steel exports impacting pricing worldwide.
“Global dynamics continue to be shaped by tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and elevated steel exports. Chinese steel exports are expected to cross 100 million tons again this year, and this obviously has an impact on pricing across the world.”
- T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD
Highlighting strong production ramp-up driven by Kalinganagar expansion and completion of blast furnace relining at the Jamshedpur facility.
“In India, our crude steel production was up 8% QoQ and 7% YoY to 5.65 million tons largely driven by ongoing ramp up at Kalinganagar and completion of the relining of the G blast furnace, which was down for almost six months.”
Explaining how operational efficiency improvements and volume growth helped offset price declines and actually improved EBITDA margins.
“While average HRC spot prices were down about Rs 2,300 per ton on QoQ, we were able to limit the drop in our net realisations to about Rs 1,700 per ton. We were also able to offset this impact through higher volumes and the ongoing cost transformation which has resulted in an improvement in EBITDA margin by 80 bps to 25%.”
- T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD
Describing the severe vulnerability of the UK steel market to imports due to policy issues with quotas exceeding total domestic consumption.
“UK remains very vulnerable market as the import quotas of steel across several product grades are higher than the total consumption of the country making it open to cheap imports. In addition, the market demand has shrunk due to a weak economy resulting in decline in domestic prices by more than £150/t since January 2024. UK demand for flat products has declined by 33% since 2018, but the quotas have increased by 20%.”
- Koushik Chatterjee, ED & CFO
Discussing the positive impact of Europe’s protectionist measures on Netherlands operations and long-term strategic positioning in Europe.
“The announcements in Europe have helped the sentiment as far as we are concerned because what Europe is doing is to make sure that the quotas for steel imports are brought down by 50% and have an import duty of 50% on any volumes exceeding the quotas. So, this is a positive move for the European steel industry and in a sense, Europe is actually working hard to have a stronger, resilient steel industry in Europe to take care of Europe’s strategic needs, particularly defence and other areas.”
- T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD
Explaining the long-term strategic implications of Europe’s melt-and-pour conditions for participating in the protected European market.
“These actions are also going to come with melt and pour conditions. So, if you want to participate in the European market, you have to make in Europe rather than make somewhere else and ship slabs to Europe to participate in the potential CBAM-protected market in Europe.”
- T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD
Discussing the capital-light expansion strategy through EAF plants in North, West and South India for faster market penetration.
“While Tata Steel can continue to grow based on iron ore and coal in Eastern India, and like I described earlier, between the three sites we can go to, or four sites including Neelachal, go to 45 million tons per annum, in North, West and South, we have an opportunity to grow in a bit more capital-light way. You need just 100 acres of land to build a steel plant, you don’t need 3,000 acres. You can do it much faster.”
- T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD
Articulating the company’s financial discipline on maintaining optimal leverage ratios while pursuing growth and value-accretive acquisitions.
“Between 2.75 and 3 is where we would like to maintain ourselves on a more sustained basis. At times, when there are significant market challenges or volatility in prices, which impacts the working capital, because steel, coal and iron ore prices do change significantly, especially on the seaborne market, that’s the time when we do get beyond that matrix.”
- Koushik Chatterjee, ED & CFO
Expressing confidence in India’s structural steel demand growth driven by infrastructure development despite current pricing pressures.
“Demand is quite strong and India is the only major country which is showing double-digit growth in steel consumption. And I think, given the focus on infrastructure building in India, I do expect the demand growth to be more than the GDP growth rate, which is what happens in most developing countries including in China when they were growing. So, if the economy is going to grow at 6.5-7%, steel consumption growing at 10% is to me par for the course.”
- T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD
FMCG
Avanti Feeds | Small Cap | FMCG
Joint Managing Director opening remarks highlighting the company’s resilience in navigating supply chain challenges and industry headwinds.
“At the same time, we are operating in an environment marked by supply chain constraints. The industry is witnessing delays in critical inputs... Despite these challenges, our teams have delivered with remarkable precision and consistency.”
- C. Ramachandra Rao, Joint Managing Director
Explaining the fluctuation in key raw material prices affecting feed production margins.
