Apar Industries Limited (NSE: APARINDS) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Jan. 28, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Kushal Desai — Chairman and Managing Director
Ramesh Iyer — Chief Financial Officer
Chaitanya Desai — Managing Director
Analysts:
Ambesh Tiwari — Analyst
Amit Anwani — Analyst
Nitin Arora — Analyst
Natasha Jain — Analyst
Maulik Patel — Analyst
Levin Shah — Analyst
Prerak Gandhi — Analyst
Nikhil — Analyst
Mayank Bhandari — Analyst
S Karlekar — Analyst
Aman Soni — Analyst
Vimukh Shah — Analyst
Pratik Lambe — Analyst
Piyush Arora — Analyst
Hardik — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Appar Industries Limited Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there’ll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should need assistant during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchstone phone.
I now hand the conference over to Mr Ambesh Tiwari from Essential Technologies. Thank you, and over to you.
Ambesh Tiwari — Analyst
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Tiwari from Essential Technologies. I welcome you all for the Q3 FY ’25 earnings call for Appar Industries. To discuss the business performance and outlook, we have from the management side, Mr Kushal Desai, Chairman and Managing Director; Mr Desai, Managing Director; and the CFO, Mr Ramesh.
I would now pass-on the mic to Mr Kushal Desai for the opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Kushal Desai — Chairman and Managing Director
Yeah. Thank you, Ambesh. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Apar Industries Q3 FY ’25 earnings call. I would like to start by giving an overview of our performance and then follow that up with a short industry update. Post that, I can cover the segmental performance of each of the individual businesses and then open up the floor to questions.
So in Q3 FY ’25, the consolidated revenue came in at INR4,716 crores, which is up 17.7% year-on-year. This was due to a strong volume growth in the domestic business with a continued focus on T&D renewables and business from the railways. Domestic revenue grew 31.8% versus last year. Exports contributed 33.5% to the overall revenue, which is lower than what it was in the same-period the previous year and the number was at 40.7%. Compared to Q2 FY ’25, exports have grown in Q3 FY ’25 by 14.3%. EBITDA, however, is down by 7.1% year-on-year to INR401 crores with the EBITDA margin coming in at 8.5%. Profit-after-tax came in at INR175 crores, which is lower by 19.7% versus Q3 FY ’24. The profit-after-tax margin is at 3.7% compared to 5.4% in the same quarter previous year.
Now looking at figures for the first-nine months compared to the previous year’s period, consolidated revenue came in at INR13,371 crores, which is an all-time high for a Nine-Month period. It is up 14.3% year-on-year. Domestic revenue in the first-nine months was higher by 44.8% versus the previous period and the export mix is 33.4% versus 47% a year-ago. Fundamentally, the domestic business has grown relative to exports and the export business had been affected to some extent due to a slowdown in order booking from some of the territories as well as challenges that had come up on the freight front. Both of these factors seem to be dissipating to some extent with freight due to the Red Sea issues starting to now cool down to some extent and export booking starting to improve.
If you look at the EBITDA post ForEx that came in at INR1,198 crores, which is up 2% compared to the previous year. Our PAT for the nine-month period has come in at INR571 crores, which is 3% lower than the same-period previous year. In terms of some of the key industry highlights, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has reported that there has been remarkable progress in India’s renewable energy sector, highlighting significant achievements between December ’23 and December ’24, where the total solar energy installed capacity amounted to — the addition amounted to 24.54 gigawatts, representing — representing a year-on-year growth of 33.5%. So as of December 2024, the total installed solar and energy capacity stands at 97.86 gigawatts.
Wind energy has also contributed to this expansion with an addition of 3.42 gigawatts installed in the year 2024, increasing the total amount of wind capacity at 48.16 gigawatts with a growth of 7.64%. Our expectation is that the wind capacity will grow at a faster pace as we run-through the calendar year ’25 and ’26. On the transmission lines and substation side, according to the statistics released by CA, the total quantum of transmission lines added for 220 KV and above stood at 5,960 circuit kilometers during the April to December period, which is barely 50% of the planned addition of 11,720 circuit kilometers.
