AETHER INDUSTRIES LTD (NSE: AETHER) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 03, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Kushal Doshi — Lead Investor Relations
Rohan Desai — Whole Time Director
Aman Ashwinbhai Desai — Whole Time Director
Faiz Nagariya — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Ather Industries Limited Q3FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this content is being recorded. I now hand the contents over to Mr. Nilesh Kouke from HDFC Securities. Thank you. And over to you, Mr. Bhutti.
Unidentified Speaker
Yeah. Thank you, Ranju. Good afternoon all. On behalf of HDFC Securities, I welcome everyone to this Ether Industries conference call to discuss the results for the quarter ended December 2025 and nine months of the financial year 2025 26. From the Ather Industries, we have with us today Dr. Aman Desai, Promoter and Whole Time Director, Mr. Rohan Desai, Promoter and Whole time Director, Mr. Faiz Nagariya, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Kushal Doshi, Lead Investor Relations and Ms. Shubangi Desai, Executive IR. Without further ado, I will now hand over the floor to Mr. Kushal Doshi to begin with the earnings for the quarter three FY26.
Over to you Kushal.
Kushal Doshi — Lead Investor Relations
Thank you, Nilesh. A warm welcome to everyone. Today our board has approved the financial results for the third quarter and nine months of financial year 2026 and the same has been filed with the exchanges as well as updated over our website. Please note that this conference call is being recorded and the transcript of the same will be made available on the website of Ather Industries Limited and the stock exchanges. Please also note that the audio of the conference call is the copyright material of Ather Industries Limited and cannot be copied, rebroadcasted or attributed in press or media without specific and written consent of the company.
Let me draw your attention to the fact that on this call our discussion will include certain forward looking statements which are predictions, projections or other estimates about the future events. These estimates reflect management’s current expectations on future performance of the company. Please note that these estimates involve several risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or implied. Ather Industries Limited or its officials do not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward looking statements whether as a result of future events or otherwise. Now Mr. Rohan Desai will begin by sharing Ather’s business outlook ongoing expansion.
Then Dr. Aman Desai will provide inputs on the R and D and new plan, initiatives and strategy of the company going forward and Mr. Faiz Nagaria will cover the financial highlights for the period under review. Now I hand over the call to Mr. Rohan Desai for his opening remarks. Over to you, Rohan.
Rohan Desai — Whole Time Director
Good evening everyone. I hope everybody is doing well and I am glad to connect with you all to discuss the performance of our company for quarter three of financial year 2026. I am delighted to inform you that the construction and installation of Site 3 and the first two production blocks of Site 5 has completed and water plus solvent trials have been commenced. Commercial production from these sites will commence shortly. The three business verticals continue to perform well even though global environment continues to remain volatile. Last quarter we have seen 43% of the sales from contract exclusive manufacturing, 41% from large scale manufacturing and 8% from contract research and manufacturing services.
Our export revenue stood at 36% of the total revenue and the domestic sales stood at 64%. In terms of the sectoral spread for the quarter third, pharma and agro is now contributing only 45% combined while oil and gas and material science contributes 22% and 18% respectively. As mentioned in the previous call, we expect share of oil and gas and material science to scale up by the year end in large scale manufacturing business vertical. The demand of our product remained robust while price has remained stable in the quarter. Volume growth has been over 10% quarter on quarter basis and over 25% year on year basis.
We have added three new products in the large scale manufacturing vertical from site 5 which are targeted towards pharmaceutical and agrochemical sectors. Validation quantities have been sent out from the other clients. We have planned to launch the commercial production shortly in site 5. All the three products will be manufactured for the first time in India and are currently priced between $30 to $40 per kilo. In the quarter we have added five new marquee clients. Sales from site 4 in this quarter have increased to 60 crores as compared to 50 crores in quarter 2 of financial year 2026 representing impressive 20% growth quarter on quarter.
The current trend rate is expected to continue for the financial year 2026 and we see an increase in the trend in financial year 2027. The increase in volume is expected as we start to supply to more of the sites of Deka Use and we are looking to add more products which are currently in cramps and increase our wallet share. Converse Polyol continues to see an increase in sales in this quarter and we are on track to achieve our targets in financial year 2026. We are pleased to inform you that despite the volatile macro environment, we see a number of customers inquiry increasing for this particular product.
The acceptability and adaptation of the product makes us optimistic for financial year 2027 as we continue to further research on converged polyol to see how the product can be adopted by companies which were not inversed to as a customer earlier. Our contract with Osuka Chemicals is on track and we are expected to achieve a target of 35 to 40 crore of sales in financial year 2026. In site 5 we have forayed into electronic chemicals specifically related to semiconductor industry. The clients which we’ll be supplying are based in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The validation batches for this chemicals have been dispatched already.