“The present purchase price of fish meal is INR 125 per kg. Soya bean meal, the high-grade soya bean meal, which we procure, is around INR 47 per kg, and wheat flour is between INR 32.5 per kg to INR 33 per kg.”
- Santhi Latha, GM (Finance & Accounts)
Management providing cautious guidance for the next three months based on emerging headwinds.
“As you noticed, the nine months of calendar year 2025 has been a good profitable period. However, the forecast for the next three months of this year is challenging due to factors like gradual increase of raw material prices and the threat of reciprocal tariffs by the US.”
- Santhi Latha, GM (Finance & Accounts)
JMD explaining the key factors supporting continued growth despite US tariff challenges.
“The first and foremost is the market diversification. Producers are actively expanding into new geographies and reducing dependence on a single market, which helps stabilize demand and mitigate external risks, dependence on one market.”
- C. Ramachandra Rao, Joint Managing Director
JMD responding to questions about the company’s dominant market position in feed sales.
“As far as the market share is concerned, definitely we are above 50%, it is ranging from 51% to 53%, that is the range which we are now operating. And I think we will continue to hold that position at 52%, 53% in future also.”
Addressing investor concerns about farmer sentiment in light of US tariff situation.
“The farmers are very confident because they have been able to get their farm-grade prices comfortably and they are making money... We have not seen, rather I would say that in the last maybe six months or so, more than that, where since the tariff has come into force, there has not been a big difference in attitude of the farmers.”
- C. Ramachandra Rao, Joint Managing Director
Executive Director explaining how the company successfully managed the tariff impact on pricing.
“50% is too high, so it’s not possible for the supply chain to absorb so much percentage. So, essentially, we’ve been able to pass on the cost to the consumer till now. We are just waiting and reviewing how it affects the consumption.”
- A. Nikhilesh, Director and Executive Director of Avanti Frozen Foods
JMD providing detailed explanation of fish meal price increases due to global supply dynamics.
“Fish meal is going up because Peru has very less catches this year and even Chile. So, when these countries, Chile and Peru, are the major countries supplying the fish meal, when their production reduces, automatically the global fish meal rate increases and the demand for Indian fish meal for export increases.”
- C. Ramachandra Rao, Joint Managing Director
Explaining multiple factors driving up soybean meal costs including production shortfalls and government policy.
“This year because of the excess rains, the production has come down by about 10%. So, that is the one reason there is likely to be a slight shortage of soya seed production. At the same time, the government of India has announced increase in the minimum support price by about INR 3 per kg.”
- C. Ramachandra Rao, Joint Managing Director
Providing realistic guidance on expected margin compression in coming quarters due to raw material inflation.
“The margins are naturally likely to come down to maybe around it to be 9% and 10%. So, 10% is a good achievable profitability for this current year overall. Now, that till now we have been doing very well, but we’ll have to see the next two quarters and see how the profitability will be depending upon the raw material prices.”
- C. Ramachandra Rao, Joint Managing Director
Discussing the long-term approach to building the pet food business against established competitors.
“The pet food is very challenging market and we have started, I would say that with a very good beginning... there are very strong players, long-term players in this like Mars, which is Pedigree and Drools, these players are very strong. And it takes time for us to really build the market.”
- C. Ramachandra Rao, Joint Managing Director
Software Services
Kellton Tech Solutions | Micro Cap | Software Services
The company successfully went live with a next-generation integration platform for a global food services company, replacing legacy middleware across multiple countries.
“We have implemented a next generation integration platform for a global food services company, and this was done across 10 countries and over 1,500 stores. So, what this meant was they basically would decommission their legacy middleware and move to the more seamless and native scalable architecture.”
- Karanjit Singh, Chief Executive Officer, India
Kellton played a critical role in enabling live streaming for a major sporting event on a leading OTT platform, demonstrating expertise in large-scale digital platforms.
“We basically played a key role in powering a leading OTT platform in the live streaming of the recently concluded Asia Cup. So, this was the first time that they were kind of scaling it up to this level, and this involved a lot of deep expertise in the area of cloud native engineering, low latency streaming, and large scale digital platform.”
