The Chatter: Doubling Down
Edition #29
Welcome to the 29th 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 14 companies across 8 industries, along with some international features.
Software Services
TCS
Tata Elxsi
FMCG
Reliance Consumer Products
Healthcare
Indegene
Textiles
Dollar Industries
Financial Services
One Mobikwik Systems
Yes Bank
Media & Entertainment
Cyber Media Research & Services
PVR INOX Limited
Telecom
Bharti Airtel
Pace Digitek
Engineering & Capital Goods
Saatvik Green Energy
International
Dassault Systèmes
ABB Limited
Software Services
TCS | Large Cap | Software Services
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is a global IT services company with deep industry expertise. They offer a wide range of services including application development, digital transformation, AI, data and cloud services, engineering, cybersecurity, and products.
TCS board approved creation of a new subsidiary to build sovereign AI data centers in India with massive 1 gigawatt capacity, marking a significant departure from its asset-light model.
“Today our board approved the creation of a TCS subsidiary that will focus on building a sovereign AI data center with a capacity of up to 1 gigawatt.”
Management provided details on the phased investment approach for the data center, clarifying it would be funded through equity, debt and finance partners.
“From a capex perspective, while we have set a target of 1 gigawatt, we will be doing it in phases. We expect to achieve 1 gigawatt over a period of 5 to 7 years and our calculation roughly is about every 150 megawatt would be about a billion dollars. So it’s not that we are going to put all the money in year one. We also clarify that this would be a combination of equity and debt and we’ll also bring in finance partners for the equity.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
The data center is positioned as sovereign infrastructure to keep data within India, targeting hyperscalers, deep tech companies, government and Indian enterprises.
“The reason we are saying sovereign cloud is it’s going to be established in data centers in India and it will host all the data. We are expecting all data and compute to be hosted in India and not leave the shores of India. That’s the reason we are saying it’s a sovereign data center.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
Target Customers:
“We are hoping to sell this to the pure play AI providers, the deep tech companies and the hyperscalers and to some extent the government needs in India and the Indian enterprises are the expected participants here.”
Management justified the data center investment by highlighting massive unmet demand in India’s data center market over the next 5-6 years.
“Most importantly, our calculation shows the unmet demand that’s going to be in the data center space. We believe currently we have only 1.2 gigawatt of capacity in the country and next five to six years it can go up - the demand can go up by almost 10 times whereas the capacity, at least committed capacity, is only about 5 to 6 gigawatt. So that is going to leave so much of unmet demand. All these things put together we thought it’s a good opportunity and it also guarantees a stable annuity revenue as well.”
Management explained how the data center business creates synergies both with TCS clients and Tata Group companies.
“And also it gives another group synergy as well. If you look at the Tata group companies, they are in the power, real estate, project management business, Tata Communications. So there is a different kind of synergy we can build in here. But from a client perspective, we believe a strong collaboration can be derived out of this one and the Tata group synergy we see that as a very unique advantage.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
The data center business will operate as a separate entity with its own management but maintain adjacencies with TCS services.
“The business itself we’ll be keeping it separate. It will have separate management bandwidth. We are in the process of putting in an entirely separate team outside of TCS for this but it will have adjacencies with TCS. It’s a natural extension in terms of what partnerships we are looking at creating with hyperscalers, what services we want to provide to our customers and this nicely fits in as an adjacency.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
Management highlighted AI-powered modernization as a major growth opportunity, particularly for addressing technology debt in legacy systems.
“The third area where we are seeing significant opportunity is around AI-powered modernization. As you would appreciate, many of our customers globally have a lot of technology debt that they have carried over the years. GenAI and agentic AI are powerful tools to really address the tech debt. You can actually use these AI, GenAI to understand the legacy code and forward engineer and deliver the new code. So modernization with AI is a huge opportunity and we are seeing significant uptake across customers but I would say right now significantly in BFSI and we expect to replicate this across other verticals.”
— Aarti Subramanyan, Executive Director, President and Chief Operating Officer
TCS delivered sequential margin improvement of 70 bps driven by currency benefits, offset by wage hikes.
“Our Q2 operating margin stood at 25.2%, reflecting a sequential improvement of 70 basis points. This is excluding severance charges provided this quarter.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
CFO provided detailed margin walk explaining the puts and takes during the quarter.
“Currency helped support margins by 80 basis points. Wage hike increment combined with additional quarterly variable allowances impacted our margins by 70 basis points. Offset by benefit of 40 basis points from rebalancing of pyramid and 20 basis points from operating efficiency.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
TCS reiterated its aspirational margin band despite current investments in AI and infrastructure.
“Our industry leading margins are a vindication of our belief that we have the strongest ability to absorb market fluctuations and competitive pressures. Secondly, growth when achieved through value creation and innovation will have a positive impact on margins over time. We continue to work towards getting back to our aspirational band of 26% to 28%.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
Management provided outlook for full year international revenue growth in constant currency.
“Based on client conversations, Q2 revenue growth and TCV and the strong demand pipeline, we see FY26 international revenue growth to be better than last fiscal year.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Management characterized the current demand environment and client spending patterns.
“IT services spend is steady with no significant change expected in near term. Lingering uncertainties in the broader economic environment continue to remain a key challenge. Companies are keeping a tight control over their discretionary budgets. In response to economic and demand volatility, clients are consolidating vendors to achieve transformation objectives effectively and efficiently.”
Management provided update on project starts and deferrals which had impacted previous quarters.
“At that point, I was alluding to - it’s in a much improved situation. The number of project deferrals or projects getting paused have reduced compared to the last quarter.”
Most verticals showed improvement with BFSI, Europe performing well and consumer business degrowth arrested.
“If you look at the growth momentum, all of them have improved. BFSI continues to grow globally, particularly BFSI North America has done well. Similarly if you look at Europe, Europe has done well compared to last quarter. Even if you take CBG, the degrowth has been largely arrested. So overall, we expect most of the industry segments to bend the curve subject to seasonalities of Q3 but they’ll be getting into growth momentum.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Some TCS clients faced cyberattacks; management clarified TCS systems were not compromised and company supported recovery efforts.
“Recent incidents saw some of our TCS clients becoming victims to these cyber attacks resulting in disruptions to their businesses. I would like to clarify that there has been no compromise of TCS systems nor any impact to other customers of TCS in these incidents. The investigations for these incidents are being managed by the customers respectively and TCS is playing a significant role in supporting the customers in their recovery efforts. These efforts have been positively acknowledged by our customers.”