For the entire FY ’25, the planned addition came in at 15,253 circuit kilometers, which is only about 30% of the actual addition that as planned. Regarding the substation addition, according to the CEA statistics, the total transformation capacity added during the nine-month period stood at 46,325 MBA against a planned addition of 70,905 MVA. So this shows only meeting 65% of the target. Having said that, a number of new tenders have been finalized. And in some cases, some of the tenders did not get finalized and went for retendering because the budget values were lower than the quoted values. Given what has happened with the depreciation of the rupee and the movement in the price of copper, aluminum and various other commodities, these tenders which have been refloated are likely to get finalized at higher numbers in the months-to come.
Coming to the individual business performance, I’d like to start with the conductor business. So in Q3 FY ’25, our revenue grew by 23.4% year-on-year, led by a growth in the domestic market. Volumes were overall up by 19%. Exports contributed to 25% of the total revenue as opposed to 40% in the period year-ago. The premium product mix contribution came in at 37.4%. The EBITDA post open period forex came in at INR29,593 per metric ton as against INR41,500 crore in the same-period previous year. The order book, however stands at a healthy INR7,600 crores. New orders received during the quarter was INR3,077 crores, which is 62.3% higher than the same-period previous year.
Our copper business, which includes copper conductors, copper transport conductors for transformers and bus bars is up 31% in the nine-month period over the same-period previous year. The US business in terms of billing has increased in Q3 relative to Q2 by about 8.5% and we see that this trend has now reversed. On a nine-month basis, revenue for the conductor business grew 17.2% and the volume is 8.5% higher than last year. The export mix came in at 24%. The premium products in that mix stands at 39%.
Coming to the oil business vertical, the revenue from the operations degrew by 0.6% year-on-year, but that was largely because of the value of the base oils during this period. Volume has grown by 4.8%. The transformer oil volume was higher by 6.3% versus last year-on a global basis, but was over 18% higher in terms of the domestic growth. Automotive oil grew by 13.5%, largely on the back of an increase in the OEM business. The industrial lubricant part of the business grew 13.8%. The export mix remains healthy in the oil business at 43.8% of the overall revenue. The EBITDA per KL came in at INR6,364 per KL.
If you look at the nine months nine-month comparison, revenue is up 5.8%, reaching INR3,836 crores and with a volume growth of 7.2%. The transformer oil revenues year-on-year are up 16.6%. Export has contributed 44.7% of the overall revenue. The EBITDA per KL stands at INR6,240 rupees per KL as opposed to INR6,257 in the same-period last year.
Coming to our cable business, revenue in Q3 FY ’25 posted a strong revenue growth of 37% to reach INR1,266 crores on the back of strong domestic demand, continued government capex in transmission, distribution, renewables, infrastructure and railways has led to continuing strong demand in the domestic market. Domestic revenue was up 30.4% in Q3 FY ’25. Export was 34% of the mix as against 30.6% in Q3 FY ’24. EBITDA post ForEx recorded a year-on-year growth of 14.2% to reach INR122 crores. The EBITDA margin, however, was 2% lower than Q3 FY ’25.
The pending order remains reasonably strong at INR1,550 crores. Essentially both for the cable and conductor business, the exports which were more profitable have been replaced with domestic business, which in absolute terms has been profitable, but in relevant in relational terms is less profitable than the export. Looking at the nine months period, revenues have grown 27.5%. The domestic business grew by 51.9% for the cables division. Export mix stands at 32% as opposed to 43% from a year-ago. The EBITDA post ForEx grew 10.6% to reach INR348 crores.
On one-hand, we are seeing increased competition in the export market, especially from Chinese producers in territories where there is a level-playing field for Chinese exporters and that includes the Australia, some parts of Africa and Latin-America whereas their presence in the United States has been still limited overall even though US sales are lower than what we would have liked. The period-on-period sales has increased and I think the trend seems to be — has got reversed. We are hopeful that the export demand will improve, we clearly see that freight costs are starting to soften which should also help in terms of the competitiveness of our landed cost.
The phase of energy transition still remains intact. The fundamentals we see have not really changed and we are optimistic that we will be able to continue to reap the benefits as this business grows based on our strong execution capabilities and strategic initiatives that we have taken on innovation and product differentiation. In addition to this, we have also increased our approvals and presence in the US market, which just for cables remains at close to a $20 billion market per annum. And as these approvals increase, especially for utilities, we have an ability to place both conductors and cables at the same customer.
We have a detailed corporate presentation in the Investors section of our website. I would encourage you to please go through that to get a better perspective and a much more detailed perspective on the company, its activities and strategy.
So with this, I’d like to come to the end of my comments and would be happy to take questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchstone 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’ll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles we have the first question from the line of Amit from PL Capital. Please go-ahead.
