The Chatter: The Blind Spots
Edition #34
Welcome to the 34th 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 22 companies across 13 industries, along with some international features.
Diversified
Grasim Industries
Energy
Torrent Power
Tata Power
Chemicals
Rain Industries
NBFC
Muthoot Microfin
Retail
FSN E-Commerce Ventures (Nykaa)
Healthcare
Divi’s Laboratories
Financial Services
Bajaj Housing Finance
L&T Finance
Logistics
Delhivery
FMCG
Tilaknagar Inds
Telecom
Vodafone Idea Ltd.
Auto Ancillary
Amara Raja Energy
Eicher Motors
Hero MotoCorp
Bajaj Auto
Software Services
Nazara Technologies Ltd.
Engineering & Capital Goods
Rail Vikas Nigam
Hitachi Energy India (POWERINDIA)
International
Harley-Davidson Inc.
Airbnb Inc.
SanDisk Corporation
Diversified
Grasim Industries | Large Cap | Diversified
Grasim Industries is a major global and Indian producer of Cellulosic Staple Fibre and Cellulosic Fashion Yarn, focusing on innovation and sustainability. They have expanded the market with Birla Modal and Birla Excel fibers in India and are known for the brand ‘LIVA’ and ‘Raysil’, providing luxurious and eco-friendly alternatives to synthetic fibers.
Assessment of the current global economic environment and its implications
“We are living in a world where trade is rewiring, capital is repricing and geopolitics has once again become a single order economic variable, not a background noise... globally, this a low speed economy with pockets of strength, intermittent confidence and policymakers for moving carefully, not boldly. The world is not constant. And in this environment, winners will not be those who bet on direction. Winners will be those who stay flexible on timings.”
- Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director and Business Head – Birla Opus Paints
Q2 performance despite challenging monsoon season
“Despite the extended monsoon, Birla Opus hits its highest ever monthly sales in the month of September and saw an equally strong October month, indicating increasing brand salience across markets. Not only the primary sales at highest level, but also the secondary sales have been touching levels higher as a percentage of primary sales, indicating fast movements that is offtake from dealers to contractors or from dealers to customers.”
Organized decorative paint industry performance in Q2 FY’26
“As per internal estimates, the organized decorative paint industry has grown in low single digits on Y-on-Y basis in quarter 2 FY’26, largely due to incumbents push for lower-end economy products. However, as per our estimates, excluding Birla Opus revenues, the organized decorative paint industry has degrown slightly on a year-on-year basis.”
- Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director and Business Head – Birla Opus Paints
Innovative consumer proposition launched in Q2
“First one was the Birla Opus Assurance Campaign, the first ever written paint promise by any paint company to assure the customers of painting performance backed by superior product quality of Birla Opus products... The campaign has received overwhelming response from customers, contractors, painters, dealers and thousands of paint projects under Birla Opus Assurance program have been undertaken and continue to be executed.”
- Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director and Business Head – Birla Opus Paints
Brand performance metrics after 18 months
“Our independent research shows the consumer love for Birla Opus brand continued to rise as Birla Opus has become the number two brand in top of mind recall across India at the end of Q2FY’26. Such brand recall within 18 months of our launch and 12 months of pan-India operation is quite unheard of in the marketing world.”
- Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director and Business Head – Birla Opus Paints
Reaching distribution targets ahead of schedule
“On distribution front, the brand has crossed its earlier guidance and reached to over 10,000 towns on a pan-India basis, which is historic achievement in such a short time. The focus now shifts to depth of presence in each of these 10,000 towns. The company’s branded franchise store network has crossed 500-plus towns presence and will soon cross 4-digit mark of branded exclusive store count, making it amongst the largest branded stores in the country.”
Financial discipline in paints project execution
“The total capex spend for Paints business stood at INR9,727 crores as on 30th September 2025. Grasim applauds the Birla Opus team for flawlessly executing a large and global scale greenfield project, commissioning six state-of-art plants simultaneously, achieved without cost overruns with rapid scale-up and consistent first-time right quality across 190-plus products. This feat showcases exceptional financial discipline and manufacturing and supply chain excellence, a truly unparalleled achievement by a dynamic start-up.”
B2B e-commerce platform diversification
“Post a successful foray into building materials, the business now expands its product portfolio to become full stacked raw material procurement platform. The platform has now added a diversified range of raw materials, including polymers, solvent, textile chemicals and nonferrous metals. For your reference, B2B e-commerce market is set to hit USD200 billion by 2030, powered by strong demand from chemicals, metals, infrastructure and construction sector.”
- Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director and Business Head – Birla Opus Paints
Sequential revenue performance despite monsoons
“What does such product additions give to us? First and foremost, growth momentum, which is what it is visible in Q2FY’26, where the revenues are sequentially higher by 15% in spite of monsoons. Secondly, it also gears up for new aspirations, which means newer targets to our businesses beyond its stated revenue guidance of achieving INR8,500 crores or $1 billion mark by FY’27.”
- Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director and Business Head – Birla Opus Paints
Performance drivers in the chemicals segment
“The business revenue stood at two year high levels driven by all-round performance across caustic soda, chlorine derivatives and specialty chemicals. While the global caustic prices have softened with CFR SEA down by 5%, domestic caustic prices stood higher due to stable demand and rupee depreciation... Specialty Chemicals revenue contribution improved to 30% versus 26% in quarter 2 FY ‘25 driven by volume growth of 34% year-on-year due to stabilization of newer capacity.”
- Hemant Kadel, Chief Financial Officer
Competitive advantages of the B2B platform
“We have built an integrated e-commerce platform, which fundamentally forms a digital backbone and connects pretty much every stakeholder in the entire ecosystem... what this fundamentally helps us is in creating this end-to-end visibility, which is predominantly not there in most of the sectors or most of the materials that are fundamentally transacted today. And that, I think, is where our ability to provide bring in efficiency, ability to provide the best price, ability to provide the widest assortment, ability to provide a very reliable experience, all of that come into play.”
- Sandeep Komaravelly, Chief Executive Officer, Birla Pivot
Energy
Torrent Power | Mid Cap | Energy
Torrent Power is a leading private sector integrated power utility in India, engaged in power generation (coal-based, gas-based, renewable), transmission, distribution, and manufacturing of power cables.
[Concall]
Explaining lower wind PLF compared to peers, management attributed it to weather conditions.
“I think because the extended monsoon, the PLF was lower as far as wind is concerned... Yes, yes, yes, exactly. We saw the extended monsoon in Gujarat. It lasted till after Diwali also, I would say. So that has impacted the wind sources.”
- Saurabh Mashruwala, Executive Director and CFO
Management provided clarity on the break-even economics for LNG-based merchant power generation.
“If you assume the cost to be $10 per unit, then our variable cost would be about six rupees per kilowatt hour.”
- Saurabh Mashruwala, Executive Director and CFO
Tata Power | Large Cap | Energy
Tata Power Company is India’s largest vertically integrated power company, operating in renewable, thermal, and hydro energy generation, transmission, trading, distribution, and next-gen energy solutions.
[Concall]
Discussing the massive untapped potential in India’s rooftop solar market and Tata Power’s leadership position
“So, rooftop, I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Only 20 lakh rooftops have been installed till September and my expectation is that in this country at least 5 crore homes will have rooftop. And so there is a long way that we have to go to cater to the country’s requirement. So this is a very good opportunity. We are one of the best in the country with maximum market share of more than 20% and this is going to be a very sustained effort from Tata Power side for many more years in future.”
- Dr. Praveer Sinha, CEO and Managing Director
Celebrating record-breaking performance in the rooftop solar business, which crossed ₹1,000 crore in quarterly sales for the first time
“Another big area that has happened in the last quarter is our rooftop PAT which has grown to 123 crores, which is a 390% increase over the previous year, and on an H1 basis, it is 213 crores. We also saw for the first time the rooftop sales crossing 1,000 crores in a quarter, and I think going forward you will see many of these types of new benchmarks that will be set in this business.”
- Dr. Praveer Sinha, CEO and Managing Director
Chemicals
Rain Industries | Small Cap | Chemicals
Rain Industries Limited is a global manufacturer of critical raw materials for various industries. It has three main segments - Carbon, Advanced Materials, and Cement. The company is a major producer of CTP and CPC, supplying essential raw materials worldwide.
Management discusses the structural shift in global aluminum supply due to China’s production caps and the opportunity this creates for Rain Industries.
“Historically, incremental demand was largely met by additional Chinese smelter capacity. However, with the Chinese government now enforcing strict caps on national smelting capacity, the supply response to this sustained demand growth will increasingly come from smelters outside China.”
— Gerard Sweeney, President, RAIN Carbon Inc.
Management discusses how the shift from blast furnace to electric arc furnace steelmaking is affecting raw material availability.
“Ironically, the coal tar pitch required for EAF electrodes is a byproduct of the very BF process that is being displaced. As BF steel production declines, so too does the availability of coal tar, tightening supply and driving up costs for coal tar pitch.”
Management addresses competitive pressures from Asian players in the Advanced Materials segment.
“Some of our European manufactured products directly compete with Asian made alternatives, and as such, our delivered pricing is often benchmarked against Asian import prices.”
Management explains why carbon-free smelting won’t immediately impact demand for carbon anodes.
“Today, over 75% of global aluminium smelting capacity still relies on electricity generated from thermal power sources, which are carbon intensive.”
— Gerard Sweeney, President, RAIN Carbon Inc.
Management explains the strategic collaboration with Northern Graphite for battery materials development.
“This 24-month project is focused on transforming natural graphite processing by-products into high-performance, battery-grade anode materials, an area of growing strategic importance as the global energy transition accelerates.”