— Aarti Subramanyan, Executive Director, President and Chief Operating Officer
The cyber incident at a client caused some project starts to be delayed, impacting Q2 revenue.
“The only headwind impact is because of the nature of the outages they had, we could not start some of the projects that we were planning to start. That was the headwind. Otherwise there was no other significant headwind because we were working very closely with the customer in helping them recover the overall operations.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Recovery Status:
“To your question, yes I think the recovery efforts have been completed and all the sales and manufacturing systems are all up and this happened just this week, early this week. So I think we expect the projects to pick up in the coming weeks.”
— Aarti Subramanyan, Executive Director, President and Chief Operating Officer
Total headcount declined by 20,000 driven by voluntary attrition, involuntary attrition and workforce releases.
“Additionally, there has been involuntary attrition as part of regular ongoing efforts pertaining to performance and bench policies. With the new hires, the releases and attrition (voluntary and involuntary), our global workforce as of Q2 FY26 stands at 5,93,314.”
Clarification on 20,000 Decline:
“The 20,000 headcount is a factor of voluntary and involuntary attrition.”
TCS has significantly reduced H1B dependency with only 500 associates traveling to US on H1B visas.
“Finally, on H1B, we have significantly localized workforce in the US. Approximately just about 500 associates have traveled to the US on H1B. We believe our business model will be able to adapt quickly to any changes in immigration policy.”
— Sudeep Kunnath, Chief Human Resources Officer
TCS is expanding its India delivery infrastructure significantly in tier 1 and tier 2 cities.
“It is also important to note that we are on a drive to expand our already vast pan-India footprint further in both tier 1 and tier 2 cities to the tune of about 50,000 seats in the next few years.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
After a decade without acquisitions, TCS signaled increased M&A activity going forward.
“Definitely you answered the first question - yes, we are very actively looking at more opportunities for acquisitions.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Despite new investments, TCS maintained its capital return policy with flexibility for large acquisitions.
“Capital payout policy - at this time the stated policy continues to be to return 80% to 100% of substantial free cash flows and that is after all investments. But if we end up making a huge acquisition that impacts our ability to do cash flow, we will be upfront about it.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
TCS maintains exceptional return ratios; data center investment won’t materially impact ROE.
“This is an investment which will have partners coming in. From a profitability perspective, at an overall TCS level it will not be margin dilutive. Return ratios also given the overall size expected over the years, it should not have a significant impact. Our ROEs are currently over 50%. So we still expect it to be benchmarked.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
First revenues from data center subsidiary expected in 18-24 months after setup.
“In terms of metrics, too early to call out. We have just set up the subsidiary. It would be about 18 to 24 months when the first revenue starts kicking in. At the appropriate time we’ll start calling out the metrics as well.”
— Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer
TCS partnering with IBM and Andhra Pradesh government on quantum computing infrastructure.
“In partnership with IBM and Government of Andhra Pradesh, we are deploying India’s largest quantum computer in the country’s first quantum valley tech park.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
When asked how TCS will measure being “largest AI-led company,” management acknowledged no single metric yet defined.
“Based on the discussions that we’ve been having with customers and the internal training we did, hackathons we did, number of participation - we believe we have multiple metrics. It would be in terms of number of people participating, number of projects which we’ll be doing. All combined together, we definitely will aspire to become the largest. If you ask me one single metric today, I don’t have it to be honest. We will be evolving how do we measure ourselves on a year-on-year basis and improve on this. That’s the honest answer. But we are confident that we will be able to have the biggest impact that we’ll deliver in the industry with AI.”
— K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Tata Elxsi | Mid Cap | Software Services
Tata Elxsi is a global leader in design and technology services, helping clients innovate through digital solutions like IoT, Cloud, Mobility, Virtual Reality, and AI. The company serves industries such as Automotive, Broadcast, Communications, Healthcare, and Transportation.
One of Tata Elxsi’s top automotive clients suffered a cyber security incident that disrupted projects scheduled to start in September.
“Yes, we had some impact. Some of the projects that we were supposed to start in September had to be pushed out. Rather than giving you a number and quantifying it, I would say that if that incident had not happened, we would have definitely shown a constant currency positive growth. That would give you an idea that the incident did affect us a little bit.”
Recovery Update:
“We are definitely seeing a lot more positive conversations and at least people are coming back for discussions and so on. So we were prepared for the worst but I think things are definitely looking much better now.”
“We hear from our customer that the systems are up and everything is back to normal. So we will wait till end of the month to take that decision.”
— Manoj Raghavan, CEO & Managing Director
Analyst asked why US is muted while Europe is performing better.
On Adjacencies:
“First of all, I want to clarify that US is doing very well and we believe will continue to do very well on the adjacency side where we’re talking of off-road, commercial vehicles, aerospace and defense where we’re making some strategic foray.”
On Legacy OEMs - Portfolio Reset:
“The withdrawal of EV incentives, the fact that the whole emission norms have been completely relaxed are kind of providing reprieve as well as a window of opportunity to continue to stay with ICE vehicles, to stay with limited EV conversion and so on. So that’s causing a bit of a portfolio reset both in terms of what you will engineer and what you will manufacture.”
On New Age EV OEMs:
“With the new age OEMs, you have to remember that there’s just one or two who are winners, well-funded and continuing to maybe grow. The other OEMs are still on the horizon. Some of them are just getting into production. Some of them are still in development stage.”
“The fact that many of them targeted the US as a key market, mid to luxury kind of segments, the withdrawal of incentives, the little bit of cloud that is hanging over EVs as viable vehicles for the US market, I think is what is causing issues. So to that extent, it’s a little bit of a mixed bag.”
Analyst asked if European OEMs have moved past tariff concerns and China competition.
“I think that issue is actually causing them to look at best cost locations and open up a lot more also, because they have to do more with less.”
— Nitin Pai, Chief Marketing & Chief Strategy Officer
On European Revival Despite Weak Car Sales
“We’re not looking at current vehicle data or sales data and so on. While I understand that is important, these are all programs that will come out in the next two years, next three years timeframe.”
“All the German OEMs realize that to compete with competition from China and elsewhere, they definitely need to up their game, build more features, and compete aggressively with what the Chinese OEMs are able to bring in, but at the same time with a much lower total cost of ownership. If they don’t invest now, I think their future will be bleak. So that is why most of these companies have restarted those investments.”