- Karanjit Singh, Chief Executive Officer, India
Kellton signed an MOU with a leading European technology company to collaborate on developing a sovereign human-centric AI ecosystem under the EU-India Framework.
“We basically signed a memorandum of understanding with a leading European technology company to help them develop a sovereign human-centric AI ecosystem under the EU-India Framework Agreement. So, this is something that Europe is focusing on AI sovereignty for the Europe region, and they are basically trying to build a complete AI stack, including AI gigafactory.”
- Karanjit Singh, Chief Executive Officer, India
Management addressed concerns about H1B visa changes, clarifying minimal impact on Kellton’s operations with only 40 out of 400+ US employees on H1B visas.
“We have a little over 400 people in the U.S. Of them, about 40 are H1s. And as everybody is aware, the existing H1s have been grandfather. It is only impacting the new H1s. And also, you must have been reading the news that because of the 100K that new H1s would be required to pay, a lot of companies are outsourcing the work to India. So, our impact has been none at this point.”
- Niranjan Chintam, Chairman and Whole-time Director
Rather than targeting specific revenue sizes, the company focuses on acquiring technology capabilities and customer bases, particularly in rapidly evolving AI technologies.
“See, I do not know what the market capitalization would be. But if you are looking at the revenue that we are targeting, we do not go after revenue. So we go after what we call the technology, where, you know, we need to beef up our existing technology capability to go after. As you can imagine, every day, AI is like changing. What was good yesterday is not good today anymore.”
- Niranjan Chintam, Chairman and Whole-time Director
While Europe has been a focus area for diversification, the company acknowledged challenges due to the recession caused by the Ukraine war.
“So Europe has been our focus area, but as you are aware, Europe is pretty much in recession because of the Ukraine war. We have not grown to the extent that we wanted to grow. That has always been our focus area.”
- Niranjan Chintam, Chairman and Whole-time Director
Management highlighted Canada as an emerging opportunity, particularly with their welcoming stance toward H1B visa holders, positioning it as a growth market.
“Let us not just talk about North America, but you probably must have noticed in the news, Canada is opening up. They are saying they want to welcome all H1s there into Canada. So that is a market that we already are present and we will expand there.”
- Niranjan Chintam, Chairman and Whole-time Director
Despite geopolitical speculation and media coverage, management expressed strong confidence in the stability of the American market beyond potential recession risks.
“Yes, huge concentration is still America. I do not believe that anything is going to happen with the American market, despite all the talk and speculations that are going there. Other than the recession that might come about in America, I do not believe anything else that the media or the talking heads are talking.”
- Niranjan Chintam, Chairman and Whole-time Director
Financial Services
ESAF Small Finance Bank | Micro Cap | Financial Services
The bank has been actively shifting its portfolio composition toward secured lending segments including gold loans, MSME, mortgages, mobility and agricultural loans.
“During the first half of FY ‘26, we continue to broaden our retail franchise, especially across secured lending segments, gold loans, MSME, mortgages, Mobility and agri loans. This strategic shift is strengthening asset quality, reducing portfolio concentration and derisking the business model.”
- K. Paul Thomas, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
The bank achieved its secured loan portfolio target of 61% much earlier than the planned 2027 timeline, demonstrating successful strategic execution.
“As of September end, secured loan is 61% and micro loan percentage has come down to 39%. We had planned to achieve this in 2027, but we were able to achieve this very early.”
- K. Paul Thomas, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Gold loans emerged as the primary driver of the secured portfolio growth, with significant disbursements during the quarter reflecting strong rural demand.
“So what we’ve been doing when we shifted to 61% secured, primarily the driver has been gold loans. So in the current quarter, INR6,500-odd crores of gold loans have been disbursed. While if you look at the micro segment, INR1,500 crores have been disbursed.”
- Hari Velloor, Executive Vice President - Credit
The bank achieved exceptional disbursement growth driven by secured lending products, nearly doubling year-over-year with strategic focus on quality assets.
“Disbursements for the quarter were INR8,913 crores almost 2 times compared to the disbursements of INR4,058 crores during last year in Q2. Importantly, secured loans constituted 82% of the total disbursements consistent with our de-risking and sustainability strategy.”