— Jagan Nellore, Managing Director
Management discusses potential consolidation in the coal tar distillation industry due to raw material constraints.
“There are growing concerns around the long-term viability of certain players in the market, primarily due to tightening coal tar availability. As coal tar is a byproduct of declining blast furnace steel production, supply constraints are becoming more structural.”
Management explains the macroeconomic drivers supporting the cement expansion decision.
“Industry forecasts suggest a 20% growth in cement demand over the next 2–3 years, driven by lower interest rates, increased government spending, and a resurgence in private sector construction activity.”
Management quantifies the cost benefits from the 7 MW WHR system in the cement expansion.
“Based on our internal estimates, we expect energy cost savings in the range of ₹150 to ₹200 per tonne of cement produced once the new WHR system is fully operational.”
— Jagan Nellore, Managing Director
CFO discusses current energy costs in Europe compared to historical levels and peak crisis pricing.
“The prices are back to Euro 30 to 40 MMBtu in the recent quarters, which are lower compared to the peak levels but much higher than the normal levels prior to geo-political conflicts.”
— T. Srinivasa Rao, Chief Financial Officer
CFO explains the factors behind volatile tax rates and the expected normalized range going forward.
“This is also reflected with the changes introduced by the new US tax bill introduced in July 2025, which now allows interest expense deduction based on EBITDA rather than EBIT, as was the case for the previous two years. Based on the geographies we operate the average ETR for the group should be in the range of 32-36%.”
CFO clarifies how Rain measures business performance given the nature of their converter business model.
“RAIN being a converter we measure the company performance based on EBITA per tonne and not on percentage basis as the selling price and raw material prices can keep fluctuating, however the margin per tonne will be more or less constant subject to inventory gain and/or losses.”
— T. Srinivasa Rao, Chief Financial Officer
NBFC
Muthoot Microfin | Small Cap | NBFC
Muthoot Microfin, a part of Muthoot Pappachan Group, is a leading microfinance institution providing micro loans to women in rural India. They follow a JLG model, organizing women in groups to promote entrepreneurship and inclusive growth by offering income-generating loans for small businesses.
Opening remarks highlighting the company’s achievement of 24 consecutive quarters of PAT growth, demonstrating consistent performance despite industry challenges
“As all of you would have seen, this is the 24th consecutive quarter in which we have shown growth in our PAT. Our PAT has grown by 14% compared to last year.”
- Sadaf Sayeed, Chief Executive Officer
Discussing the significant operational improvement in collection efficiency, particularly from overdue accounts which tripled month-on-month
“If you look at our collections, the overdue collections have improved significantly. In the last quarter, we collected around INR57 crores from overdue accounts, which is almost INR19 crores per month. This number was around INR6 crores per month earlier, which has now improved to almost INR19 crores per month, which is resulting in improvement in asset quality.”
- Sadaf Sayeed, Chief Executive Officer
Highlighting the substantial decline in credit costs from the previous year, demonstrating improved asset quality and risk management
“Our credit cost, which is the most important factor that we have been guiding our investors and our well-wishers about it that it has come down to around 3.6%, and it’s a sustainable consistent climb down where it was 9.4% in the last financial year, it came down from there to 4.3% in Q1. It’s now at 3.6%.”
- Sadaf Sayeed, Chief Executive Officer
Explaining the company’s strategic shift from basic financial inclusion to creating entrepreneurs and transforming customer lives
“One thing that I would like to mention in the microfinance world, there is a transition which is happening, which is we are moving from just focusing on financial inclusion to moving to meaningful financial inclusion. And that is what Muthoot Microfin is all about. We are looking at progressing the lives of our borrower to the next level, taking them to a journey of entrepreneurship.”
- Sadaf Sayeed, Chief Executive Officer
Explaining the competitive advantage of leveraging the Muthoot Pappachan Group’s infrastructure for gold loans without capital investment
“This is the advantage of being from a Muthoot Pappachan group, and this is the advantage we have over all our competitors that within our group, there are enough and more know-how as well as infrastructure to do multiple businesses. So, on the Gold Loan side, without any additional investment we are doing this business. We are in partnership with FinCorp, we have just approved in the Board a business correspondent relationship.”
- Sadaf Sayeed, Chief Executive Officer
Discussing overall improvement in the microfinance environment including customer cash flows and economic conditions
“There are significant number of green shoots even like if you look at overall economic situation is also improving with GDP growth improving as well as cash flow at the bottom of the pyramid is improving because lower food inflation, most importantly, because of the good rains, the crop has been good and the availability of food items is good and that is yielding in lower inflation, which makes it lot affordable for our segment of customers.”
- Sadaf Sayeed, Chief Executive Officer
Retail
FSN E-Commerce Ventures (Nykaa) | Midcap | Retail
FSN E-Commerce Ventures Limited, known as Nykaa, is a digitally native consumer technology platform offering a content-led, lifestyle retail experience. Established in 2012, the company focuses on brand discovery, offering a diverse range of beauty, personal care, and fashion products.
Opening remarks on quarterly performance
“The GMV for the quarter was at INR 4,744 crores, which is about 30% year-on-year growth. Also, please note that this is the highest year-on-year growth in the last 6 quarters.”
- Falguni Nayar, Executive Chairperson, MD and CEO
Fashion business turnaround
“Fashion vertical EBITDA has improved to only minus 3.5%. This has come down from minus 9.0% a year ago, which is a huge improvement on a year-on-year basis.”
- Falguni Nayar, Executive Chairperson, MD and CEO
Investment strategy in customer acquisition
“We believe that India has some of the lowest penetration of beauty consumption in the world and investment needs to be made to continue to drive that. So, we have invested behind customer acquisition, and that reflects in the Marketing and S&D expenses as a percent of NSV being at about 13.1% this quarter, but it has resulted in very strong annual transacting customer growth of 27%, taking our AUTC number up to 17.5 million for the quarter.”
- Anchit Nayar, Executive Director and CEO, Beauty
Korean beauty as growth driver
“We believe that Korean Beauty is a strong growth driver for skin care adoption amongst Gen Z as well as young millennials... Why do we believe that Korean brands are going to spearhead the adoption of skin care and makeup in the coming years in India is because of the affordable pricing, highly efficacious products and good quality R&D as well as very fun, playful packaging.”
- Anchit Nayar, Executive Director and CEO, Beauty
Gen Z strategy importance
“Gen Z accounts for 26% of India’s population today and almost 50% of its consumption. So what is Nykaa doing to build brand equity with Gen Z.”
- Anchit Nayar, Executive Director and CEO, Beauty
Retail store expansion and experience
“For us, retail stores are not just points of sale, but truly experience centers as we call them. So we believe the future of retail is experiential and Gen Z and young millennials are looking for places to engage, educate themselves and also have an experience in store. So to that extent, this quarter, we are happy to announce that currently almost 1 in 3 of our customers who go to our retail stores are now actively getting a makeover in our store.”
- Anchit Nayar, Executive Director and CEO, Beauty
Quick deliveryachievements
“This quarter itself, 70 million beauty products were sold on Nykaa. One in every three retail customers got a makeover in our stores, 450 million visits to the app this quarter itself, which is a very large number. We sold six perfumes every minute, so almost one perfume every 10 seconds. The fastest delivery we did through Nykaa Now this quarter was done in 7 minutes.”
- Anchit Nayar, Executive Director and CEO, Beauty
Overall brands business performance
“Today, this House of Nykaa business has reached INR 2,900 crores of annualized GMV run rate. It’s growing very well at 54% year-on-year. We’re building about 10 brands. I would say four of them are sort of established and have had breakthrough velocity, and we’ll double click on those.”
- Adwaita Nayar, Executive Director and CEO, Nykaa Fashion
H&M partnership details
“In a few days from now, H&M debuts on Nykaa Fashion. As we all know, H&M has been one of the most successful international brands to enter the country in the last few years. H&M also just completed a decade in India. And I think it just continues to surprise us just how real the appetite for consumption of global brands is by Indian audiences across the length and breadth of the country.”
- Abhijeet Dabas, Executive Vice President, Nykaafashion.com
Fragrance growth trajectory and future plans
“fragrance, and I think I mentioned in the past is one of our fastest-growing categories consistently every quarter. globally, you’re seeing fragrance as being the category which Gen Z is really, really adopting... we are about to open a fragrance-only store called Nykaa Perfumery. So, you will start to see some of those stores popping up across several key metros in the coming months.”
- Anchit Nayar, Executive Director and CEO, Beauty
Healthcare
Divi’s Laboratories | Large Cap | Healthcare
Divi’s Laboratories is a pharmaceutical company specializing in the manufacture of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), Intermediates, and Nutraceutical ingredients, with a strong focus on exports.
Despite ongoing pricing pressures in the generic API segment, the company has maintained its customer base and volumes through backward integration.
“We are facing pricing pressure on generic molecules. Although we have not lost a single customer or even any loss in volume. And the reason why we are able to manage this is because of our backward integration, where even the Kakinada facility has been helping us in manufacturing several of our in-house raw materials and our in-house intermediates, giving us an edge to further keep the product and the volume along with us.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
When asked about the increasing competition in custom synthesis with more Indian players entering the market, Dr. Divi explained what differentiates Divi’s Labs.
“When you see multinationals or MNCs, right, they don’t only look at price as the only factor. They look at EHS, they look at sustainability, they look at whether you’re SBTi compliant, they have several factors before they even come to qualifying. Pricing is one factor. Capacity is one factor. Divi’s always is one step ahead in terms of capacity in terms of looking at forward, thinking in terms of creating capacity. But that is not the only thing. There are several factors you have to look at, unless you tick all the boxes, any multinational would not work with any firm.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
Discussing the unique advantage Divi’s has in peptide manufacturing through backward integration.