Management emphasized Tata Elxsi’s structural advantage in offshoring trends.
“Tata Elxsi is known for offshoring. We are one of the leaders in percentage of revenues that comes from offshoring as compared to all the other competitors. Our ratios are far higher than anybody else.”
“Any trend in offshoring looking at best cost countries and so on, Tata Elxsi is a preferred vendor because of the capability, the experience, the process know-how, and 30-plus years of experience of doing this. Without doubt, we would definitely benefit from the offshoring trend.”
— Manoj Raghavan, CEO & Managing Director
Management outlined where automotive R&D spending is focused.
“If you look at a lot of the large deals and new deals that we’re talking about, it’s all around software-defined vehicles, the electrification side, EVs and so on. We do see a lot of interest in ADAS as well as infotainment and cockpit areas.”
Interesting Trend - ICE Revival:
“Interestingly, we also see a revival in the traditional powertrain ICE-related areas as well. So I think we are well-placed to capture all those areas that we are seeing traction in.”
Over the past 8 quarters, Tata Elxsi shifted focus from Tier 1 suppliers to OEMs.
“In the last, I would say, almost eight quarters, we have moved a lot of our business focus from the tier ones to the OEMs. So to that extent, definitely the tier one business has gone down. That’s the nature of the business, that’s the industry. Tier ones are definitely losing.”
Stabilization This Quarter:
“But for us, we still engage with some critical tier ones and we believe that those tier ones will continue to exist. So this quarter we sort of stabilized that, maybe even slight growth in the tier one business for us. So I think it’s positive for us.”
— Manoj Raghavan, CEO & Managing Director
Historically, Tata Elxsi faced challenges with customer concentration in automotive and healthcare.
“Both in automotive and healthcare, I think we have gone a long way. We have multiple customers that are really touching that multi-million dollar sort of mark.”
“Next financial year, both in automotive and healthcare, we’ll have a very good spread of revenues, especially with some of the new deals that we have won and ramp ups happening and so on.”
“In the media and communication industry, we still are not seeing that sort of growth happening. We have definitely a number of accounts but we’re not seeing that sort of growth happening.”
— Manoj Raghavan, CEO & Managing Director
Analyst asked about Tata Elxsi’s China strategy given Chinese automotive dominance.
“We have very minuscule presence in China. The China market is very different and they definitely do a lot of collaboration internally. I’ve really not seen anybody from outside coming in and winning a large market share in China.”
“We are not competing with Chinese. Our customers are competing with Chinese.”
“In most countries like Germany, for example, the auto industry is the backbone of the economy there and I don’t think the German government or anybody there will allow that industry to go down without aggressively pushing and giving enough incentives and benefits and really ensuring that the German companies are able to compete.”
“As long as those companies exist and they need to compete with China, we would benefit.”
— Manoj Raghavan, CEO & Managing Director
Detailed discussion on how Tata Elxsi is leveraging AI across its business.
“In fact, we have our own mini Nvidia data center that we set up ourselves for our own AI experimentation and workloads.”
Investor asked about semiconductor opportunities.
“Not directly because we of course work with a whole set of semiconductor platforms and partners. We are largely focused on the software that powers applications across infotainment, connectivity and so on across segments. On chip design itself, we do not have any significant presence and not an intent either.”
— Nitin Pai, Chief Marketing & Chief Strategy Officer
FMCG
Reliance Consumer Products | Large Cap | FMCG
Reliance Consumer Products Ltd. (RCPL) is the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) arm of Reliance Industries Limited, focused on building a large portfolio of consumer brands in India.
Reliance Consumer Products is pursuing aggressive nationwide expansion across all major FMCG categories within 12 months, leveraging its distribution network to compete with established players in food, beverages, home care, personal care, and general merchandise.
“As I mentioned earlier, by this time next year, you will find us available nationally across almost every major FMCG category — food, beverages, home and personal care, and general merchandise. Within food, we’ll expand into biscuits, snacks, and ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat products. In beverages, Campa will continue to grow. And in home and personal care, Velvet is just the beginning.”
— T Krishnakumar, Director, Reliance Consumer Products
The company has set an ambitious target to build at least five brands with annual revenues exceeding ₹1,000 crore each by the end of 2027, reflecting Reliance’s intent to establish strong brand equity beyond distribution.
“I won’t name specific brands, but our aim is that by the end of 2027, we should have at least five ₹1,000 crore brands in our portfolio — if not more.”
- T Krishnakumar, Director, Reliance Consumer Products
Healthcare
Indegene | Small Cap | Healthcare
Indegene offers digital-led commercialization services to biopharmaceutical, emerging biotech, and medical devices companies. They provide support for drug development, clinical trials, regulatory submissions, pharmacovigilance, complaints management, and sales and marketing.
Explaining how AI adoption and top-down pressure on life sciences industry is driving the next wave of centralization in sales and marketing, requiring standardization and compliance, which healthcare agencies aren’t best positioned to deliver.
“We believe we are seeing the next level of centralization and change in operating model. This time, the reason is the top-down pressure on the life science industry and what AI could offer. As companies adopt and use AI, the only way to drive standardization in a compliant manner while securing high adoption of AI in sales and marketing will be through centralization. The incumbents, which are healthcare agencies will not be best suited for this to deliver the benefits through wide and global usage of AI.”
— Manish Gupta (Chairman & CEO)
Detailing how BioPharm’s Tandem platform expands Indegene’s physician profiling from 1.8 million to 3 million HCPs with proprietary promotional response data from 20+ years of campaigns.
“Through Tandem, the data product augments our data play by expanding our healthcare professional data sets from 1.8 million to 3 million. We had spoken to a lot of you about our data sets. We had a product called Invisage which had 1.8 million physicians profile. Now that increases to 3 million. The data engine has a proprietary scoring and analysis model with these 3 million-plus HCP profiles and a proprietary promotional response data from 20-plus years of campaigns across 300 million plus exposure events and 15 million-plus engagements.”
Summarizing the two primary strategic reasons - becoming a powerful brand activation player with integrated end-to-end capabilities, and unlocking financial synergies through cross-selling and cost optimization.