- C.P. Gireesh, Chief Financial Officer
Management positioned FY26 as a year focused on consolidation rather than aggressive growth, prioritizing operational metrics and asset quality improvement.
“FY ‘26 will be a year of consolidation, one where we target moderate business growth while sharply improving operational metrics and asset quality. We continue to improve internal productivity, optimize resource allocation and reduce operating costs while maintaining the high quality and reliability of our customer services.”
- C.P. Gireesh, Chief Financial Officer
After controlling microfinance growth for quality, the bank started seeing positive trends from August and began cautiously ramping up disbursements.
“For a few quarters we have been controlling micro, we have been focusing completely on quality, we have been putting the guard rails into force etc. And looking at the overall environment in terms of the country, since August, we are seeing a slight uptick in terms of micro disbursements also. So within the overall strategy of remaining at 35% unsecured, now that we have the confidence, we have started ramping up micro.”
- Hari Velloor, Executive Vice President - Credit
Management provided guidance on steady-state credit costs based on industry trends and the bank’s improving asset quality trajectory.
“In terms of credit cost, what we are seeing is in the region of about 4% would be on a steady state basis, looking at the industry trends. So that is what we can say roughly what we see ahead.”
- Hari Velloor, Executive Vice President - Credit
After political challenges in Karnataka, the bank is seeing meaningful improvement in portfolio control and delinquent account recoveries.
“The good thing is that Karnataka, as you know, there was a bit of a political dimension to the problem. In the last 3 months, our control over that portfolio has definitely improved. And we are seeing loans which had been delinquent starting to repay again. So what we see is that there will be definitely a good progress in Karnataka over the next few months.”
- Hari Velloor, Executive Vice President - Credit
Management highlighted the strong performance of loans disbursed from July 2024 onwards, showing traditional microfinance behavior with minimal stress.
“If I take what we did in 2024, let’s say, in the month of July 2024 onwards. So we are now at about 15 months or so. We have disbursed INR6,000 crores or so over that 15-month period and as of now, the outstanding book is in the region of INR4,000 crores. As of now, what we are seeing in terms of stress or in terms of NPA is roughly about 2-point something percent of what we disbursed way back in June ‘24. So what I can say is the new book is behaving according to what a traditional microfinance would have. And we are not really seeing any early stress in that book.”
- Hari Velloor, Executive Vice President - Credit
Retail
Senco Gold | Small Cap | Retail
Despite a slow Q2 with just 2% consolidated revenue growth, the company bounced back strongly in October, achieving its highest-ever monthly sales driven by festive demand and wedding season preparations.
“We had clocked the highest-ever sales in any single month of INR 1,700 crores in the month of October, compared to about INR 1,100 crores of sales in the previous year’s October month of the festive season.”
- Suvankar Sen, Managing Director & CEO
As gold prices remained elevated, consumers increasingly leveraged their old gold holdings to purchase new jewellery, showing a shift in buying behavior to manage affordability at current price levels.
“The old gold exchange in the overall transactions that we do with the consumers, that has gone up to 42% to 43% from a 35% a year back, which shows that consumers are utilising their old gold to exchange for new jewellery that they are buying.”
While the company is experiencing strong value growth year-to-date, actual volume growth remains minimal as consumers respond to high gold prices by purchasing lighter-weight jewellery pieces.
“We are currently seeing year-to-date (YTD) value growth of almost 25% year-on-year. However, despite this strong value growth, volume growth is minimal remaining in the low single digits or almost zero primarily due to rising gold prices.”
- Suvankar Sen, Managing Director & CEO
Management explained that Q2’s slower growth was driven by multiple factors including high gold prices, GST anticipation, and timing of festivals, leading to consumers deferring purchases until the festive season.
“Since the gold prices were extremely high in Q2 and the GST cut was very important, people were waiting for the new GST rate to come into effect, and they had withheld their jewellery purchases for the purchase of capital goods.”
- Sanjay Banka, Group Chief Financial Officer
The company maintains comprehensive hedging on sales to protect against gold price volatility, ensuring business-level protection regardless of accounting treatments based on inventory costs.