Amit Anwani
Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. So my first question first, is on the US markets. You did highlighted that there was some recovery and we have been taking more approvals for cables as well to expand and cross-sell in the market. My perspective is if you could highlight on how the view on US now opposed the change in regime there? And is the opportunity size remain same for us in terms of reconducting or all other opportunities which we are building in. That’s my first question. Thank you.
Kushal Desai
Okay. So the change in government and the change in policy-based on some of the statements the President has made generally, there is nothing specific that’s come about with respect to India. I guess only time will tell in terms of where that finally settles down. There are a couple of fundamental facts which are there. One is that electrification in the United States is continuing to increase. They have a certain level of dependence on import. It’s almost like a 50-50 where about 50% of the product that the US market needs is manufactured in the US and close to 50% is imported. And given the time that it takes to set-up a facility in the US, get all the permitting, etc, etc and with the ability to actually source manpower to run these facilities where unemployment is at still a record-low, it may not be very practical to — so if the demand remains there, I guess there will be an import component that will continue.
So at least as of today, we remain committed to working on that market. There are many renewable energy assets that are continuing to be stranded in the absence of evacuation capability. There are still a lot of data centers coming up which require connectivity. So you know, I think time will tell, but at least as of today, we have not seen any signs where you know the business should just suddenly turn-on its head.
Amit Anwani
Right. The second question on the premium products, I was just checking on absolute basis the premium product sales has grown by kind of mid-single digit at I think 2,600 for first-nine months versus 2,450. So is it right understanding that this is getting impacted because of the exports market? Because what we understand, I think last-time we discussed there was a more growth of products happening in the domestic market and domestic market are actually doing pretty strong for us. So what should one understand on the premium product sales are getting softened quarter-on-quarter. Yeah.
Kushal Desai
So there has been — the copper side of the business, as I mentioned, has been quite strong. If you take a nine-month period, it’s actually up 31%. Some of the conductor tenders and other infrastructure like substation, various things have gone into retendering simply because our budget was set-up based on some historical costs and the costs have gone up with respect to copper, aluminum, steel and various other components. So the finalization of some of those tenders have actually not been at the same pace as you know what one would have liked. So some of them have gone back into a retendering mode. As I mentioned in my opening comments, my sense is that as you get into Q4 and then into FY ’26, you’ll start seeing awards of those tenders taking place because the business is right there, the lines need to be put up. This adjustment process has to take place in terms of the budgets that are being allocated against some of these projects?
Amit Anwani
And lastly on —
Kushal Desai
This is in my mind for the HTLS projects as well.
Amit Anwani
You’re right. Yeah. Yeah. Lastly on conductor EBITDA per ton, are we now — any thoughts on INR29,500 EBITDA per ton which we have been guiding? And second on cables margin, which are keeping very low from past two, 3/4 versus FY ’24 and ’23, if you could give some perspective on these two elements? That’s my last question. Yeah.
Ramesh Iyer
Yeah. So on the conductor margins, we continue to have the same guidance as we have been saying earlier, about 285 and that to — typically we look at these margins on an annual basis. This particular quarter, the margins have been low, primarily due to the premium products that got executed in this quarter has been lower than the earlier quarter. At the same time, there is a mix change happening in terms of the geographies where we’ve been selling, there has been less of execution of sale of products in the North-America compensated with some other geographies where the margins has been lower as compared to North-America due to which the margins has been lower in this particular quarter.
So on a YTD basis, we look at it, it’s close to about mid 30,000, but this particular quarter has been affected due to mix change as well as the premium product that has got executed. On the cable margins, well, the domestic market continues to be competitive and price competition is there that we can see. We are also working on various cost optimization strategies so that once the scale of the business achieves the growth, then we’d be able to get some cost reductions over there. But given the current state, this is the market is competitive, that has affected the margins of this quarter. In addition to that, the US business is picking-up. Once we see US business going up in quarters to come, we can see the arrival of margins on the upward trend.
Amit Anwani
Thank you, sir. Thanks for answering my question. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Nitin Arora from Axis Mutual Fund. Please go-ahead.
Nitin Arora
Thanks, for taking my question. Thank you, Ramesh. Just carrying on with what Amit was asking on the profitability. We understand the premium mix was lower, but just a little bit direction-wise because competition has also increased, which you highlighted three, four quarters back-in the export market as well, the Chinese competition ex of US. Does that also looks like that this is something a new normal of kind of a profitability one should work with or you think once the premium mix starts coming back, we should again starts going towards 35% 37% where we were delivering?