“This acquisition solves 2 primary strategic imperatives for us. First, BioPharm and Indegene as a combined entity now emerge as a powerful player in the brand activation space, combining the right mix of integrated end-to-end marketing capabilities, credentials, talent and client access, thus becoming a true force in the market... The second imperative is financial, revenues and cost synergies. Given the nature of BioPharm’s customers and business relationships, there will be now cross-selling opportunities within the combined customer base.”
— Manish Gupta (Chairman & CEO)
Clarifying that deal will be EPS accretive beyond five-six quarters after absorbing transaction expenses (~$0.8 million), integration costs, incremental go-to-market investments, and lower interest income.
“We expect the deal to be EPS accretive beyond the first five to six quarters. The transaction expenses, which are estimated at approximately US $0.8 million and the integration costs for both operations and data, along with incremental go-to-market costs, combined with lower interest income due to the outflow towards the purchase price would be the immediate impacts on our earnings.”
Outlining expected $1 million annual cost synergies from data purchase consolidation and future offshoring, with margins stabilizing at 27-28% on net revenue post-integration phase in six quarters.
“In terms of cost synergies, we expect around US $1 million annually, which should start accruing beyond the integration phase. While we’ll be making incremental investments in the business to drive growth, these investments in the business should be offset by the cost synergies and along with the growth in the combined business should result in a 27% to 28% EBITDA on net revenue in around six quarters, which has been the historical margin rate that BioPharm has operated at.”
Responding to question about client mix, revealing 80% revenue from top 20 customers, 60% from top 10, with low churn and 4-6 year average relationship duration, entirely US-focused brand engagements.
“The business is entirely a US-focused business currently, and therefore, 100% of the revenues are generated from brand engagements with pharma life sciences in the US. The customer concentration itself is about 80% for the top 20 customers, about 60% top 10 customers. And there are a handful of customers in that $2 million to $5 million kind of annual business. The churn rate of customers has been fairly low... we’ve seen that most of the customer engagements are running for 4 to 6 years, if not more.”
Clarifying that while there’s significant logo overlap (17 of top 25 pharma), buying groups differ - BioPharm works with brand owners while Indegene’s 85% revenue comes from enterprise/centralized budgets.
“At a logo level, there is a significant overlap given that 17 of the top 25 pharma are BioPharm customers. Indegene works with all the top 20, maybe 22, 23 of the top 25. So, to that extent, there’s a significant overlap. But the buying groups within these customers are where the differences are... the customers of Biopharm would be the brand owners in the US, which have their own budgets, whereas most of Indegene’s customers would be on the enterprise side, right? As you would already know, Indegene’s revenues almost 85% is on the enterprise side and only 12% to 13% is on the brand side.”
— Suhas Prabhu (CFO)
Textiles
Dollar Industries | Small Cap | Textiles
Dollar Industries Limited has established itself as a top brand in the hosiery sector with a strong market share and significant textile exports. With a solid presence in social media and e-commerce, the company has expanded its reach across multiple Indian states and even internationally, becoming the best-selling Indian innerwear brand in the UAE and the Middle East.
Explaining how the merger brings the Dollar brand entirely under the listed entity, enhancing its value reflection in financials and enabling better leverage of the unified brand for market leadership.
“First, the Dollar brand will now be fully consolidated into Dollar Industries Limited with the brand coming entirely under the listed entities, the value of the brand will be more deeply reflected in the company’s financials, thereby enhancing both shareholder wealth and the intrinsic value of the organization. This consolidation will help us leverage the power of a single unified brand to strengthen our market leadership and expand our growth trajectory.”
Responding to question about current industry demand, noting Q2 seasonal weakness due to extended monsoon affecting innerwear sales, though demand is cyclically acceptable compared to prior year.
“So industry-wide, the demand has been okay, I would say, but it’s a seasonal thing since the monsoon season is a bit stretched this particular year. So as it is, second quarter is not very good for the innerwear sales. So overall, from the demand point of view, it’s a cyclical thing. So it’s good as compared to the last.”
— Ankit Gupta (President, Marketing)
Explaining shift from percentage-of-sales to absolute amount advertising budget of ₹85-90 crores, maintaining disciplined spending approach focused on brand awareness and performance marketing.
“So earlier, we used to pack our advertisement expenditures as a percentage of sales. But from past 3 to 4 years, we have been working on an absolute amount that is we have fixed our advertisement spend at INR85 crores to INR100 crores range. So this year also, we are planning to spend around INR85 crores to INR90 crores only in the advertisement spend.”
— Ankit Gupta (President, Marketing)
Clarifying that traditional advertising (TV, hoardings) doesn’t allow precise ROI calculation, but digital spending (20-25% of budget) provides exact return tracking and supports performance
“So see, the -- only spending on advertisement does not guarantee you the sales where you can actually calculate the ROI basis the traditional methods of advertisement. Like whenever you advertise on television or you put up a hoarding in the market, you can’t really tell that it is because of that advertisement, the sales are coming or the exact ROI, you can’t calculate that, right? But when you spend on digitally, you have -- you exactly know that what is the return that we are getting on every money that we are spending on digital media.”
Discussing thermal products contributing 6% of sales with ₹250 average selling price, expressing optimism for current season while noting difficulty in projecting due to weather dependency.
“So currently, it contributes around 6% to our total sales. But it’s very tough to actually comment on where we will be in next 1 or 2 years because it’s a seasonal product. And one cannot guarantee that every year, the winters would be good and the summers would sell better. Like 2 years back, the winter was not good, and our thermal sales declined by around 30%. But last year, we grew by 23%. And this year also, we are eyeing that we’ll be having a good growth in the thermal sales as well.”
— Ankit Gupta (President, Marketing)
Emphasizing that while short-term financial impact is minimal, long-term benefits include compliance savings, no royalty increase on new products, 90% RPT reduction, and enhanced promoter family control.
“Yes, yes. But in long term, we get the more benefit due to this. We get the saving at our compliance front, we have our Dollar brand in our company. And if after we launch new products, our royalty did not increase because brand is the company. And our RPT is reduced to the 90% and basically a controlled part of promoter family because all the assets related to business assets of the Dollar industry in one place. So long term...”
Clarifying that 90% of RPTs will be eliminated post-merger, with only 1-2 individual/firm-related transactions remaining as firms cannot be merged under corporate merger procedures.
“Basically, 90% of the related party transaction is vanished. Only there is -- if you check the RPT personnel, there is 1 or 2 individual and 1 or 2 firm also. So that is remained intact only. Because in merger, we cannot add the firms. Only corporate can merge in the merger and amalgamation procedure.”