“The one unique thing about Divi’s is, we manufacture our own protected amino acids, which gives us both in natural and unnatural, which gives us an edge over everyone, because we control our -- the quantities, we control our cost, we control our impurity profile. So, as you control the impurity profile when you manufacture the Fmoc-protected amino acids, and when you go into further manufacturing of fragments, because you control the impurity, your cost of cleaning comes down. And you have better product that comes out.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
Highlighting the company’s established presence in the peptide space, countering the perception that this is a new venture.
“To answer about peptides, Divi’s has been in peptides since the last 20 years. We have been manufacturing protected amino acids which gives us an edge in terms of supply issues, in terms of manufacturing, consistency and also impurity profile management. That gives us an edge to get into dipeptides, tripeptides, tetramers, octamers etc which are required by several companies across the world.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
When asked about entering the generic peptide market, including GLP-1s, Dr. Divi clarified the company’s strategic focus.
“Divi has strategically decided that we will not look at generic part of peptide synthesis. We are right now fully occupied with the amount of CS projects we have. So, we do not want to venture into that mode.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
Discussing the current revenue split between generics and custom synthesis, showing increasing contribution from CS business.
“The product mix for the quarter is 44% generics and 56% custom synthesis.”
- Nilima Prasad Divi, Whole-Time Director (Commercial)
When asked about the duration and future trajectory of pricing pressure in generics.
“The pricing pressure, we do not have an idea how long will it be there? But we are hopeful, like I explained in the last call, we’re hopeful in the next few quarters, it may stabilize and things may come back to normal... See, yes, there is -- I don’t think I can foresee any, at least in the next 2 quarters, anything that is going to be in a better situation for generics than it is today.”
- Nilima Prasad Divi, Whole-Time Director (Commercial)
Explaining the multiple sources of growth and the complexity of the business model.
“You have to understand a few things, right. In terms of growth, we have both the generic side and the CS side. We also have products which are coming off patent that we are launching with our customers, who, once the patent comes off, we will be getting into the market. So, there will be a certain amount of drive from there. There are old CS projects, which have been there in the company for the last 10 to 12 years, which have matured. You also have to understand that Divi’s manages a lot of late life cycle management for branded companies, which has a different revenue model.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
Providing an update on the company’s progress in both iodine-based and gadolinium-based contrast media.
“In terms of our contrast media, okay, on the Iodine-based contrast media, we have progressed quite well. We have -- we are working on validations and there are only three or four big players in the world. We are working closely with them, and some of them we are undergoing validations like I told in the last quarter. And hopefully, we will commercialize soon. I would say, at least in the four, we are working at least with one or two of them actively, and we are in good advancement.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
Emphasizing the company’s long-standing presence in custom synthesis when asked about increasing competition.
“Firstly, I would like you to understand Divi’s has been in custom synthesis for the last several years since the inception. So this is not something new for us. And I mean, there are several players you’re seeing who are entering the market now, because RFPs are coming in. Divi’s has an edge because we have a long-term customer relation, both in terms of proven track record, in terms of supply chain management and their confidence in our deliverable execution.”
- Dr. Kiran S. Divi, Whole-Time Director and Chief Executive Officer
Discussing raw material procurement and managing geopolitical risks.
“Regarding procurement and supply chain activities, raw material prices were broadly stable during the quarter, aided by reliable availability from our diversified supplier base. We continue to monitor macroeconomic factors, including the effect of U.S. tariffs on suppliers from China and sanctions related to Russia, which may influence costs for certain raw materials, intermediates and solvents. As a precautionary step, we have maintained appropriate inventory levels, expanded our sourcing options across regions and progressed vendor qualifications where necessary.”
- Nilima Prasad Divi, Whole-Time Director (Commercial)
Financial Services
Bajaj Housing Finance | Mid Cap | Financial Services
Bajaj Housing Finance provides a variety of mortgage and real estate financing products, including home loans for purchasing or renovating property, loans against property, and developer financing. It offers solutions for both individual customers and corporate entities and is a non-deposit-taking Housing Finance Company (HFC) registered with the National Housing Bank (NHB).
Discussing the company’s disbursement performance amid intense competitive pressure from PSU banks.
“If you look at our disbursement growth, it had been far ahead of the industry growth. Industry home loan disbursement growth YOY had been in the range of 6%-7%. This is whatever Bureau data we can access at a broad level. The numbers are not yet closed. While our disbursement growth in home loan also had been far higher than the industry disbursal growth.”
- Atul Jain, Managing Director
Addressing how the company views the intensifying competition from PSU banks in the prime home loan segment.
“We take in prime home loan now the competition is going to be the feature rather than the novelty. You called out saying that the competition heats up during the declining interest rate scenario. But if we are looking at last two and a half, two to three years the intense competition is the norm and as we make our plan for the future, we are now taking it as a feature rather than an aberration which will go down.”
- Atul Jain, Managing Director
Explaining the company’s strategic approach to compete in the highly competitive prime mortgage market.
“As a prime player, as players who are focused on the prime mortgages, we need to modify our strategies accordingly to be able to compete through the market... deepening the presence and increasing the width of our customer segmentation, deepening our presence in each micro market and the market, is the strategy we follow which is the strategy we will continue to follow to continue to grow in the home loan despite the competition from the public sector banks.”
- Atul Jain, Managing Director
Explaining why the company maintains its margin guidance despite expecting another 25 bps rate cut.
“On a full year basis, we are expecting to be in this guidance range only because of the compression we are seeing driven by attrition pressure across the portfolio especially in the home loan side, also in the construction finance side. That attrition pressure followed with another rate cut expectation in December is what we are factoring in and that’s where we are looking at year-on-year level this kind of a compression which we have guided for.”
- Gaurav Kalani, Chief Financial Officer
Discussing the expected benefit from cost of funds going forward.
“And here on, the benefit on cost of fund would be marginal versus that if the portfolio attrition pressure continues to remain that way, we may see the pressure on the yields continuing. So that’s where we are continuing with the guidance. Predominant part of the COF benefit is already passed through. Now we may have around 10 basis points of further benefit which we may see through the balance part of the year considering the rate cut.”
- Gaurav Kalani, Chief Financial Officer
Providing an update on the near prime and affordable housing segment that was set up as a dedicated SBU last year.
“Just to give an update on the SBU what we started because we had started operating in the near prime and affordable segment before we set up an SBU but we set up a dedicated SBU in the last year. The business is doing well in terms of the milestones what we laid down for this business. It is ahead of the milestones what we thought. Now it operates from top 36 markets with an average size of a range of INR40-INR60 lakhs, while affordable business within that we operate across these markets outskirts as well as in some tier 4 and rural markets as well where ATS is in range of INR15-INR35 lakhs. Currently we are now acquiring close to INR250 odd crores per month business in this line and expecting to rapidly scale further.”
- Atul Jain, Managing Director
Comparing current attrition rates to last year to show the impact of competitive pressure.
“Last year it would have been in the range of 15%-16%... So, from 15%-16% it’s now upwards of 20%-22% and you would say mostly this would be going to PSU banks... Largely PSU.”
- Atul Jain, Managing Director
Explaining the path back to medium-term growth guidance as attrition normalizes.
“We cut our guidance for the current year basis the higher attrition pressure, which as of today is not looking to come down... As the attrition pressure weans off with our rate stabilization in the market, with one more rate cut in December, you can expect stabilization in the market in three four months. As we continue to focus on growing disbursement, we feel that by next year, then we can come back to our normalized or the medium term guidance growth in AUM. Disbursements continue to grow the way we are doing it now. Attrition pressure comes down, the AUM growth comes back on track in line with the medium term guidance that we have given.”
- Atul Jain, Managing Director
Countering the perception that HFCs are at a disadvantage versus banks due to higher cost of funds.
“From a cost of fund perspective, for a well-run company, for a good credit, which is what we are, which is rated highest in India as a domestic credit rating, your cost of fund can be higher at a coupon rate level versus a bank because bank may have a, you can say a CASA benefit coming in through their coupon rates. But when they look at their all expenses put together to mobilize the treasury or mobilize the CASA and the other related compliance costs, I don’t think a well-run company at a AAA level is at a disadvantage versus a bank to be able to compete in the prime space. If that would have been the case, Bobby, then what we have seen for years, for decades in the country, HDFC Limited was leader in mortgages, not even State Bank of India.”
- Atul Jain, Managing Director
L&T Finance | Mid Cap | Financial Services
L&T Finance is a leading NBFC in India, offering financial solutions to both rural and urban populations.
On the speed of technological change and India’s position in AI innovation
“If you look at the geopolitics, that has sort of been stressed on us this year. You know, it’s almost like decades have happened in weeks, as well as if you look at the tech space, the speed at which things have been moving in the tech space have been quite blinding, with new models being introduced with every passing week. And in fact, I don’t know whether you caught the news, an Indian LLM -- a Voice-AI based LLM broke into number 4 rankings, a startup out of Bangalore, and it was published yesterday only, so Indian startups are also catching up.”
- Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
On the microfinance industry recovery and L&T Finance’s disbursement performance
“Last year, to this very time last year, the microfinance industry was going through an asset quality issue, the entire industry. But I’m happy to report that -- that is a passing phase, and the industry has more or less resumed its journey on coming back to normalcy. And you will see that our Rural Business Finance disbursements in the month of October at about Rs. 2,160 crores, a 42% jump over what we did in October-24.”
- Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
On Project Cyclops operationalization and scale
“The last time we met, Project Cyclops, our proprietary AI-based engine, credit engine, was still in beta phase. We actually operationalized Project Cyclops for our full Two-Wheeler business in the month of January, and now it’s a full-fledged machine, working now on our Two-Wheeler business, on our Tractor business, as well as our SME business. And it’s a pretty large piece of software right now in Version 3, and our Chief AI and Data Officer will take you through all the details about it. But it’s about 1 million lines of code, 55-plus algorithms, 75+ data scientists and engineers working behind it, about Latency on the various models between 50 milliseconds to 700 milliseconds, 1 million loans underwritten.”
- Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
On the growth of large partnerships in disbursements
“We have scaled up the partnership of disbursements through our Large Partnerships to meaningful volumes. The last time we met, we did about Rs. 157 crores. This quarter, we did about Rs. 1,138 crores, and you can see that the string of partnerships that we have added, and we are going to add a couple of more in the next couple of months. And this number is scaling at the rate of maybe about between 7% to 10% every month.“
- Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
On the gold loan acquisition rationale and cross-sell potential
“The rationale for acquisition of the Gold Loans business was simple. Our micro-loans customers actually had borrowed Rs. 17,000 crores worth of gold loans. So, we thought that that gave us a natural potential -- cross-sell potential to tap into this customer base and build our Gold Loans business. The acquisition of the Gold Loans business has actually cut our time to scale by almost 24 months and we got 130 branches, about 700 employees, and we finished the integration in a record time of three months.”
- Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
On the cultural transformation and implementation mindset
“Peter Drucker said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. You can make strategies, you can make large presentations, but strategy execution on ground does not happen unless you change the culture of the organization and focus the organization towards one common goal. And one of the things that we have been trying to do within L&T Finance over the last 24 months is to build a cohesive, execution-oriented, risk-first, tech-first culture.” - Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
On AI’s impact on business economics - balancing growth and profitability
“So, speaking of numbers, lending is a relatively simple business. You have your onboarding yield as the primary income coming in, and then your credit costs, collection costs, and operating costs adding into it, and what you have left is your RoA. Now, we deployed Project Cyclops. You’ve heard all about it, and we’ll hear more. The idea behind Project Cyclops is fundamentally, it brings down the collection, the credit cost... So, AI does not just give you profit, neither does it just give you growth. It gives you both. It’s not a zero-sum game.”
- Dr. Debarag Banerjee, Chief AI & Data Officer
On Project Cyclops impact on Two-Wheeler business performance metrics
“Our book today is close to about Rs. 13,800 crores. And of this Rs. 13,800 crores, Rs. 8,700 crores is actually sitting in a Project Cyclops driven credit engine. That means close to about two-third of our book is today being underwritten through a digital process... What is also important for us is if we look at our peak months, which are typically during the festive periods and when most people buy Two-Wheelers, we see actually productivity per employee go up from about Rs. 18-odd lakhs to about Rs. 25 lakhs. That by itself is a significant number which has gone up. And this increase is despite the fact that we are getting a much larger prime share from our customers. Today, 87% of our customers are actually prime.”
- Jinesh Shah, Chief Executive – Urban Secured Assets & Third-Party Products
On Personal Loans transformation through mega partnerships
“Personal Loan has actually been one of the biggest beneficiaries of that particular transformation that has happened in the last one year... We talked about fostering mega partnerships. We started off with Cred last year. We launched Amazon as a part of our digital day, as a part of our RAISE last year. And basically, we talked about a NextGen underwriting architecture. Now, I’m very glad to say that from a 2% contribution of these mega partnerships, we are now moving to almost 43% contribution of these mega partnerships, which are with PhonePe, Cred, Google and Amazon.” - Manish Kumar Gupta, Chief Executive – Urban Unsecured Assets, Payments & Partnerships
On Personal Loans portfolio quality improvement metrics
“If I look at the salaried customer base at an overall book level of what we are sourcing, that number has actually moved from 37% to 57%... If I look at the customers who are 750 plus CIBIL, which are actually very, very good, that number has moved from 54% in FY25 to about 69% in FY26. And what is also interesting is that basically our customers whom we are sourcing and who have a secured trade line... that has actually increased from 21% to 37%.” - Manish Kumar Gupta, Chief Executive – Urban Unsecured Assets, Payments & Partnerships
On SME business segment focus and customer quality
“The segment which is around 1 crores to 10 crores aggregate exposure and by aggregate exposure, I mean all sorts of exposure that the person has, that segment which has grown in the last two years from around 41% to 43%. And this is the segment that we play, because our average ticket size is around 29 odd lakhs. And the minimum ticket size is around 10 odd lakhs... Another defining factor about this segment is that this segment from a delinquency perspective also has been doing pretty well. And in last two years, the number has dipped from 2.3% odd to around 1.8%.” - Abhishek Sharma, Chief Executive – SME Finance
On Project Cyclops early results in SME business
“The month of November was a unique month in one aspect that the Project Cyclops went live on 12th of September. So in November, the first billing happened. And there were two kinds of customers whose billing happened in the month of November. One which were underwritten prior to 12th of September, which we call it as a control group, if one may say so and the portfolio which was underwritten post 12th of September. Now, once their due date happened on 3rd of November, the GNS performance of Project Cyclops underwritten portfolio is around 160 basis points lower than the non-Project Cyclops portfolio.”
- Abhishek Sharma, Chief Executive – SME Finance
On gold loan integration speed and branch expansion plans
“On the day when we acquired, it was close to 700 employees which came on our side, 130 branches largely predominantly based in North and in West and a lakh customer with an almost Rs. 1,300 crores of an AUM which we acquired... I’m very happy to state that the existing company from which we got this business, they took 9 years to set up 130 branches, but the power of the brand of L&T finance has made us capable to inaugurate close to 200 branches in this financial year itself.” - Raju Dodti, Chief Operating Officer
On Project Cyclops performance during high-volume festive season
“In the month of September, we processed about 65,000-70,000 Two-Wheeler loans. In the month of October, we processed, we actually disbursed about 1,30,000 Two-Wheeler loans. So, actually almost a double size jump in volumes. So, obviously, our feel was and my worry was that, we will see the Gross Non-Starters spike up. It came in at 7.15%, the lowest ever. So, we did high volumes and saw the lowest ever GNS, which means the machine did exactly what it was designed to do, cut away the bad guys and let the good guys in.” - Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Logistics
Delhivery | Small Cap | Logistics
Delhivery offers comprehensive logistics solutions, including express parcel and heavy goods delivery, PTL/TL freight, warehousing, and supply chain management.
On market share gains post-Ecom Express acquisition
“Prior to the Ecom Express acquisition, we were close to about 20%. Post the Ecom Express acquisition, we’re probably closer to somewhere between 27% and 30% or so. And in terms of whatever is not outsourced, if I exclude Amazon self-logistics and Flipkart self-logistics, and if you sort of, it depends on how you choose to take Valmo. But if you exclude Valmo, for example, our market share will be well over half of the market.”
- Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On the sustainability of irrational pricing in the industry
“I think with the acquisition of Ecom Express, one of the things that certainly has become clear is that pricing below cost is not a viable logistics strategy. And so other competitors in this space, of course, I think have sort of become more disciplined, which changes competitive intensity for us.”
On operational performance during peak season
“We broke several records along the way, crossing over 100 million transportation orders in September, which continued in October and also reached our peak dispatch of 7.2 million orders in a single day during this festive peak period. The particularly heartening part is that these records were achieved also with complete operational stability.”
- Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On customer and revenue retention from Ecom Express
“We had indicated last time that our business case was based on having about 30% retention. We are well, well, well over that. So that’s one. The integration has been seamless. We haven’t had any issues from a service or a customer integration point of view, and the integration costs are also well within our original estimate.”
- Vani Venkatesh, Chief Business Officer
On integration costs being lower than expected
“Rs. 90 crores of the integration cost have already been incurred. We will have approximately Rs. 100 to Rs. 110 crores of integration costs over the next two quarters. But as things currently stand, we believe that the total integration costs will be materially lower than the Rs. 300 crores that we had originally forecasted.”
- Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On Part Truckload (PTL growth runway and market share potential
“How PTL is different versus let’s say express business is probably we have extremely low market share at this point in time versus the organized market as a whole. And then there is a big unorganized market where there is a lot of share with the local players, which is basically getting more and more formalized with every passing month. So, I think that stage is far.”
- Varun Bakshi, Head - Part Truckload
On working capital management achievements
“As of now, we are actually under 20 days, which has been the best ever in terms of net working capital days. And we’ve also been calibrated in our Capex spend and in our Capex intensity. So, if you look at H1FY26, we spent about 5.1% compared to 6.6% same time last year.”
- Vani Venkatesh, Chief Business Officer
On the Rapid Commerce business opportunity
“As of now, it’s an untested proposition. The question is if a company has the ability to drop the cost of two-hour delivery to sort of sub-45 rupees, sub-50 rupees, the market suddenly opens up a lot more. So, that’s the lens with which we are looking at it right now. Safe to say this will be an Rs. 80 to 100 crore business at the bare minimum.”
Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On Delhivery Direct potential
“This business is right now at a run rate of about Rs. 25-30 crores overall annually. It could be a very large business for us going forward. This is easily a Rs. 1,000-1,500 crore business in the next couple of years.”
Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On the inefficiency of self-logistics models
“I think one of the self logistics arms has declared the same absolute loss that they declared last year. And so, I think at some point, the reality is that these costs are going to catch up with all logistics arms. I think you can clearly see from one of the international marketplaces that profitability is one of their core focus areas. And what is very clear is that self-logistics is not the most efficient answer to get there.”
- Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On competitive benchmarking with Valmo
“For an equivalent profile of goods, the costs of delivering via the Valmo network are not lower than delivering through Delhivery. In fact, they are higher than Delhivery, and also when you adjust for loss and damages, our sense is that actually Delhivery is significantly more efficient.”
- Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On variable cost model limitations of competitors
“Also, players who have largely variable cost models, I think when you study their financials, what you can see is that there’s no operating leverage at all. You know, even if companies in this space have been able to generate incremental revenue, they’ve been able to generate no incremental margins out of it.”
- Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
On PTL consolidation opportunities
“It’s easy to build, let’s call it a Rs. 300-400 crore PTL business, which is doing volumetric cargo and losing money. Now, Delhivery is not particularly interested in buying those kinds of assets. There’s sort of no price at which that asset makes sense for us. Because I think buying a sort of forward moving PTL network with volumetric assets is the easy part. Making money is very hard.”
- Sahil Barua, MD & Chief Executive Officer
FMCG
Tilaknagar Inds | Small Cap | FMCG
Tilaknagar Industries Ltd. (TI) is one of the India’s oldest and leading manufacturer of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) primarily dominating southern and western parts of India catering to all categories straddling across various price points to suit diverse pockets.
[Concall]
Started distributing Statement Spirits Lab portfolio in Odisha, Puducherry and select international markets; owns 21.36% stake with intent to increase.
“We have expanded distribution through our usership agreements with Statement Spirits Lab (SSL) in Quarter 2. We have started the distribution of SSL portfolio in Odisha and Puducherry markets, and also have started exporting the portfolio to select international markets. We will continue to leverage our distribution strength to scale the Statement brands across certain Indian states and international markets, unlocking significant value over the coming quarters. As on date, we own 21.36% of SSL, with a clear intent to increase our stake.”
– Amit Dahanukar, Chairman and Managing Director
Andhra Pradesh market share improved from ~10% under previous government to ~12% currently, showing 200 bps gain.
“As far as the Andhra market is concerned, we are seeing good growth in the Andhra market. In terms of market share, the exit market share with the earlier regime was approximately 10% and currently it stands at around 12%. So we have seen an improvement in our market share.”
– Management
Brandy salience in Andhra remains stable at 30-35% despite nearly one year under new policy; no dramatic category shift observed with whiskey remaining largest category.
“You are correct. It is around 30-35% the salience of Brandy in Andhra market. We already have a good number of quarters behind us. Since the new policy came in, it has been almost a year now with the new policy and frankly that is enough time to see any kind of change that could have happened in the industry and we haven’t seen much change from a salience perspective. While whiskey continues to remain the larger category in terms of volumes, with Brandy being a close second, that position still persists. We haven’t seen anything change dramatically from a category shift perspective.”
– Management
Telecom
Vodafone Idea Ltd. | Large Cap | Telecom
Vodafone Idea (branded as ‘Vi’) is a leading Indian telecom provider offering mobile and digital services. It delivers innovative telecommunication solutions through digital channels and extensive ground presence. The company serves customers under the ‘Vi’ brand, providing seamless connectivity and digital experiences.
[Concall]
5G services expanded from Mumbai (March 2025) to 29 cities across all 17 spectrum-holding circles covering 99% of revenue in six months.
“I am glad to inform that since we initiated the launch of 5G services in Mumbai in March 2025, over the period of last six months, we have expanded our 5G services to all 17 circles where we hold 5G spectrum. These 17 circles contribute nearly 99% of our revenue. In these 17 circles, our 5G services are available in 29 cities and we continue to expand the 5G services to other cities based on customer demand and 5G handset penetration.”
– Abhijit Kishore, Chief Executive Officer
Subscriber loss increased to 1 million in Q2 from 0.5 million in Q1 due to seasonality; management maintains long-term outlook remains unchanged.
“There has been a marginal drop. But if you look at it from a long-term point of view over the last couple of quarters, we’ve been reducing our delta from 5.2 to 1.6 to 0.5. And there has been an increase to a 1 million subscriber loss. Some bit of a seasonality impact as well. But I think the fundamentals of the business are pretty intact and we don’t see making any changes to our long-term view as far as the subscriber is concerned.”
– Abhijit Kishore, Chief Executive Officer
Engaged with banks for long-term funding; government (49% equity holder) clear on need for three private players; bank funding may depend on AGR relief package.
“We are engaged with the banks, and with the recent development of the Honorable Supreme Court order is pretty clear, and government being a 49% equity holder and the government making it also amply clear that in the Indian context, three private players are required. We are looking at the solution which we believe will be best and for the long term view from the government. And our sense is that since the Supreme Court order has come recently, maybe there would be a little bit of a dependency of that with the banks when they are looking at a long-term funding.”
– Abhijit Kishore, Chief Executive Officer
Auto Ancillary
Amara Raja Energy | Small Cap | Auto Ancillary
Amara Raja Batteries Limited is a technology leader and one of the largest manufacturers of lead-acid batteries in India for industrial and automotive use. The company provides batteries for various applications including Passenger Vehicles, Two Wheelers, Commercial Vehicles, and Industrial needs like UPS, Telecom, Railways, Defence, and Motive.
The New Energy business delivered robust quarterly performance with significant year-over-year growth driven by telecom packs and chargers.
“With respect to the New Energy business, the Q2 delivered healthy quarterly performance with a revenue of around INR170 crores, which is a growth of more than 50% compared to previous year. This growth is supported by increased demand for telecom packs and chargers. Telecom volume grew substantially with 150 megawatts of supply, whereas 3-wheeler volumes remained largely stable during the quarter.”
- Swajitha Rapeti, Head, Corporate Finance
Explaining the strong 30% OEM volume growth during the quarter and the factors behind it.
“With respect to the OEM volumes, there has been a strong demand. It has grown by around 30% during the quarter, whereas the aftermarket, on the 4-wheeler side, was pretty stable. We didn’t find much of a growth over there on account of this GST rate revisions. And whereas on the 2-wheeler side, there is a slight growth of around 1% to 2%.”
- Swajitha Rapeti, Head, Corporate Finance
Discussing the multiple initiatives that will help improve margins including tubular plant, power cost resolution, and recycling plant.
“As I mentioned earlier, Raghu, I think tubular manufacturing impact will only be felt in the next season. Obviously, now I’m taking some depreciation expenses because commercial production, has just commenced. And obviously, the volumes will be subdued in this quarter per se. In Q4, I’m sure there will be volumes that are coming up from this. So manufacturing revenue should definitely help us improve a bit of margin... The power issues also to a major extent, got resolved, except for the electricity duty issue, which is currently subsidies. We hope some resolution will be found sometime towards the beginning of next year. The scrap recycling battery breaking operations right now, we are expecting that we will commence sometime in the month of January.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Addressing concerns about recent Chinese restrictions on lithium-ion manufacturing equipment exports.
“There is a Chamber of Commerce guideline as to which machinery they should not export and which machinery they can. But again, a couple of days back, there was an announcement again to postpone the deadline if I remember correctly, the original deadline was 8th November. There is also a talk about postponing the deadline as well but to the extent of the machinery that we have ordered so far for all the 3 projects, we don’t see a challenge. And if at all, there are going to be any challenges, we are also exploring alternatives from other geographies as well.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Clarifying the revenue contribution from industrial segments including telecom and UPS.
“See, between telecom and UPS today, we get about 20% of the total revenue. Of course, there are other segments like railways and power control. I’m talking about the overall lead acid industrial volumes.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Explaining that the exceptional 30% OEM growth in Q2 was driven by temporary factors and is not sustainable.
“No, no, no, Kapil. I think these are more of -- you know there were certain ramp-up that was done by the OEMs considering their festive season and also the GST rate reductions. That was one of the reasons that has increased the number substantially. But I don’t see that this momentum will continue in the coming quarters as well. We’ll again fall back to the normal growth rates of all OEMs.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Discussing whether the company plans to take pricing action in response to rising lead prices.
“As of now, no, Kapil, but we’ll -- because again, while we are seeing 2,000 LME, again, we expect that it will again come back. But rupee has been behaving in a little volatile manner. But as of now, we are yet to take any pricing action in the aftermarket.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Addressing competitive dynamics in the lithium telecom business versus lead acid.
“Yes. Telecom lithium business has more competition than the lead acid telecom business because in lead acid telecom, we are only 3 players, whereas in the lithium pack side, there are more than 6 to 7 players. But I’m sure not all of them are having plans for putting up their own cell capacity. So that way, at the pack level, the competitive pressure is definitely higher than what it is on the lead acid side.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Discussing expectations for maintaining market leadership in telecom despite increased competition in lithium.
“Yes. On a combined basis, even today, we have a substantial market, but I’m sure with the number of players that are there in the lithium side, it may marginally come down, but we will still be a very significant player in the telecom business because we are having a very good market share even on the lithium side. As we have mentioned earlier, in the current quarter, it has crossed the supplies of more than 150 megawatt hour. So I think we should, in the long term, maintain the same level of market shares what we used to maintain in the lead acid. But in the interim, owing to higher competition, we may have to see some level of reduction in the market share, but I’m sure we’ll pull it back.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Addressing flexibility to convert manufacturing capacity from NMC to LFP chemistry if needed.
“Though there is a constant effort as we have mentioned in the opening remarks that even in 3-wheeler applications, there are OEMs who are asking to move to the LFP chemistry, but we still believe -- there will be some portion of both 2-wheelers and 3-wheelers, which would still require an NMC chemistry. That is the reason from the beginning, we have been saying our NMC capacity will not cross beyond 2 gigawatt hour. And even in case if there is a challenge because this being a cylindrical form factor with some bit of an incremental capex, while I’ll not be able to quantify that capex number, we can still move to an LFP cylindrical form factor.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Providing guidance on New Energy business revenue contribution in FY26 and FY27.