“I would rather go one step ahead, and I will say 105%. Because whatever I sell, I have to purchase on the same day to keep my inventory level. In fact, for the new stores and for the upcoming festive season, I will end up buying more than that.”
- Sanjay Banka, Group Chief Financial Officer
Management expressed strong optimism about Q3 and Q4 performance driven by an unusually high number of auspicious wedding dates extending across multiple months.
“There are a strong number of days for the upcoming wedding season. We can see that whether it be November, December, January, February, right up till March, there are a large number of wedding days, and there is a sentiment in the consumer’s mind that in this volatile gold scenario, the prices of gold could go up.”
- Suvankar Sen, Managing Director & CEO
Management observed that while consumers accepted high gold prices and continued purchasing for weddings and festivals, they adapted by buying lighter-weight pieces to stay within budget.
“While the ATV and ASP have gone up by 15% to 18%, but the weight ranges that people have bought on average have come down by 10% to 12%. So, if, suppose, someone was buying 10 grams worth of jewellery, he is now buying 9 grams worth of jewellery.”
Unlike typical years where demand tapers after Dhanteras, the company is witnessing sustained buying momentum driven by wedding season requirements and consumer sentiment about further gold price increases.
“Post-Dhanteras, usually people are in a mode of wait and watch, but this time we are in the middle of November, and we could see that consumers are coming, buying, and the positive movement is there.”
- Suvankar Sen, Managing Director & CEO
Textiles
Arvind Limited | Small Cap | Textiles
Management explained their disciplined approach to handling tariff pressures by selectively supporting customers with discounts only when it resulted in higher volumes and stronger future commitments.
“Our approach has remained clear and consistent, stand by our long-standing customers. We extended selective support, including discounts wherever necessary, but always in exchange for higher volumes and stronger commitment for future. This disciplined stand ensures that we protected both our relationships and the top line momentum.”
- Satya Prakash Mishra, Head, Investor Relations
Despite challenging market conditions, the company achieved highest or near-highest volumes across three major business segments, demonstrating operational resilience and strong customer relationships.
“Three of our businesses, namely woven fabric, Integrated Textile and Apparel, and AMD division reporting their highest or near highest revenue numbers...Denim division delivered its highest volume in recent years of 15 million meters. Woven division achieved near highest volume of 35 million meters. Both the divisions are now operating at full capacity.”
- Satya Prakash Mishra, Head, Investor Relations
Management provided specific numbers on the tariff-related discount burden absorbed during Q2, helping investors understand the magnitude of the headwind being offset by cost savings.
“The visual margin compression primarily stems from the tariff-related discounts absorbed during the quarter. Adjusting for this impact of roughly INR23 crores during the quarter, our margins would have been closer to 12%, fully aligned with our medium-term guidance.”
- Satya Prakash Mishra, Head, Investor Relations
Management explained how their multi-faceted business model with geographic and product diversification provided natural hedges against the U.S. tariff impact.
“Compared to others, our business model is quite risk mitigated in multiple ways. First of all, we have AMD and textiles, both under the same umbrella. We have a very geographically diverse business. And we also have multiple sort of levers where we have flexibility to pull on those levers when certain parts of the business are under pressure. We have almost INR1,000 crores plus B2C business, which is domestic.”
- Punit Lalbhai, Vice Chairman
While acknowledging recycled products currently represent small volumes, management emphasized partnerships like Circ are about preparing for future regulatory requirements and market shifts.
“Recycled products constitute less than 2% to 3% of the overall textile volume at a global level...But it’s a step that is making us future-ready in terms of the increased requirements coming from the customers’ end. For example, Europe has passed a legislation that will, after a certain date, require a certain percentage product-wise of recycled content.”
- Punit Lalbhai, Vice Chairman
Management detailed how tariff impact is being shared across the entire supply chain through a collaborative partnership approach with customers and suppliers.
“So all of that put together, we take a very partnership type of approach. We understand our customers’ problems. They are passing on certain amount of cost to the end consumer. They are absorbing a certain part of this tariff impact. And they are asking us to partner with them in absorbing some part at our end. So that is how it gets distributed between the various players in the supply chain.”