Discussing 10% YoY export decline and plans for recovery through exploration in Myanmar, Nigeria, and South Africa, with 90-95% branded exports under own brand.
“We have explored in many areas, like in Myanmar, in Nigeria, in South Africa also. So we expect we get increase in our export this year in total revenue... 90%, 95% is our own brand. Only 5% to 10% is their white label, if anyone required.”
Explaining 40% increase in sales discounts to ₹172 crores due to intensified Q3-Q4 competition from 6-7 new brands, while noting current year stabilization without further increases.
“So in the current year, it has not increased. Last year and the ongoing intensified competition in the market led to this extra discount, which was given. But when you compare it with the other peer groups in the same segment, you’ll find that we are much, much better off in terms of extra discounting that we had to offer in the market.”
— Ajay Patodia (CFO)
Addressing threat from Zudio’s discounted innerwear, clarifying that Zudio focuses on outerwear while Dollar maintains full range from economy to premium leveraging 50-year history and economies of scale.
“See, currently -- see, we are into innerwear segment. Mostly our sales are into innerwear and some part of the sales comes from the athleisure segment, which are basic products, right? And currently, we don’t see any threat coming in from Zudio or likes of Zudio because they are more focused in the outerwear segment instead of the innerwear segment. Secondly, we have a history of 50 years, right? And we have started this company with economy range of products. So we can’t do away with the economy range of products because it’s the product segment which gives us volume, which gives us economies of scale.”
Highlighting strong 80% e-commerce growth driving contribution from 3% to 8-8.5% of sales without margin compromise, focusing on marketplaces rather than direct website sales currently.
“No, it would be a blend of two because in the e-commerce segment also, when we talk about e-commerce marketplaces and the quick commerce as well. So last year, we did around 80% of growth. And earlier, it used to contribute around 3% of sales. But last year, we crossed that -- crossed to 8%, 8.5% coming in from just e-commerce. And yes, this year also, we are seeing a very good growth coming in from e-commerce only.”
—Ankit Gupta (President, Marketing
Explaining that ₹175 crore dealer incentives primarily consist of performance-based schemes (1% at 100% target achievement, 1.5% above 110% target) - standard industry practice - not immediate bill discounts.
“It is mainly scheme part only because the discount already given in the bills itself, it is mainly the scheme part and incentive to the dealers when he complete the target, like if it completes the target of 100%, it gives a 1% extra benefit. If it is target more than 110%, then it gets the 1.5% benefit. That is the scheme in our segment actually all over in the industry. That is the main part.”
— Ajay Patodia (CFO)
Financial Services
One Mobikwik Systems | Small Cap | Financial Services
One Mobikwik Systems is a platform business with a two-sided payments network for consumers and merchants. It offers prepaid payment instruments, payment gateway services, utility bill payments, online shopping, and financial services like loan products in partnership with financing partners.
Discussing Q1 milestone of ₹1 lakh crore GMV and 176 million users, highlighting threefold payments growth and 30-32% credit distribution recovery in Q4-Q1 after temporary slowdown.
“Business is growing quite well. Last year, our payments business grew threefold. Credit distribution slowed for a while but is picking up again — up about 30–32% in Q4 and Q1. We’ve also launched the ‘First Card’, a RuPay credit card on UPI for customers starting with limits as low as ₹5,000. It’s designed to give first-time credit access to more Indians.”
— Upasana Taku, CFO
Explaining strategic pivot to full-stack financial services platform targeting Tier-2/3 India, leveraging newly acquired Payment Aggregator and stock broking licenses beyond core payments.
“We now have a Payment Aggregator (PA/PG) license and a stock broking license. While small now, our payment gateway and wealth segments will grow fast. We’re building Mobikwik into a full-stack financial platform for Bharat — Tier-2 and Tier-3 India.”
Detailing existing wealth offerings including mutual funds, digital gold, high-yield FDs, and Lens.ai tool that uses account aggregator data for AI-powered portfolio analysis and rebalancing recommendations.
“We already have wealth products — mutual funds, digital gold, high-yield FDs, and a tool called Lens.ai. Using account aggregator data, Lens.ai helps users analyze their portfolio and get conversational AI-driven insights to rebalance it. It’s our way to help people make smarter financial decisions.”
Explaining shift from six quarters of pre-listing profitability to recent losses due to Diwali unsecured lending sector headwinds impacting partner disbursals while fixed costs remained constant.
“We were profitable for six quarters before listing, but last Diwali, the entire unsecured lending sector faced headwinds. Since we work with lending partners, their decision to scale down affected our credit disbursals and revenue. Our fixed costs stayed the same, so we temporarily went into the red. But we’re improving — losses have narrowed from ₹45 crore to ₹31 crore. We expect to return to profitability in the second half of this year.”
Addressing ₹40 crore tech bug that was exploited by merchants from one district through fake overnight transactions, fixed within 45 minutes with no genuine customer impact.
“Yes, it was a tech bug — our fault — but we fixed it within 45 minutes. Some merchants discovered and exploited it overnight from one district, making fake transactions. No genuine customers were affected. Since then, we’ve recovered over ₹20 crore, and many merchants have voluntarily returned funds. We expect to recover even more soon.”
Yes Bank | Midcap | Financial Services
Yes Bank Limited, incorporated in 2004, is a new age private sector bank. The bank offers a full-range of client-focused corporate banking services, including working capital finance, specialized corporate finance, trade and transactional services, treasury risk management services, investment banking solutions and liquidity management solutions among others to a highly focused client base.
Following the closure of the SMBC deal where the Japanese banking giant acquired over 24% stake in Yes Bank, management discussed the immediate and long-term benefits of this partnership.
“One of the very large benefits—there were questions in terms of what is going to happen to the shareholding of SBI. I think those questions have been answered. So those concerns, like what is going to happen to such a large shareholding, that has been answered—that is one thing. The second part: any future capital requirement of the bank, whether the bank would be able to raise that capital in the market—I think that is also answered, because SMBC is coming with more than 24%. And there is a preemptive right which is there with them. Like any future capital raise of the bank, they are entitled for a similar participation.”
“Two very significant things for any bank: your ability to raise capital, and second, in terms of having a long-term investor for the first time who is willing to invest for the future of the bank. I think that was one piece which was missing so far. These two things are very critical. We are continuously moving on our path which has been decided by the bank. This would only accelerate that pace.”