“See the revenue from New Energy has to be seen in 2 separate baskets. One is the packs and chargers revenue. The other is the cell revenue. Cell revenue obviously will take some time before we start the commencement of the commercial production. We expect that we should actually move to a 5% kind of overall revenue share for the New Energy by end of this financial year. Maybe next year we have plan to go as what we are thinking right now, to at least move to a 7% to 8% kind of a number.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Addressing investor concerns about historical growth rates and future strategy across both lead acid and lithium businesses.
“So considering the lead acid industry, the way it is growing and in the last 10 years, our revenues have grown on a CAGR of close to 12% to 13%. Of late, considering the large base and also India being a 2- or 3-player market, there is a growth that we are actually doing beyond the industry growth rate as well. Our market shares across all products have been continuously improving... At the same time, we are investing decent amount of money behind the new energy business where we are trying to increase our pack revenue. At the same time, invest into cell capability because we are not simply trying to remain as a pack maker. We want to develop the capabilities to develop any cells that are required by the Indian market, which is why we are investing behind the capability development.”
- Y. Delli Babu, Chief Financial Officer
Eicher Motors | Large Cap | Auto Ancillary
Eicher Motors is a global automobile company based in Chennai, India, known for owning Royal Enfield, the oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production. It also co-owns VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a leader in commercial vehicle innovation. The company is publicly listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange.
[Concall]
GST reduction drove record festive sales of 2.49 lakh motorcycles in Sept-Oct; Q2 volumes at 327,067 units versus 225,317 in Q2 FY25, up 45% YoY.
“The GST reforms by the government of India have made motorcycles under 350cc more accessible and the customer’s response is a clear testament to this during this window. This festive season was a truly outstanding one for Royal Enfield, with over about 2.49 lakh motorcycles sold during the festive months of September and October. With this festive performance, we have achieved a milestone that speaks volumes about our momentum and the unwavering love riders have for the brand. During this quarter we sold 327,067 motorcycles as against 225,317 in Q2 FY25.”
– B. Govind Rajan, MD Eicher Motors and CEO Royal Enfield
Current capacity ramped to 1.3-1.35 million motorcycles; additional module capacity being added to start production from Q1 FY27 in Cheyyar facility.
“We have ramped up the capacity to almost about 1.3 to 1.35 million motorcycles. But looking at the demand, looking at the inquiry and the interest and what we have done is in between we also kick started additional module capacity, which will also start picking in from the first quarter of the coming year. So we go in modules and the next module is also kick started because we have space in Cheyyar. We do not anticipate any major issues.”
– B. Govind Rajan, MD Eicher Motors and CEO Royal Enfield
Inquiry-to-booking conversion improved 10 percentage points from 20-21% to 25% post-GST cuts, indicating strong demand momentum and sales efficiency.
“Our working conversion has gone up. Our conversion has gone up. Our online conversions have gone up. So the E2B, we normally say Inquiry to Booking conversion, has actually seen a 10 percentage point growth during this point of time. It used to be almost about 20-21%; it has gone almost about 25%. So the efficiency also has been very good.”
– B. Govind Rajan, MD Eicher Motors and CEO Royal Enfield
Hero MotoCorp | Large Cap | Auto Ancillary
Hero MotoCorp is a leading two-wheeler manufacturer dominating the domestic market. It has been a transformative force in the global two-wheeler industry, focusing on value, trust, and innovation to enable personal mobility at scale.
[Concall]
GST reduction ahead of festive season drove Hero to record ~1 million Diwali retails; market share jumped 370 bps YoY to 31.6% in October with momentum expected to sustain.
“At the outset, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to the honorable prime minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji and honorable finance minister for announcing the GST reductions ahead of the festive season. 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 Diwali on October 25. Our Diwali market share in October expanded by 3.7% year-on-year to 31.6%. Consumer sentiment has continued to remain buoyant and even after the festive season we expect the retail momentum to sustain.”
– Niranjan Gupta, CFO
Festive growth accelerated to 17% driven by strong 100cc recovery as fence-sitters entered; first-time buyers surged from typical 70-72% to 81% in festive period.
“This festive 17% growth that we’ve had so far, in fact since Vive said 16.2% it’s improved one day to 17% now and is getting better with every passing day. We’ve seen a very strong recovery in 100cc. There were a lot of fence sitters who joined the mobility space. So that has really helped us to grow ahead of the industry in the festive. We are seeing very strong traction around Splendor and HF. The other thing which has also helped in better engagement and retention of our customer is the proposition that I also spoke about on the superhero and the non-stop hero. And that’s seeing a very good traction for us, including the ‘We Guarantee’.”
– Ashutosh Mehrotra (Management)
Current GST cuts (10% price reduction, ₹5,500-15,000 per vehicle) are highest ever; historical precedent shows excise cuts led to double-digit industry growth for multiple years.
“Just to also just bring it to you what happened in the past when we had excise rate cuts in the past. So we had three rounds of excise rate cuts in 2008 and 2014 where the price cuts were 5 to 8% and we’ve seen double-digit growth in the two-wheeler industry for the next couple of years and this time the price cuts are the highest ever of 10%. In our product, it ranges from ₹5,500 to as high as ₹15,000. So therefore, I think if I really look at the long-term trend and also what we’ve been able to achieve in the 85 days of the long festive period, I think we strongly believe that this trend is likely to stay.”
– Niranjan Gupta, CFO
Global business grew 77% (3x industry) driven by 80/20 market focus; holds 12% share in top 10 markets with number one positions in several; premium mix exceeds 40%.
“This quarter we’ve grown three times the market and I think that has been our performance now for last couple of quarters. Clearly our 80/20 strategy of focus on top 10 markets is really playing out very well for us. In the top 10 markets, we already have 12% market share. And in some of the markets, we are number one. In the top five, in the top seven markets, actually, we are gaining market share. Our new product launches have continued to really do well. I’m also happy to share that our premium product contribution is 40% plus in the global markets.”
– Niranjan Gupta, CFO
Bajaj Auto | Large Cap | Auto Ancillary
Bajaj Auto is a leading company involved in the manufacturing and distribution of motorcycles, commercial vehicles, electric vehicles, and their parts
Management assesses GST rate cuts provided a 6-8 percentage point swing to industry growth; the motorcycle industry grew 14% versus -1% in April-August, with sustained growth expected at 6-8% going forward.
“The impact which we have immediately experienced because of the GST rate cut, we assess it to be about 6% to 8% swing in the industry. What we have done is we’ve looked at the data from the last five to six years as to how during the festive season the industry moves up in any case, the growth rate itself. Even like-to-like growth rates move up by about 5% to 6% points, you know. So if the industry is growing in April-August by 5%, in the festive season it starts to grow about 10%. That’s if you take out the COVID period. This time, the motorcycle industry has grown by about 14%. So we assess, we think that almost 8% to 9% swing was due to the GST rate cuts and all that, but it will probably not be sustaining at that level. Therefore, we feel going forward, the industry should grow at 6% to 8%. It was declining at minus 1%, so therefore there is a swing of 7% to 8%.”
– Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director
Bajaj’s market share erosion in 125cc+ segment has reversed, with October marking the start of share gains, particularly in 150cc+ sport bikes, driven by strong demand for premium N and NS series Pulsars.
“The market share erosion which we were experiencing over the last few quarters had got arrested by the end of Q2, and October saw the beginning of market share gain in the strategic 125cc plus segment, and it was in particular driven by the 150cc plus sport segment. In each segment, we found that the top-end variants performed extremely well, reflecting that the customer with relatively strong wallets had aggressively entered the buying cycle and is happy to upgrade. Hence, our N series and NS series of Pulsar motorcycles handsomely beat segment growth rates.”
– Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director
Three-wheeler business delivered record 145,000 units with 75% ICE market share maintained, but E-Auto growth slowed to 50%+ and Bajaj lost EV leadership due to supply chain constraints causing 15% production shortfall.
“Here too, the industry witnessed the down and up as in the motorcycle industry but with softish peaks and troughs. The industry outcome was that ICE moved from a year-to-date decline to single-digit growth in October. E-Auto continued to grow, though at a slightly lower rate at 50% plus, while e-rickshaws declined in the quarter due to upgrading to E-Auto and new RTO restrictions being enforced in many key cities in the north. We expect the same pattern to continue with the GST rate cut lifting the ICE Auto growth by about 5 percentage points. Against this backdrop, our business continues to perform strongly, delivering an all-time record quarter of 145,000 units and also in revenue terms. In ICE, high levels of 75% market share were maintained. In the EV segment though, we lost ground due to supply chain constraints in terms of availability of key components and the manufacturing capacity of the highly successful white body 7012 variant resulting in about a 15% shortfall from the plan.”
– Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director
Chetak suffered a 50% production shortfall due to rare earth magnet supply issues but has now resolved constraints by switching to NRE-based components and regained #1 market position in October registrations.
“On electric two-wheelers with Chetak, the industry continues to average close to 100,000 units per month, despite the constraints faced by most companies on account of HRE-based magnetic availability. We in particular suffered the most, given the high growth trajectory of Chetak after the launch of the highly successful 35 series. Supply was following demand, and this was further interrupted by supply chain constraints, resulting in an almost 50% shortfall to our plan. However, recovery in the supply chain is done and actually ahead of the time we had anticipated for it. We shifted to the more secure NRE-based component as well as alternate geographic sources, restoring supplies by end September and fully in October. Though the rebuilding of stocks in the channel is still a work in process. Even so, we are delighted that Chetak immediately regained the number one position in terms of registration in October and we plan to maintain the leadership position here on.”
– Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director
Bajaj secured a significant competitive advantage in Mexico with only 5% tariff versus 35% for all other competitors, making it one of only two companies (alongside one Mexican firm) to receive concessionary treatment.