The company’s domestic consumer-facing textile business has reached significant scale and is experiencing strong growth, benefiting from improved consumer sentiment in India.
“This relates to our B2C business, which now is a larger than INR1,000 crores business. And this year, we expect this business to grow at more than 20%. There’s been a good recovery in domestic markets and consumer sentiment is reasonably strong this year after many years of very muted consumer sentiment in India.”
Management described the comprehensive, organization-wide approach to cost reduction encompassing supplier negotiations, SG&A cuts, hiring freezes, and efficiency improvements.
“We are doing everything, right? We are similarly asking for discounts to our strategic suppliers. They are supporting us. We are cutting SG&A cost. We have frozen non-essential hiring. We have sort of taken calls on certain expenses that can be deferred or gotten rid of altogether. We brought focus to every aspect of cost, conservation of energy, pushing efficiency. So the whole organization is focused inward on this one very important objective.”
Despite some positive indicators, management emphasized taking a prudent, conservative approach by planning for difficult scenarios including potential U.S. consumption slowdown.
“We are conservatively factoring in that the U.S. consumption might slow down in response to high prices. So it may not happen, but it is prudent for us to factor to behave as if it will happen...But yes, so the prudent way to think is that we should behave as if the future is going to be difficult. And if we are able to behave in that way, we will take the necessary difficult decisions and steps to reduce our cost and mitigate that impact.”
- Punit Lalbhai, Vice Chairman
Packaging
Uflex Limited | Small Cap | Packaging
Management discussed the quarter’s performance despite multiple headwinds including tariffs, GST transition, and extended monsoon that impacted business operations.
“At the outset, I would like to say that it’s been a decent quarter and H1, considering that there are many headwinds during the H1 period, like tariff, GST transition, extended monsoon, but overall, while the quarter has been flat in terms of revenue and EBITDA, on an H1 basis, the sales are up by 3%, the EBITDA is up 4% and obviously the PAT is up much higher by about 150%, H1 PAT, largely because of the impact of the currency translation losses we had in the YOY period.”
- Rajesh Bhatia, Group President & Chief Financial Officer
The company achieved record volumes in aseptic packaging and has now expanded capacity that will benefit future quarters.
“We have achieved the highest ever volumes again at our aseptic packaging units during the H1 period and we have a 5.5% growth on a YOY basis. But as we said earlier, there is a limitation currently, which got over in October, whereby we commissioned our extended capacity to 12 billion packs a year, which will start yielding results as the season sets in from January onwards.”
Government provided relief on EPR compliance due to insufficient industry capacity, allowing brands to make up deficiencies over the next three years.
“Since not much capacity has come up, as per the latest guidelines, the government has said that whatever is the deficiency in this year, the industry will have to make it up in the next three years. So, they’ll have to maintain the prescribed levels in those respective years. So, for FY’26, they’ve been given an exemption that whatever your liability was in FY’26, with respect to using the recycled content, So, that has been deferred for the next three years and for subsequent years you still have to maintain.”
- Rajesh Bhatia, Group President & Chief Financial Officer
India witnessed a significant surge in BOPET and BOPP imports during H1 FY26, impacting domestic producers.
“India is witnessing much higher level of both BOPET and BOPP imports. Giving you a perspective in H1 FY’26, the BOPET imports in India are up about 120% YOY and BOPP imports are up about 100% over the H1 FY’25. Even the exports from India have come down in Q2 marginally by about 18% and BOPP is also down 22% largely because of fact that BOPP capacity got impacted by the fire at a major player’s facility in the western part of the country.”
- Rajesh Bhatia, Group President & Chief Financial Officer
European operations were impacted as exports previously going to the US were diverted to Europe from China and Southeast Asia.
“In Europe also, we have seen that the exports, which were earlier happening into U.S, because of the U.S. tariffs, some of the exports have been diverted from China and other Southeast Asia countries to the Europe. That’s why our performance in the European territory in terms of production and sales have been affected in Q2.”
GST transition created temporary lag as B2B customers delayed ordering new prints until existing stocks with old MRPs were cleared.