— Prashant Kumar, MD & CEO
State Bank of India continues to hold approximately 10% stake in Yes Bank following its rescue of the troubled lender. Questions remain about SBI’s exit timeline.
“As of now, first thing, there is no regulatory pressure on them in terms of reducing the stake. And already SBI has a return of more than double—a tax-free return. So I think they would take their own call.”
With SMBC now having two board members as the largest shareholder, the market is watching for any potential shifts in strategic direction, particularly the balance between retail and corporate lending.
“Our own journey in terms of having almost 50% on the retail and SME, which is 60%, and remaining in terms of corporate—I think we don’t see any fundamental change in this. The reason is that all these strategies are also made first in terms of opportunities, and second, also in terms of risk management. So I think the call which we have taken in terms of corporate at 40% and retail and SME at 60% is a very fundamental thing in terms of risk distribution.”
Management outlined potential white spaces and investment areas that could be explored with SMBC’s backing, including wealth management, technology, and distribution network expansion.
“I mentioned about wealth management. I mentioned about two other things also. The other thing was in terms of investment in the new-age technologies, because you require those investments which are going to give you a return over a period of maybe three to five years. And you need to have the backup of an investor who is willing to invest for that. I also spoke about—we first need to see in terms of how we can invest for distribution, the distribution network. That also requires investment.”
“At least today, we feel more confident that we would be able to invest for the future.”
Yes Bank reported 6.5% YoY growth in advances and 3.9% sequential growth in Q2. Management maintains its 10-12% loan growth target for the year despite a muted Q1.
“If we just see in terms of quarter-on-quarter growth on the advances, which is almost 3.9%—so if you just exclude Quarter 1, which was a very, I would be saying, muted quarter, and if you work in terms of the next two quarters, I think 10-12% is something which we would be targeting.”
“Just because there are certain opportunities available and you grow faster than the industry, sometimes it comes with its own pain points. So I think we would like to see that we grow in a manner where we are able to take care of the quality of credit. It’s not conservative. I think this would be more prudent. The banks who have been growing very fast—we have seen multiple examples—the credit cost has come back. So I think it has to be more prudent in terms of ultimately the profitability of the business which we are doing.”
With rate cuts taking effect, Q2 was expected to see pressure on margins across the banking sector. Management provided guidance on NIM trajectory going forward.
“This will be the most challenging quarter from the NIM perspective, because most of the rate cuts which happened would impact in the second quarter. But I think Quarter 3 onwards, a meaningful improvement. This was the most difficult quarter. Going forward, we would definitely see improvement because there was no rate cut which was announced in this policy. So I think this quarter would be definitely better than Quarter 2.”
Media & Entertainment
Cyber Media Research & Services | Nano Cap | Media & Entertainment
Cyber Media Research & Services Limited operates in the expanding ad tech and data analytics industry. It offers Digital Marketing, Programmatic Media Buying, Publisher Monetization, and Data Analytics services, catering to advertisers and publishers.
Introducing the fundamental problem CMGalaxy solves - managing multiple advertising dashboards (Google, Meta, Amazon, LinkedIn, etc.) manually is slow and challenging, with CMOs citing technology/automation as major pain points.
“Advertisers have a very large number of platforms on which they spend. So, let’s take for the example of e-commerce. In the case of e-commerce, they would be spending on Google, Meta, but also on places like Amazon, LinkedIn, x.com, Pinterest, and many more. So, managing across all these dashboards can become a big challenge and more often. Most organizations are using a very manual approach to managing these dashboards and taking out the reports and sort of trying to do any decision making thereon. This is an extremely slow process. This is a very well-established pain point in the entire marketing industry.”
— Dhaval Gupta (Managing Director)
Explaining how CMGalaxy aggregates marketing data from all platforms into one centralized place, making reporting automated, real-time, and eliminating manual effort across multiple dashboards.
“We embarked on this journey to build ‘CMGalaxy’, where all your marketing platforms and the data associated with it can be aggregated in one place. So, this first and foremost starts to make reporting not just automated, but in fact, pretty much real time and it takes away the manual effort that needs to go into managing many dashboards.”
Explaining CMGalaxy’s proprietary analytics engine that replaces free tools like Google Analytics (described as “big black box”), enabling true user profiling and journey mapping for engagement tracking.
“Once somebody clicks on an ad and they come to the website. According to the action of the audience at that particular point of time, it starts immediately for the engagement piece. Most brands end up relying on free analytics tools like Google Analytics, which is a big black box and doesn’t help brands truly map user profile and user journey. We have built our analytics engine, which effectively replaces tools like Google Analytics, which helps to match the data, integrate the data with whatever, let’s say, Google is sending us signals, Meta is sending us signals, etc., and map the user engagement.”
Describing how CMGalaxy integrates sales data from CRM systems (Salesforce, Zoho, Shopify, WooCommerce) to enable complete marketing-to-sales attribution, solving data silos problem.
“The bottom of the funnel is where we also end up integrating not just the marketing data and the CDP data or the analytics data, but also the sales data. We are not a CRM company. We are a Martech setup. But we work with additional CRM companies. If there is a company using, let’s say, Salesforce or Zoho or from an e-commerce point of view, Shopify, WooCommerce, we have built integrations also on the sales end so that we can genuinely map, what was the marketing, what was the engagement, and what was the sales that resulted from it.”
Responding to question about client impact, detailing e-commerce success with Shopify/WooCommerce integrations enabling better customer understanding, behavior tracking, and performance benchmarking across funnel stages.
“In terms of the use cases, we have some very good use cases on the B2C side, and particularly with e-commerce. We are working with a lot of clients when it comes to Shopify, as well as WooCommerce integrations and we’ve been able to help them. The first and foremost, get a better understanding of who are the customers that are coming to their websites, and what is their behavior. Because you have full funnel attribution, we’re able to set benchmarks for different types of brands in terms of what should be the CTR when it comes to ads, what should be the engagement when it comes to engagement, what should be the add to cart, what should be the checkout.”
— Dhaval Gupta (Managing Director)
Agam providing concrete example of how full funnel analysis resolved client’s mistaken belief that Facebook wasn’t working - revealed Facebook drove top-of-funnel while Google got last-click credit.