“Yeah, Mexico is a very big market, in fact it’s the largest market in Latin America, and the tariff has increased to 35%. But there are only two companies which have got which will get a concessionary tariff because of the investments which have been made and approvals which have been in place from before. And this is one Mexican company and the second one is Bajaj Auto. So instead of 35%, we will get tariffs will be only 5%. I mean, right now we are paying 35%, and because we have the minister’s approval, etcetera, then we will continue with 5%. All the others will increase to 35%.”
– Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director
Software Services
Nazara Technologies Ltd. | Small Cap | Software Services
Nazara Technologies Limited is a leading India-based company in the gaming and sports media platform. They have a strong presence in India, Africa, North America, and other global markets. Their offerings include interactive gaming, eSports, and gamified early learning ecosystems with popular games like World Cricket Championship and Kiddopia.
[Concall]
Nazara took full impairment on PokerBazzi investment (except ~100cr cash) due to new RMG regulations, but the platform is attracting global interest for licensing.
“During the quarter, as you all would know, new regulations in India’s online skill-based real money gaming space prompted Nazara to record an impairment on its investment in Moonshine Technologies, which operated PokerBazzi, based on fair valuation as per accounting standards. We have always taken a conservative approach to our accounting presentation and that is why we have taken a significant impairment in this quarter itself. For PokerBazzi, I think we have basically taken an approach to write off everything except for or provision for impairment except for the cash in the company broadly. So I think the delta that you see is cash in the company, and they have over 100 crores of cash at this point in time. The company is obviously evaluating multiple options. We have an extremely strong poker platform which has been demonstrated at scale in India and therefore it is quite sought after by global players, and they are exploring a variety of global businesses and also potentially how they can leverage their India skill base going forward for different offerings.”
– Nitish Mattersing, CEO and JMD
Nazara’s gaming revenue mix has shifted dramatically—over 90% now comes from international markets (US/UK), driven by mobile IPs like Love Island and PC titles like Human Fall Flat.
“Growth was driven by scaling up our live operations, improved retention, and multi-platform monetization across mobile, PC, console, and offline. At this point in time, over 90% of our gaming revenue comes from international markets with a strong focus on the US and UK markets. Mobile gaming remained our primary engine of growth led by gaming IPs such as Love Island, Big Brother, Kidopia, Animal Jam, WCC, etc. Our PC console publishing business performed quite well through successful IPs such as Human Fall Flat and Wobbly Life. Offline gaming Smash and Funky Monkeys has been growing well and is expanding pretty rapidly now for us.”
– Nitish Mattersing, CEO and JMD
Nazara recognized a one-time gain of ₹109.8cr as Nodwin stake fell below 50%, requiring mark-to-market accounting at recent fundraise valuation (~$349M pre-money).
“Also, Nazara’s stake in Nodwin Gaming fell below 50%, which resulted in de-subsidiarization of the business. Consequently, while earlier we were carrying this at investment value in our books, we have now taken it at fair value leading to a one-time meaningful gain. Basically from a Nazara perspective, since we had originally acquired a 51% stake in Nodwin and made subsequent investments, the carrying value in our books at a consolidated level was at the investment value and it had not never been marked up on the different fundraises done by Nodwin since the time of our original investment. And now post de-subsidiarization, as per IN AS accounting standards, as an associate, we had to value it at a fair value, which we have taken as the last round of funding value which was done two, three months back.”
– Nitish Mattersing, CEO and JMD
Sportskeeda’s organic traffic crashed in March due to Google algorithm changes; management expects recovery within Q4 FY26 (similar to Pro Football Network’s 3-quarter rebound).
“We were hit by a Google core update which negatively impacted our organic traffic in March this year. We have seen this happen across publishers with one of our companies also, which is Pro Football Network, which took around three quarters to come back. We should see a Google core update come again in the month of, let us say, November or December, that is how the trend continues. So we are hopeful that we will bounce back soon and once we do that, our numbers will go up again. Different publishers take different times to bounce back. It also depends on what Google is releasing in their Google core updates. PFN took around three quarters. It has been two quarters for us now so another couple of updates we should be good.”
– Ajay Pratap Singh, CEO, Absolute Sports
Engineering & Capital Goods
Rail Vikas Nigam | Mid Cap | Engineering & Capital Goods
RVNL executes railway projects including new lines, doubling, gauge conversion, electrification, metro works, bridges, and more on a turnkey basis. It manages full project cycles from design to commissioning, overseeing contracts, project management, and execution till completion.
[Concall]
Vande Bharat project on track with first prototype due June 2026; production ramps to 12 trains in FY27 then 25/year for 5 years, with lucrative 35-year O&M contract starting FY27.
“For the Vande Bharat project, the designs etcetera are in various stages of approval and we have started with the mock-up. The first prototype scheme is that the first two prototypes will be produced, they will be tested, and then the regular production will start. The first prototype as per the scheme will be coming in June 2026, and the second prototype will be coming in August 2026. When these prototypes are tested and certified for further production in the balance period of FY27, 12 regular trains will be produced, followed by 25 trains every year in the next five years. So the total production cycle is of six years. The O&M part is for the next 35 years. The O&M part will start basically simultaneously because when we produce the first two prototypes and then 12 trains in the financial year FY27, simultaneously their O&M will also start. Three Vande Bharat maintenance sheds are part of this scheme.”
– SC Jain, Chairman and Managing Director
RVNL holds ₹3,200cr international order book (Maldives, Central Asia, Middle East, East Europe) and aims to scale global ops to 50% of revenue for better margins vs. competitive domestic market.
“The total international order book is of the order of around 3,200 crores, out of which some of the projects are under execution. We are also in the process of bidding or have already bid for many projects in Central Asia, the Middle East, East Asia, and even East Europe. So certainly in the coming financial year, or in this second half of this financial year, we hope to gain substantial traction from the international projects also. Certainly, we will be focusing on projects abroad also where the margins are certainly better as compared to the domestic projects. In line with the industry standards, the established infrastructure giants derive at least 50% of their revenue from global operations. So we hope to substantially improve on our global operations in the coming financial year so that our revenue margins are maintained at the range of 5% to 6% in the future.”
– SC Jain, Chairman and Managing Director
Hitachi Energy India (POWERINDIA) | Mid Cap | Engineering & Capital Goods
Hitachi Energy India Limited (formerly known as ABB Power Products and Systems India Limited) serves utility and industry customers, with the complete range of engineering, products, solutions and services in areas of Power technology.
CEO outlines the company’s progress on environmental sustainability targets, highlighting achievements that exceed original goals.
“Under the planet pillar, we are confident of achieving more than 76% reduction in CO2 emissions in the financial year ‘25-’26 in our operations from our targeted 50% reduction, compared to our baseline year of 2019 emissions.”
— N. Venu, Managing Director & CEO
Management announces the company’s highest-ever order backlog, providing strong revenue visibility for future quarters.
“During the quarter, the company achieved the highest ever order backlog of INR 29,412.6 crore, creating a revenue visibility for several coming quarters.”
CEO discusses the strong performance in export orders, highlighting diversification across geographies and sectors.
“During the quarter, exports attained 59% year-on-year growth. Diverse geographies and industries we served helped sustain export momentum toward order book. The company received export orders from utilities in Europe, data centres in South East Asia, and renewables in Middle East and North America.”
Management highlights a breakthrough service order representing deployment of cutting-edge environmental technology in India for the first time.
“Some of the key service orders came from utilities and industries, including an Air core Reactor for an HVDC project, GIS and AIS extensions and repair & retrofitting, and the first EconiQ order in India, which is a game-changing SF6-free technology that we are deploying in India for the first time.”
— N. Venu, Managing Director & CEO
CEO confirms that major HVDC projects are progressing according to schedule with completion timelines ranging from 48-54 months.
“It varies from customer to customer, ranging from anywhere between 48 months to 54 months. So, we are very much within our schedule. As we speak, all these projects we have learnt about, we are completing the engineering phases. We are doing some of the component testing. All those things are going on.”
Management discusses the structural demand for HVDC projects in India, revising upward previous estimates of project frequency.
“Previously, I have been saying 1 project per year, and I also said that 2 projects per year should come, but it is a matter of 2 to 3 projects per year is required going forward. They will come up for the bidding.”
— N. Venu, Managing Director & CEO
CEO quantifies Hitachi Energy’s addressable market opportunity in large-scale data center projects across their product portfolio.
“Our appreciable market of every data center CAPEX is the range of 15% to 20% of data center CAPEX. So, depending upon the size and scale of, and depending on the business model, what they deploy, it might vary, but that’s where the thing is 15% to 20%.”
Management clarifies that Battery Energy Storage Systems and HVDC are complementary technologies, not competitive alternatives.
“Battery Energy Storage cannot compete with HVDC or vice versa in that. So, both technologies are required for our energy transition. And as you have seen, the SECI’s mandate right now is that 10% of the renewable they need to have energy storage built in, in the project going forward.”
— N. Venu, Managing Director & CEO
CEO explains the secondary investment opportunity created by data centers beyond direct equipment supply.
“Data center has two elements. One is the data center itself will create an opportunity for a company like Hitachi Energy. And the second one is data center drives the load growth. So, huge load growth. It’s not a normal load growth, it’s a huge load growth. And that will be a further secondary investment, again, in the generation, transmission, et cetera.”
Management addresses concerns about capacity to execute multiple large HVDC projects simultaneously.
“We have always been ahead of the curve. We have been seeing this much ahead of many of the industry players. So, when we started our factory in 2021, there was no pipeline there. But we had a strong belief and conviction that we wanted to start this to address that, and that’s what we are seeing.”
CEO emphasizes the company’s commitment to local manufacturing as a key competitive advantage in the domestic market.
“Today, we produce almost 75%-80% of what we produce globally; we produce locally here. And that is what is also very important for us to get into these kinds of things.”