In summary, we are extremely excited as we look to commence Site 3. Sorry, we look to commence three production blocks in Site 3 and Site 5 respectively at Ather and our company becoming a preferred partner not only in RD but also for commercialization of our products. With this I would like to conclude speaking and I would like I would request Dr. Aman to touch upon RND and new client initiatives for this period. Over to you Aman. Thank you Rohan.
Aman Ashwinbhai Desai — Whole Time Director
Good evening everybody. I hope all are doing well and I’m very happy to connect with you again at the end of a promising quarter. I think the last few months we have been extremely busy at ATA site 3 plus as well as the first two production blocks of site 5 will both more or less simultaneously commence commercial production in the very near Future. So both Site 3 and the first two blocks of Site 5 at the same time we are also doing R and D expansion, so we are doing two R&D expansions. We are doing a short term R and D expansion and a long term R and D expansion.
In the short term R and D expansion right away in the next couple of months itself we are installing 20 additional fume hoods in the existing facility, a major part of which will be engineering labs similar to what we talked about in the last quarter. At the same time we are also doing a long term R and D expansion where we are installing 15 additional labs, 150 fume holes out of which five will be engineering labs and we are also going into advanced very modern cutting edge analytical equipment like nmr, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The engineering labs, that is both in the short term and the long term expansions of the R and D will help us to focus much more on chemical engineering, chemical technology and scale ups from the R and D itself which will enable us to further tap into what our current focus in crams is which is Non pharma and non agro, oil and gas and material sciences.
These sectors require much more chemical engineering at the inception of R and D along with organic chemistry. And that’s what the expansions in the R and D are going to be focused on. The Site one. As it stands, the R and D center is fully tapped, fully utilized today. And that’s why we made the decision of doing this short term expansion of 20 fumes along with the long term expansion of the double expansion that we are doing in the R and D over the last few months. Moving on to the interactions with customers, especially Europe, it is becoming increasingly evident to us that the manufacturing and chemical manufacturing in Europe is being especially hard hit.
As a result, in the current environment, a number of plants are being shutting down in Europe increasingly, so customers are looking to partner with reliable partners in India. The choice is definitely India and we are seeing a clear urgency and expedition of finalizing the contracts which we have been iterating and reiterating over the last few quarters. We are discussing significant contracts, significant ventures with the biggest chemical companies in Europe today. And you will see all of these pan out over the next few months, the next few quarters. In the announcements that we make, as mentioned by Rohan, not only have we entered into a CEM exclusive content manufacturing contract with electronic chemicals related to semiconductors, but we have also entered into a CEM contract with a European, one of the largest chemical companies in Europe targeting the material science sector.
This contract, although it is small right now, is on its way to becoming a significant large contract going forward within the next one year itself. One production line in Site 3, which currently houses LFM projects, is currently being modified to house this particular CEM contract with the European multinational customer. This will help us in improving the capacity utilization of this plant in the Site three as well as save us time in setting up new capacity in the existing customers. The business and the projects with Baker Hughes are ongoing significantly well. We are adding new products and new projects there and the Site three plus as I mentioned earlier with Milliken is going to shortly commence commercial production in the very, very near future.
So we have a handful, the sites are busy and we are expanding on all sites of site 1, site 3 and site 5. And with this robust pipeline that we today have in Krems, we are quite confident of being able to fill up all these assets and fill up all these sites in the very near future. With innovative customers and exclusive relationships with multinationals and innovators across the globe and with our own business model of large scale manufacturing which are the first time made in India products. So let me stop talking. Happy to answer your questions as they come and hand over the call to Faiz now who will give you an overview of the financial highlights.
And over to you faiz.
Faiz Nagariya — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Dr. Aman and good evening everybody. I am glad to present the financial results of Ather Industries Limited for Q3 and nine months of financial year 26. The consolidated revenue from operations of the Company stood at Rupees 3171 million in Q3 of financial year 26 as against Rupees 2197 million in Q3 of finance year 25 which is an increase of 44% year on year. This has resulted in EBITDA of Rupees10.83 million in Q3 of financial year26 as against Rupees 620 million in Q3 of financial year 25 which is an increase of 75% in comparing quarters.
EBITDA margin stood at 34% in Q3 of FY26 as against 28% in Q3 of FY25. The PAT amounted to Rupees 645 million in Q3 of finance year 26 as against Rupees 434 million in Q3 of financial year25 which is an increase 49% year on year. The PAT margin stood at 20% in Q3 of financial year 26 and against 18% of Q3 of financial year 25. The consolidated revenue from operations of the company stood at rupees 8534 million in nine months of financial year 26 as against rupees 5985 million in nine months of financial year 25 which is a 43% increase in the comparing nine months.