“I’ll take with a very simple example of the use case side. If you’re running performance marketing campaign, there is a lot of time when your performance marketer is, we can say, fighting or arguing about which channel is working for you. We have a typical case, let’s say, if a company is using Facebook, Google and other kind of channels, they said our stakeholders want Facebook to go down and this is a typical case because the conversion, the last click is coming from Google. So, they believe Facebook doesn’t work for them but when you go in full funnel kind of analysis, you will understand like all their top of the funnel is coming from Facebook while their conversion is happening on the Google.”
— Agam Maurya (Product Manager)
Positioning CMGalaxy among handful of companies globally solving these problems well, with aspiration to be among top Martech companies solving these challenges worldwide.
“I think at a global level, there are only, I would say, a handful of companies that have, sort of, done this well and successfully and we are in that club. Our aspiration is to be in the top few Martech companies when it comes to solving these problems globally.”
— Dhaval Gupta (Managing Director)
PVR INOX Limited | Small Cap | Media & Entertainment
PVR INOX Limited, formerly known as PVR Limited, is a player in the movie industry engaged in exhibition, distribution, and production. In addition to movies, it generates revenue through in-house advertising, food & beverages, gaming, and restaurant business.
Explaining the core positioning of the new pilot format that blends restaurant dining with cinema viewing, featuring LED screens compatible with ambient lighting and full gourmet service-on-seat.
“It’s definitely a restaurant inside a cinema. We’ve designed it as a holistic, family-friendly experience where dining and movie watching blend seamlessly. The idea is that cinema viewing can be as incidental or as immersive as you want.”
Addressing concerns about service staff disrupting movie viewing, highlighting the architectural design solution using traditional raked seating at different heights with angled tables.
“We’ve maintained the traditional raked seating so every section is at a different height. Service staff movement won’t block sightlines, and tables are angled toward the screen for an uninterrupted view.”
-Aamer Bijli, Lead Specialist Innovation, Film Marketing, PVR Inox
Explaining how the 70-72 seat auditorium will compensate for lower capacity through diversified revenue streams beyond films, with particular emphasis on gaming enabled by high refresh rate LED screens.
“This dine-in cinema seats about 70–72 people, but we’ll also use it for alternate programming — corporate bookings, gaming sessions, live comedy and music shows. Gaming, in particular, is a focus area because our LED screen supports high refresh rates. About 80–85% of revenue will still come from films, and the rest from these alternate uses.”
Clarifying investment requirements for the new format, emphasizing that it stays within standard cinema screen budgets despite the additional restaurant infrastructure and LED technology.
“We’ve kept it very controlled — within our typical screen budget. A regular cinema costs about ₹3 crore per screen, and this one fits in the same range.”
Discussing rollout plans following the current pilot phase, with Mumbai identified as a priority market for the dine-in cinema concept.
“Once we have a proof of concept, we’ll expand to other locations within six to eight months — hopefully Mumbai soon.”
Commenting on second quarter performance despite a weaker slate of blockbusters, noting contribution from regional films and unexpected hits during pre-results blackout period.
“We’re actually doing better than expected. I can’t share numbers due to the blackout period before our board meeting, but several sleeper and regional hits have done well.”
Responding to concerns about potential 100% tariffs on films entering the U.S., emphasizing the self-sufficient nature of Indian cinema with strong domestic and overseas markets.
“It’s early to say, but we’re not too concerned. The Indian film industry is strong and self-sustaining, with robust domestic and overseas consumption, especially in the UK and UAE.”
Addressing whether the new dine-in format would impact the company’s ₹891 crore debt position, confirming the capex was pre-planned within existing rollout budgets.
“Not significantly. This capex was already factored into our rollout plans. We’ll continue servicing debt steadily.”
Telecom
Bharti Airtel | Large Cap | Telecom
Bharti Airtel is India’s leading communications solutions provider and the second largest mobile operator in Africa. Their retail portfolio includes high-speed 4G/5G mobile, Wi-Fi, digital entertainment, video streaming, digital payments, and financial services.
Speaking about the pace of regulatory change, Gopal Vittal, MD of Bharti Airtel, said that policymakers need to look beyond telecom to address the broader digital ecosystem.
“Regulation needs to keep pace with changes in technology, and right now, it isn’t. Most regulators globally—not just in India—are focused mainly on the telecom sector, which is a small part of the larger trust and security challenges in the digital ecosystem. The overreach on telecom is far greater, while the rest remains a bit of a wild west.”
Discussing the tough economics of running a telecom business in India, Vittal pointed out how operators face demanding customers despite ultra-low tariffs.
“India is a very difficult place to operate in because customers are more demanding than in Europe. You’re running with the lowest ARPUs and per-gigabyte rates and still expected to deliver high quality. There’s headroom for pricing to rise, but we must stay efficient and explore new revenue streams—even if they won’t match our flagship business, they can still add meaningful value.”
Pace Digitek | Small Cap | Telecom
Pace Digitek delivers innovative telecom power systems, optic fiber laying, and renewable energy solutions across India and globally.
When asked about revenue growth and EBITDA targets for the next 2-3 years post-listing, the CMD outlined the company’s strategic pivot toward BESS while maintaining their telecom business, emphasizing their competitive advantage through complete backward integration.
“Over the next few years, both revenue and profits will grow meaningfully as we expand into battery energy storage systems (BESS) — a new and fast-emerging sector in India. We’re fully backward-integrated: manufacturing, executing, and even owning projects. We’ve already secured significant business in this space and will focus heavily on BESS alongside our existing telecom operations.”
— Maddisetty Venugopal Rao. CMD
Providing specific targets and timeline for the business transformation, the CMD detailed how BESS will gradually become the dominant revenue driver, shifting from a telecom-heavy portfolio to an energy-focused one within two years.
“So far, most of our FY25 business is from the telecom segment, but this year we expect 15–20% of revenues to come from the energy storage segment. By FY27, our business mix should be 50:50 between energy and telecom, and beyond that, energy storage is likely to overtake telecom in contribution.”
Addressing questions about the recent order book growth driven by BESS, the CMD explained the strategic importance of energy storage in India’s renewable transition and how the company’s integrated model provides execution efficiency.
“BESS is the future of renewable energy integration — it’s essential for balancing the grid as renewable penetration rises. We’re well-positioned with backward integration that helps us build efficiently. Our current BESS projects will be executed within 18–24 months, and we see steady growth visibility over the coming years.”