Management clarifies their strategic approach to balancing domestic focus with export opportunities, maintaining 25-30% export contribution.
“We would like to remain in the 25%-30% corridor, because we have, as I said, we have huge tailwinds arising out of the energy transition in India, both from the renewable, transmission, industries, and also rail, et cetera, in that. So, that’s where we would like to focus. Not that we don’t want to increase from 25%-30% number, but that increase is not at the cost of the domestic market.”
— N. Venu, Managing Director & CEO
International
Harley-Davidson Inc. | International
Harley-Davidson Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells heavyweight motorcycles, related parts, and apparel. It also offers financial services for motorcycle purchases and provides financing for its independent dealers.
[Concall]
Full-year 2025 tariff cost estimated at $55-75M (vs. $45M through Q3), but 100% US manufacturing of core products and 75% domestic sourcing provide relative insulation.
“In Q3 of 2025, the cost of new or increased tariffs was $27 million. As mentioned earlier, the cost of new or increased tariffs in 2025 through the end of Q3 was $45 million. This includes direct tariff exposure, Harley-Davidson importing and exporting product as well as indirect tariff exposure from suppliers. This excludes pricing mitigation actions as well as operational costs related to new or increased tariffs. Harley-Davidson is a business very centered in and around the US. Three of four manufacturing plants are US-based and 100% of our US core product is manufactured in the US. We also have a US-centric approach to sourcing with approximately 75% of component purchasing coming from the US. With that in mind, we estimate our full-year 2025 impact from the direct cost of new or increased tariffs to be in the range of 55 to $75 million.”
– Jonathan Ruth, CFO and President of Commercial
US large cruiser market share jumped 700bps to 68% (from 61% prior year) driven by refreshed soft tail lineup, which grew 9% in North America despite macro headwinds.
“On a global basis, the soft tail family delivered positive growth versus prior year. And as I mentioned earlier, soft tails were up 9% in North America alone, reflecting the strength of the revised product portfolio and its appeal to core riders. In the US, market share for HD in the large cruiser category expanded from 61% in Q3 of 2024 to 68% in Q3 of 2025, underscoring the momentum behind our updated lineup. Global dealer motorcycle inventories were down 13% at the end of Q3 of 2025 compared to the end of Q3 of 2024. We continued to prioritize reducing global dealer inventory and we are committed to supporting a significant year-over-year dealer inventory reduction by year end.”
– Jonathan Ruth, CFO and President of Commercial
CEO confirmed Sprint bike launching H2 2026 as lighter, more affordable entry point to attract younger riders; acknowledges current lineup price points are too high for youth demographic.
I think there’s an opportunity that it can be a bit more fun. Young people are looking for something that’s fun and maybe has seriousness to it but maybe not as serious as we’re currently presenting it. Practically speaking, the product line that we have coming and specifically the sprint bike coming in the second half of next year I think addresses two things. One is a bike that’s lighter and easier to maneuver, and the second thing is a bike that’s more affordable. If you look in the dealership right now, the price point’s pretty high for a young rider to be interested in Harley. And I think the combination of brand, product, and some augmentation to the experiential elements that make it more fun, I think we have a recipe to do that.”
– Jochen Zeitz (CEO)
Airbnb Inc. | International
Airbnb Inc operates a global online marketplace that connects hosts with guests for lodging and experiences. The company’s platform allows people to book short-term and long-term stays, such as houses, apartments, and rooms, as well as “experiences” like cooking classes or guided tours, through its website and mobile app. Airbnb earns revenue by charging a commission on each booking.
[Concall]
Reserve now pay later achieved 70% adoption among eligible US domestic travelers (flexible/moderate cancellation listings), with higher cancellations offset by strong net booking lift, driving US market acceleration.
“In terms of the reserve now pay later offering, we launched it at the beginning of Q3. It is specifically something that is being offered to US customers who are traveling domestically and are choosing listings that have a flexible or moderate cancellation policy. So it is not offered to the entirety of the US guest population. That being said, of those that we offer or provide the offering to, it is vastly popular. So about 70% of people that we offer reserve now pay later take us up on that offering. Now to your question of cancellations, we obviously tested this product pretty extensively before launching it in the US to ensure that the benefit of the incremental lift in those bookings from the payment offering was not more than offset by increased cancellations. So yes, there are increased cancellations but we’re highly confident that the net impact of the product is a lift to net bookings.”
– Ellie Murr, CFO
CEO guided services & experiences will take 3-5 years to become material revenue contributor, prioritizing product-market fit in Paris/LA before scaling city-by-city playbook to dozens then hundreds of cities.
“As far as when this provides meaningful income or revenue for the company, it’s going to be a few years for this to happen. We’re really focused on getting a few markets right. Just to go back to how we founded Airbnb, people don’t know this, but while we’re in over 100,000 cities around the world, for the first two years of our existence, the majority of revenue was in just one city, New York City. So we’re focused on Paris, focused on LA. We’re seeing a lot of traction in these markets. And as they grow, we’re going to be rolling out to dozens of cities around the world this expanded playbook and then hundreds more cities. So it’s going to take three to five years, I think, for service experiences to become a material part of our business. But I’m very, very bullish on them.”
– Brian Chesky, CEO
AI customer service assistant achieved 15% reduction in human agent contacts in US with custom UI for actions like cancellations; expanding to 50+ languages in 2026 for global rollout.
“This quarter, we rolled out smarter and faster AI customer support. Our AI customer support assistant has smarter responses and includes answers similar to your reservation or listing and also provides quicker, more precise responses. It also lets you take common actions like canceling or changing reservation dates directly from the chat. So what we did is we designed this custom user interface that’s not just text based but it’s got rich user interface modules. So it’s a really custom-built AI interface built right into the messaging platform. Now, we initially launched this in the United States where it’s already reduced people’s need to contact a human agent by 15%. So now we’re going to expand it to more countries in more languages and we expect this to be in over 50 languages next year.”
– Brian Chesky, CEO
CEO positions Airbnb as AI beneficiary via contrarian thesis: proliferation of artificial online content will drive consumer demand for authentic real-world experiences, especially among Gen Z surrounded by AI-generated content.
“I think what makes our approach different is that we’re not just using AI to pull people deeper into the screens. We’re using it to get them off their phones and help them connect in the real world. Because I believe in the age of AI, more and more, what’s going to happen is what’s on a screen will be artificial. You won’t know if it’s real or not. In the age of AI, people are going to increasingly want what’s real. And what’s real is in real life. They’re going to create real experiences with real people in the real world. And I think that’s especially true for younger generations who grew up on social media and are now surrounded by AI generated content. So we think Airbnb is the best way to experience the magic of the real world. So in that sense, a bet on Airbnb is a bet on AI because it’s a bet that the more AI proliferates the content we consume on devices, the more people are going to yearn for real connection with real people in the real world.”
– Brian Chesky, CEO
SanDisk Corporation | Interncational
SanDisk, develops and manufactures flash memory-based data storage products like Solid State Drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, and memory cards for a wide range of devices from personal computers to cloud storage. The company’s products are based on NAND flash technology and are used by consumers, enterprises, and cloud service providers to store and access data.
[Concall]
CEO confirmed supply-demand tightness extending beyond calendar 2026, with hyperscale customers proactively requesting multi-year volume-price commitments through 2027—a structural shift from historical quarter-by-quarter purchasing.
“In the first quarter, demand for our NAND products continued to outpace our supply, a dynamic we expect to persist through the end of calendar year 26 and beyond. Customers are proactively seeking long-term commitments given the critical nature of our technology and to secure continued access to our products. I would say there’s kind of two phases of how we’re hearing from customers and what they’re reaching out about. There’s a phase where we’re striking deals that are multi-quarters, let’s say, through the first half of next calendar year. There are volume and price deals where customers are looking for certainty of supply. And so, you know, that’s a little bit different than what we’ve seen in the past where everything is usually just quarter by quarter-based. But as especially as data center starts to grow, those customers are reaching out proactively and providing visibility all the way through calendar year 27 of what their demand is going to be and want to have conversations on how we could line up our supply to that demand.”
– David (CEO)
CEO highlighted historic market inflection as data center overtakes mobile to become largest NAND market in calendar 2026 for first time ever, fundamentally changing supply-demand dynamics, pricing, and customer visibility.
“Calendar year 26 will be the first time that data center market is the largest market in NAND. That’s always been the mobile market. And so, we’re seeing a major inflection there. The growth rate is higher. It’s now going to be the biggest segment of the market. And it’s also, from a customer point of view, it’s a more diverse market. So I think that changes the dynamics of the way that conversations with customers, the way purchasing decisions are made, pricing, visibility, all those things I think are changing before our eyes as the data center market emerges as the largest market in NAND. And the corollary to that is the customers behind that are, if you look out at their 27 exabyte demand numbers we’re talking about, they’re very very big numbers.”
– David (CEO)
CEO disclosed data center exabyte demand forecast for calendar 2026 revised upward dramatically from mid-20s% to mid-40s% growth in just three months, with estimates continuing to rise weekly due to AI infrastructure build-out.
“It’s a difficult market right now to completely start talking about market share because the market is very dynamic. The market’s growing. It’s almost like every week or two our estimates for calendar 26 demand in the data center market move around and they’re all moving up. When we were sitting here three months ago, we thought our forecast was data center exabytes would increase mid-20% level in 26. We’ve now upped that to mid-40% in 26. So the market’s moving very quickly and what our goal is get our fair share of that market. We think the product portfolio is exactly in the right spot. We think BiCS 8 is absolutely the right node to drive that and you’re going to see this whole story play out in the numbers as we move through calendar year 26.”
– David (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 Vignesh & Meher.
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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