“In the GST transition, what has happened is because we are a B2B player, our customers would not order fresh prints, so they themselves are busy ensuring that their existing stocks are sold and they were not ordering new prints because you have to print the MRPs on the packs, There was a lag impact there, but all those things are now in place.”
Management explained the seasonality in aseptic packaging business which causes Q1 to Q2 volume variations.
“I have always said that the season for this is from January to, you can say, at best middle of August, so the seasonality does set in. Even in previous years, we have seen for Q1 versus Q2, the volumes were always down because the seasonality sets in. When I say that, for the H1 period, we have done 5.4% higher sales volume, and we produced that much more also, it should be taken in that respect.”
Management expects BOPET imports to stabilize as importers have faced losses, while BOPP shortage will persist until new capacity comes online.
“In BOPP, because there is a shortage, there will be no relief yet. For PET, because of the current imports and the domestic prices currently what there, everybody who was importing has burnt their hands. I don’t think that there will be any further tendency for the people to import because they know that if they import and by the time the imports come, the domestic players would have adjusted their prices.”
- Rajesh Bhatia, Group President & Chief Financial Officer
Management explained their investment philosophy, comparing it to SIP in stock markets to manage cyclicality in the industry.
“These cycles will keep coming in an industry, you can’t time it at all. Like in the stock market, they tell you to do SIP so that you are safe from fluctuations, so it depends on what capacity utilization level is going on in the industry... I always feel that you should invest in the market when there is no one else investing in your industry and when the cycle changes, you will have the gains.”
- Rajesh Bhatia, Group President & Chief Financial Officer
International
NVIDIA Corporation | International
Explaining the fundamental drivers of AI infrastructure demand and why this moment is historically unique
“The world is undergoing three massive platform shifts at once. The first time since the dawn of Moore’s Law. NVIDIA Corporation is uniquely addressing each of the three transformations. The first transition is from CPU general-purpose computing to GPU accelerated computing. As Moore’s Law slows. Secondly, AI has also reached a tipping point. And is transforming existing applications while enabling entirely new ones. Now a new wave is rising. Agentic AI systems. Capable of reasoning, planning, and using tools. So there are three massive platform shifts. The transition to accelerated computing is foundational and necessary. Essential in a post-Moore’s law era. The transition to generative AI is transformational, and necessary supercharging existing applications and business models. And the transition to agentic and physical AI will be revolutionary, giving rise to new applications, companies, products, services.”
- Jensen Huang, President and CEO
Addressing market concerns about GPU utilization rates and whether demand is real
“Demand for AI infrastructure continues to exceed our expectations. The clouds are sold out, and our GPU installed base, both new and previous generations, including Blackwell, Hopper, and Ampere, is fully utilized.”
- Colette Kress, Executive Vice President and CFO
Responding directly to widespread market skepticism about AI infrastructure spending sustainability
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble. From our vantage point, we see something very different. As a reminder, NVIDIA Corporation is unlike any other accelerator. We excel at every phase of AI. From pre-training and post-training to inference. And with our two-decade in CUDA x acceleration libraries, we are also exceptional at science and engineering simulations, computer graphics, structured data processing, to classical machine learning.”
- Jensen Huang, President and CEO
Highlighting Blackwell’s overwhelming competitive advantage in inference workloads, particularly for reasoning models
“In semianalysis, inference max benchmark, Blackwell achieved the highest performance and lowest total cost of ownership across every model and use case. Particularly important is Blackwell’s NVLink’s performance on a mixture of experts. The architecture for the world’s most popular reasoning models. On DeepSeek, r one, Blackwell delivered 10x higher performance per watt and 10x lower cost per token versus h 200. A huge generational leap fueled by our extreme codesign approach.”
- Colette Kress, Executive Vice President and CFO
Explaining CUDA’s total cost of ownership advantage over competing architectures and ASICs
“The long useful life of NVIDIA Corporation’s CUDA GPUs is a significant TCO advantage over accelerators. CUDA’s compatibility and our massive installed base extend the life NVIDIA Corporation systems well beyond their original estimated useful life. For more than two decades, we have optimized the CUDA ecosystem, improving existing workloads, accelerating new ones, and increasing throughput with every software release. Most accelerators without CUDA and NVIDIA Corporation’s time-tested and versatile app architecture became obsolete within a few years as model technologies evolve. Thanks to CUDA, the a 100 GPUs we shipped six years ago are still running at full utilization today. Powered by vastly improved software stack.”