Providing detailed breakdown of the order book split and execution timeline, the CMD quantified the company’s near-term revenue visibility and reinforced the accelerated contribution expected from the BESS segment starting this fiscal year.
“Our total order book stands at around ₹7,000 crore — roughly ₹3,200 crore from telecom and ₹4,500 crore from energy storage. Both will be executed over the next 18–24 months. The energy storage segment will start contributing meaningfully to the balance sheet this year and is expected to account for up to 50% of total revenues from next year onwards.”
Engineering & Capital Goods
Saatvik Green Energy | Small Cap | Engineering & Capital Goods
Saatvik Green Energy is among the leading module manufacturers in India in terms of operational solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing capacity, with an operational capacity of about 3.80 gigawatt (GW) modules as of March 31, 2025.
When asked about the growth roadmap and listed journey ahead, Prashant laid out the comprehensive expansion strategy including backward integration, diversification into inverters, and leveraging their existing EPC capabilities.
“How we see Satvic going forward is backward integrating into cell manufacturing. Our capacity utilization has been consistently above 80%. I think we wish to continue with that. We are also foraying into the inverter business. We already have an EPC business. So how we are building Satvic is as an integrated manufacturer as well as a player in the energy space, especially the renewable energy space.”
— Prashant Mathur, Chief Strategist & Executor
Addressing concerns about volatility in solar raw material prices globally and the company’s procurement and hedging strategy to protect margins.
“Normally when we work on large orders, we try to hedge ourselves against the dollar fluctuation, change in law, and also the polysilicon and wafer sale prices. The long-term contracts are finalized based on these three risks involved. But the inherent strength of the solar industry has been that the prices have continuously been going down, making it more affordable for people. That’s why you see significant demand getting increased over the years. We feel that the prices have bottomed out and should stabilize at these levels. The market is digesting that and also keeps expanding because of that as well.”
Responding to questions about the ₹700 crore fresh issue intended for debt retirement and the company’s path to becoming debt-free.
“We will be paying off our debt. It’s just been two weeks that we have been listed. Our long-term debt will be completely paid off, which is about 175 crores. So in terms of long-term debt, we’ll be debt-free.”
Explaining the execution timeline for their 4 gigawatt order book and how the company manages its order pipeline.
“Normally the order book execution timeline is within the next 12 months. And it’s always building and executing. You cannot have an order book more than a 12-month period, and then you execute and add new orders in it.”
Detailing the timeline for their module manufacturing capacity expansion and future plans for cell manufacturing, including funding approach.
“The capex - the capital raise was for the entire capex for our module manufacturing of 4 gigawatt, which will be operational somewhere in the last quarter of this financial year. The revenues for that should start coming from the next financial year because it takes 2-3 months to optimize the equipment. Further, we are backward integrating into cell manufacturing. For that, we will be raising fresh debt, but that is going to be somewhere around the end of this financial year.”
International
Dassault Systèmes ( International)
Dassault Systèmes is a French multinational software corporation which develops software for 3D product design, simulation, manufacturing and other 3D related products.
Pascal Daloz emphasized India’s critical role in shaping the global economy and highlighted the country’s unique advantages in innovation and intellectual property.
“India is one economy that will drive the future of the world because the country has the innovative power, imagination and the workforce of the future. And intellectual property is becoming the new currency.”
— Pascal Daloz, CEO, Dassault Systèmes
The 3DEXPERIENCE (3DX) platform is Dassault Systèmes’ cloud-based business and innovation platform that provides organizations with a holistic, real-time vision of their business activity and ecosystem. The platform’s on-cloud applications are enabling ePlane’s development of their e200 air taxi.
“By leveraging Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud, ePlane is accelerating innovation and achieving efficient, safe, and certifiable development of their ePlane e200 air taxi. Dassault Systèmes is happy to be the technology partner enabling ePlane’s vision for zero-emission, accessible, and sustainable urban transportation in India and beyond.”
- Deepak N.G., India Managing Director, Dassault Systèmes
ePlane’s engineering team has been able to validate complex eVTOL designs faster and more efficiently using Dassault Systèmes’ cloud and simulation technologies, significantly reducing development timelines and certification risks.
“With Dassault Systèmes’ robust cloud and simulation technologies, our engineering team can validate designs faster and more efficiently, despite the inherent complexity of eVTOL geometries. Digital continuity across all phases of aircraft development significantly reduced engineering cycle times and de-risked critical certification milestones.”
-- Satya Chakravarthy, Founder & CTO, The ePlane Company
ABB Limited (International)
ABB Ltd. is a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation specializing in electrification and automation technology. It provides products and services for industries such as oil and gas, automotive, and consumer electronics, and its operations are organized into four global business areas: Electrification, Process Automation, Robotics & Discrete Automation, and Motion.
ABB announced it has signed an agreement to divest its Robotics division to SoftBank Group Corp. for an enterprise value of $5.375 billion, pivoting away from its earlier plan to spin-off the business as a separately listed company. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, with an expected closure in mid-to-late 2026.
“SoftBank’s offer has been carefully evaluated by the Board and Executive Committee and compared with our original intention for a spin-off. It reflects the long-term strengths of the division, and the divestment will create immediate value to ABB shareholders. ABB will use the proceeds from the transaction in line with its well-established capital allocation principles. Our ambitions for ABB are unchanged and we will continue to focus on our long-term strategy, building on our leading positions in electrification and automation.”
— Peter Voser, Chairman of ABB
Management emphasized that SoftBank would provide an ideal platform for ABB Robotics to capitalize on the emerging AI-based robotics era, combining ABB’s technology leadership with SoftBank’s AI and computing capabilities.
“SoftBank will be an excellent new home for the business and its employees. ABB and SoftBank share the same perspective that the world is entering a new era of AI-based robotics and believe that the division and SoftBank’s robotics offering can best shape this era together. ABB Robotics will benefit from the combination of its leading technology and deep industry expertise with SoftBank’s state-of-the-art capabilities in AI, robotics and next-generation computing. This will allow the business to strengthen and expand its position as a technology leader in its field.”
— Morten Wierod, CEO of ABB
“SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI. Together with ABB Robotics, we will unite world-class technology and talent under our shared vision to fuse Artificial Super Intelligence and robotics—driving a groundbreaking evolution that will propel humanity forward.”
— Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp.
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Quotes in this newsletter were curated by Meher, Kashish & Vignesh.
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