And second, on the cable profitability, our top-line is not that heavy and we have started talking about optimization and cost optimizations and competition, which I think was not the commentary about two quarters back, because all the other cable companies are pretty heavy in terms of revenues and all and capacities. So — and I think we guided for a double-digit margin in this year. So apart, if you can throw some light what has significantly changed because the size compared to the industry is still very less and we are talking about competition. These two aspects, please. Thank you.
Kushal Desai
Okay. So looking at the relative size of the cable business, 1/4 ago, if you take the first-half because the first-half results have been declared for all the cable companies, is today the 5th-largest after Polycap KEI have his RR cable. So we’ve gone ahead of. We’ve had a 37% growth in this quarter-over the previous quarter, which would clearly bring us to that number five position. What has fundamentally happened is that the mix has moved for both conductor and cable at the moment more towards the domestic side, where the order books have been stronger. So the margins have been lower relative to the US and some of the export markets.
If you take the Nine-Month margin for cables, we are at 9.6%. So we are just a little bit away from the double-digit period. But clearly, the domestic market does not give us the same profitability as some of the overseas markets does, where there is a premium for the quality of product that is produced relative to what the Indian market offers. As the US business and some of the export business increases, I would see definitely a little bit of an upward bias coming on the margin. But what Ramesh is talking about in terms of cost is that we have a number of initiatives to improve the efficiencies which are there. So we have a very strong industry Ford Auto program that is running.
In our cable business, for example, all the machines, over 400 machines will get hooked up to the platform by the end of March. So you’ll start seeing all that data coming in out in the first-quarter of FY ’26, which actually gives you live 24×7 data on pretty much every rotating machine or every running machine that we have in the division to then start working on pinpointed productivity programs, etc. Some of those cost initiatives are also there, which should help expand the EBITDA and they are essential given the fact that the domestic market does remain competitive in getting it.
So I think the — the benefits that you will reap if you continue — our target is to continue to grow 25% a year-on-year. So when you start executing INR1,200 crores INR1,500 crores — sorry, crores a year to INR6,000 crores a year in terms of revenue, then it is a very — it is a good base on which to run these programs to actually reap the benefit.
Nitin Arora
Question just on the near-term, sorry for asking a little near-term because your numbers are becoming quite volatile quarter-by-quarter and we understand there is a mix issue with respect to US coming back or not. But generally, the sense which you’re getting now post the new regime coming in, are the inquiries level increasing both at the cable and at the conductor division, which you think can rebound or you think it will take at least two, three, four quarters and then we’ll see? I mean, just to understand your confidence on both these segments.
Kushal Desai
Okay. So I think the new regime having come in, Mr Trump has taken office only a week ago. So I guess the dust really needs to settle on that front. The inquiry levels are continuing. In fact, they have been increasing with time, there was a much bigger lull and a greater worry one year-ago compared to what it is today. And as I said, if electrification grows in the United States, then there is no-option, option but for a certain amount of import to come in because local production is able to cater to only 50% of that of the current demand.
Nitin Arora
Got it. Thank you. Very helpful. All the best.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Nutasha Jain from PhillipCapital. Please go-ahead.
Natasha Jain
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my first question is in continuation to what the last participant had asked. Now in terms of US, can you first of all give us any broader sense as to how the margins differentiates between geography India included compared to what we get-in US for cables? Any broad sense would do.
Kushal Desai
So usually you would end-up getting 3% to 3% to 5% plus differential for a like-to-like product for the same application because the US specifications are far more stringent and all products need, for example, we are marketing any electrical product in the United States, you need a UL approval. So the UL approval itself is a fairly stringent process to get the mark. Then post that, the process is similar to the US-FDA where samples are drawn from the field and tested. So you have to continue to deliver the kind of quality of product which has been delivered at the time of the initial approval. And that’s something that’s relatively not so easy compared to whatever happens in India where you don’t have the same kind of scrutiny that takes place. So essentially for companies like us where we believe that we are at the upper-end of the off the pack in terms of the quality of product that we deliver, a market like the US or Europe is always helps us get a premium relative to the Indian market.
Natasha Jain
Understood, sir. So is it fair to say that India in terms of cables would be the lowest margin compared to all other geographies in US on the other extreme ends.