- Colette Kress, Executive Vice President and CFO
Articulating why NVIDIA maintains overwhelming market leadership against custom ASICs and competitors
“If I will say the five things that makes us special, if you will. The first thing I would say that makes us special is that we accelerate every phase of that transition. We are incredibly good at generative AI. We’re incredibly good at agentic AI. That’s number one. Number two, we’re excellent at every phase of AI. We’re incredibly good pre-training. We’re obviously very good at post-training. We’re incredibly good as it turns out, at inference. The third thing is we’re now the only architecture in the world that runs every AI model. Every frontier AI model we run open source AI models incredibly well. We run science models, biology models, robotics models, run every single model. And then the fourth thing I would say is that in every cloud. We’re literally everywhere. We’re in every cloud. We’re everywhere from cloud to on-prem. To robotic systems. Edge devices, PCs, you name it. And then the last thing, this is probably the most important thing, the fifth thing, is if you are a cloud service provider, the reason why NVIDIA Corporation is the best platform for you is because our off take is so diverse. We can help you with off take.”
- Jensen Huang, President and CEO
Acknowledging geopolitical headwinds and future conservative assumptions on China business
“H ‘20 sales were approximately $50 million. Sizable purchase orders never materialized in the quarter due to geopolitical issues and the increasingly competitive market in China. While we were disappointed in the current state, that prevents us from shipping more competitive data center compute products to China, we are committed to continued engagement with the US and China governments. And will continue to advocate for America’s ability to compete around the world. Consistent with last quarter, we are not assuming any data center compute revenue from China.”
- Colette Kress, Executive Vice President and CFO
Explaining why GPU transition is inevitable and foundational, not just about AI applications
“Remember, today most of the focus has been on the hyperscalers. And one of the areas that is really misunderstood about the hyperscalers is that the investment on NVIDIA Corporation GPUs not only improves their scale, speed, and cost, for from general-purpose computing. That’s number one, because Moore’s Law has Moore’s law scaling has really slowed. Moore’s law is about driving cost down. It’s about it’s about deflationary cost, the incredible deflationary cost of computing over time. But that has slowed. Therefore, a new approach is necessary for them to keep driving the cost down. Going to NVIDIA Corporation GPU computing is really the best way to do so.”
- Jensen Huang, President and CEO
Highlighting seamless product transition and revenue scale in data center business
“Record Q3 data center revenue of $51 billion increased 66% year over year, a significant feat at our scale. Compute grew 56% year over year driven primarily by the GB 300 ramp while networking more than doubled given the onset of NVLink scale up and robust double-digit growth across Spectrum X Ethernet and Quantum X InfiniBand. Blackwell gained further momentum in Q3. As GB 300 crossed over GB 200 and contributed roughly two-thirds of the total Blackwell revenue. The transition to GB 300 has been seamless.”
- Colette Kress, Executive Vice President and CFO
Demonstrating unprecedented adoption velocity of AI coding assistants across enterprises
“The quality of the AI models are improving so incredibly. The adoption of it in the different use cases, whether it’s in code assistance, which NVIDIA Corporation uses fairly exhaustively, and we’re not the only one. I mean, the fastest growing application in history combination of cursor and CliveCode and code OpenAI’s codex and GitHub Copilot. These applications are the fastest growing in history. And it’s not just used for software engineers. It’s used by because of vibe coding, it’s used by engineers and marketeers all over companies. Supply chain planners, all over companies.”
- Jensen Huang, President and CEO
That’s it for now! Your feedback will really help shape how The Chatter evolves. Drop it down in the comments below!
Quotes in this newsletter were curated by Meher & Kashish.
Disclaimer: We’ve used AI tools in filtering and cleaning up these quotes so there maybe some mistakes. Now, if you are thinking why we are using AI, please remember that we are just a small team of 5 people running everything you see on Zerodha Markets 😬 So, all the good stuff is human and mistakes are AI.
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