The EBITDA of rupees 2716 million in nine months of final 26 as against rupees 15. 25 million in nine months of finance under 25 which is an increase of 75% in the accompanying nine months. All this has resulted in PAT amount of rupees 16. 55 million in nine months of finance at 26 as against rupees 10. 81 million in nine months of finance at 25 which is a 53% increase in comparing nine months. PAT margins stood at 19% in nine months of financial 26 as against 17% in nine months of financial 25. The remaining claim for the fixed assets for the loss has been put up to the insurance surveyors along with loss of profit claim and we are confident to get the same settlement by the insurance company by or before the end of Finance Day.
26. The net working capital cycle remains at 160 days as against 149 days as on September 30. 25 mainly because of inventory buildup for the start of Site 3 and Site 5 which are expected to begin from March 26. The capacity utilization at all plants stand as under Site 2 is 76%, Site 3 is 70% and Site 4 is 49%. These are progressing as per the strategic planning done by the company. Thank you once again and we look forward to better outcomes than these in future as well. Back to you, Kushan.
Kushal Doshi — Lead Investor Relations
Thank you. First, we shall now request the moderator to open the forum for question and answers.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wish to ask a question may press star and one on a touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Sajal Kapoor with antifracade thinking. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you for taking my questions. Given the novel scale of chemistry, skills are scarce in India and attrition risk is structurally higher across the industry. How does Ather treat talent retention as a core priority and what hard trade offs as management consciously made in favor of employee continuity? That’s my first question. Thank you.
Aman Ashwinbhai Desai
Hi Sachin, thank you for the question. A very relevant question. Companies all over the country in the chemical space are expanding and talent recruitment and retention is one of the topmost priorities, should be one of the topmost priorities and is one of the topmost priorities with us. We spend a lot of time at the management level, at the family level focusing on this issue. We have a lot of efforts that we undertake including attractive ESOPs, attractive packages, other benefits, other incentives across the company at all levels starting from the workers to the top management where the focus is retention focuses retention of the talent once they are in and also we are very, very careful and curative when it comes to the selection of the candidates into the team and into the Ather family.
We are in a city of Surat which is a nice city to live in. We are right in the middle of an industrial belt that starts from Mumbai and ends at Ahmedabad and Surat is the largest city in the middle. We have good schools, good colleges in and around the city and there’s a lot of factors that we think of, and this has been the focus of the company for the last 13 years, is finding the top talent and retaining the top talent.
Unidentified Participant
That’s wonderful. Good to hear that, Dr. Amand. And my second question is, you know, when scale up experiments fail, timelines sometimes slip or customer expectations rise, how does Ather’s culture show up on the ground? I mean, what behaviors from leaders and management signal, you know, psychological safety for employees and trust during these high stress moments? Perhaps for some of the employees who are actively engaged in those experiments where. Because experiments by definition are uncertain. So in that context, I mean, what sort of cultural attributes can one see or experience on the ground? Because ultimately it’s the culture that is one of the key differentiators in the fabric of any organization.
Thank you.
Aman Ashwinbhai Desai
Happy to answer questions which are not linked to ratios and numbers and roces, but jokes apart. Great. Very relevant question. The direct answer I think is that. We lead from the top. We are our family and our promoter family is a mix of technical, commercial excellence. Our chairman and managing director, Ashut Desai, our father is a chemical engineer. I am a chemical engineer with a bachelor’s and a PhD in organic chemistry. And so we lead from the top. Especially when there are problems. We are very, very involved. We have about 50 projects going on in R and D today and all of the 50 projects are directly led by myself and indotted lines by our cto Jim Ringer. When the projects are scaled up in the padded plant, the Balaton reports directly to me.
Production and operations via the corresponding leaders report directly to me. And we lead from the top. And especially when there are challenges or upsets, the first one on the ground is the leaders and myself. So really from the top is the short answer to your question. And I think that spreads a culture of responsibility and undertaking across the company. And also we have a culture of stop work at all levels, from the ground employees to the topmost leaders. All people have the capability to stop work whenever it’s a safety issue. And so that freedom and stability is given across the organization.
And that’s the culture being established. The nature of R and D is such that what we tell our leaders is research and development. There are two results and both are equally good results. One is success and one is failure. And so you can fail in the experiments or you can succeed in experiments. And both of them are acceptable outcomes that take some glimpses of the culture that we have. And the other part of that answer. Also is that we try [Ends Abruptly].