Kushal Desai
India is not the lowest because in India, we do sell a lot of specialized product as well. So we supply to the Indian railways, we supply to the Indian defense. If you look at a — at a typical low voltage cable in India, is about as cheap as you can get anywhere in the world. So our Indian product mix also is the richest product mix in terms of specification of product that’s being sold because we sell a lot of elastomeric and renewables and railways and defense and all these other products. But on a like-to-like basis, if you take a low voltage cable in India versus a low voltage cable in the US or in Australia, then the Indian product is definitely cheaper.
Natasha Jain
Understood. And sir, another question again relating to exports. Now you just mentioned in your opening comments that 50% of the demand for US is still imported and it’s a big market for and also there are not a lot of Chinese players because of all tariffs, et-cetera. So just trying to understand then what is the problem? Why is US export not picking-up if it’s sitting at a most favorable position given Chinese players are not there in the. So please throw some color on that?
Kushal Desai
So the US market for us has started — it has already turned the corner. So as I mentioned in my commentary that for cables, there is an 8.5% sequential growth between Q2 and Q3 and we expect Q4 to be higher than Q3. So the market is definitely starting to — so the excess stock which was there, etc., that’s all pretty much behind us. And the inquiry flow also has started increasing. So it’s not that we are not seeing any inquiries and not seeing demand.
Natasha Jain
Got it. So we can again say that the inventorization has pretty much happened in the US.
Kushal Desai
Yes. Yeah, yeah. In addition to that, where we are optimistic in the in the years to come is that we have been working on approval from utilities, because finally, if it’s a distributor or XYZA, the product — a significant product is bought by US utilities. So we’ve been working on utility approvals all through this period. We’ve actually increased our manpower and infrastructure in the US to service the market. So I think over the periods to come in, we should see increased business.
Natasha Jain
Got it. And sir, my next question is on the domestic side. Now if I see the governmental capex has slowed down, a lot of your peers have also made that commentary and we’ve seen that in the numbers. So my question is more on the near-term, say, maybe a year’s timeframe. Do you think the slowdown in the governmental capex can sleep — can sleep into the power and transmission and this in combination with the fact that a lot of your peers are coming live with capacity this year for cables and huge capacities. So are we at a risk where there can be slightly overcapacity versus low capex spend and therefore low demand on the governmental governmently power and transmission side.
Kushal Desai
So as I mentioned in our — in my opening comments that the catch-up that is required compared to the plan is also because of the whole tendering mechanism. So if you take historical cost when copper and aluminum and all that and if you take the — if you take the rupee value of that because it’s a dollar value multiplied by the exchange rate, all the budgets have — the bids have come in higher than the budget. So as a consequence, the many tenders have gone into REITendering. And that’s one of the reasons why there has been a slowdown in terms of award as well as execution taking place. So our sense is that pace is going to pick-up because those lines are required, that business is required. And also just conductors and cables, there is a shortage of transformers, for example of certain sizes, there is a shortage of certain type of switch gears and other equipment required in the substation. So as all that starts coming through, then you will have the whole chain getting a order flow for the execution to take place.
Natasha Jain
So we can expect the retendering happening probably in FY ’26 first-quarter onwards, right?
Kushal Desai
What’s already happening now also. Many of them are going-in for retender and we have to adjust the prices upward simply because of the increase in the cost which has taken place.
Natasha Jain
Got it. Got it. And sir, last question, if I may. I know your wires portfolio is quite small at this point, but can you just throw some color as to how you’re growing there because it’s one of the fastest growth category products? And in combinations, do you think at an industry level, sitting at overcapacity for wires versus the demand? That’s all. Thank you so much.
Kushal Desai
Okay. So in the wires segment, capacity is not really the bottleneck. It’s very easy and relatively not that expensive to add capacity to manufacture a housewire. It’s a very simple product relatively to make. The key is in terms of your ability to distribute and market the product. We’ve grown
Ramesh Iyer
In that wires category, we have grown about 46 percentage in the nine months FY ’25 versus FY ’24. We’ve increased our distributed presence by 67 percentage. Our retail count has almost double as compared to last year. We are now present in 18 states there and there’s a lot of product awareness and demos that happens. So we are bullish about this particular segment in the wired cables business and we are hopeful for growth going-forward as well.
Kushal Desai
So that segment itself for us because of having a relatively lower base compared to some of the other we sell very — in terms of performance, we sell a wire as right at the top of the spectrum. And as Rameer said the distribution, etc., is all growing and that business will be a INR300 plus crore business for us this year. In addition to that, we’ve also started setting up a B2B distribution business. So you have — so this is just wires. In addition to that, you have light-duty cables also which are sold through a distributor setup. So that’s something that we’ve been working on. So together, those two pieces will well exceed INR350 crores this year and will continue to grow. Now if you see it in the overall context, this year, we will cross INR5,000 crores in the cable business. So it’s still a small percentage of the total, but on an absolute basis, it will continue to grow.
Natasha Jain
Understood, sir. Thank you so much and all the very best.
Kushal Desai
Yeah. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Patel from Equirus. Please go-ahead.
Maulik Patel
Yeah, hi,. Thanks for the opportunity. So on the conductor side, you always guided that the margin will be in the range of around INR25,000 to INR30,000 for a medium-to-long term. And after many quarters, it has come down. But at the same time, your order book has grown very, very handsomely. So the current order book what you have is relatively will further increase your margin from the current level or it is still at as you mentioned, the competitive intensity from China has gone up. So the margin will now probably stabilize at this 25,000, 30,000 kind of range.
Ramesh Iyer
Yeah. So as we have been guiding earlier also the for this conductor division, we need to see margins on a 12-month basis because what happens that in the quarter, the margin gets affected with what you have built and executed in that particular quarter. And as I said, this quarter had a mixture of low premium products, it had a mix change from North-America to some of the other geographies and a mix of thing has all come in this particular quarter. And so you saw the margins being lower. At the same time, we are seeing increase in price competitiveness also in the domestic market. There is price competition over there.
In terms of the order book also, if you see, there is about 20% of the orders that actually gets executed after FY ’26 — one year later from now. So it’s a mix of current orders that will get executed in the next six months as well as something that gets executed after one year. The blended margins could be anywhere between 30,000 35,000 per metric ton, but that will not only be the entire part of it, we’ll have some orders also coming up during the quarter and that will get exhibited in the same quarter as well. So the final EBITDA will really depend on the mix of orders — mix of products getting executed from the pending order book as well as the new orders coming in during the quarter.
Maulik Patel
So got it. And just one bookkeeping question. What’s the acceptance currently?
Ramesh Iyer
Our interest-bearing acceptance is about INR2,500 crores and the total LC is about INR3,300 crores.
Maulik Patel
The acceptance has come down significantly on a quarter-on-quarter basis because I understand that earlier the run-rate was used to be around INR4,000 crores or so.
Ramesh Iyer
Yes. So we have been optimizing our working capital on that front and the cash that has been generated in the business we have been using to make cash purchases or to reduce the level of acceptance and that is also helping us in terms of overall working capital cycle.
Maulik Patel
Your interest cost has not come down. I think quarter-on-quarter the interest cost has gone up, the acceptance has come down from INR4,000 crore to INR2,500 crore is the interest cost should have come down.
Ramesh Iyer
Yes. So this quarter, the interest cost has actually gone up because of two reasons. One is that there is an increase in exchange rate from — it’s been touching about $85 per dollar. And because of that, to some part of the increase in exchange rate gets reclassified to finance cost as per the way our accounting standards are there. In addition to that, when we discount some of our receivables, there is an increase in interest cost. So these two factors account for higher interest cost in this particular quarter.
Maulik Patel
I think you mentioned that the exchanges fluctuation, so are you shifting your acceptance any — and converting into the LC, which is from the local banks?
Ramesh Iyer
Yes. We have domestic LCs as well as import LCs. And to the extent of revaluation of the import LCs, some part of that exchange rate change can form part of the finance cost. And therefore, we see some finance cost has gone up, especially in this quarter because we have this import LC revaluation affected this finance cost.
Maulik Patel
What could be the debt, long-term and short-term debt or this nine months at the December end?
Kushal Desai
Sorry, I didn’t get you.
Maulik Patel
Debt — the borrowings at the end of this December or
Ramesh Iyer
The short-term debt is about INR120 crores. The long-term debt is about INR330 crore.
Maulik Patel
Substantial decrease if I look at combined from long-term short-term plus acceptance, which was around INR4,000 crore at the end of September and now you mentioned that it’s INR2,500 crore-plus 500 — INR2,500 crore of acceptance and INR500 crore of borrowings, it’s INR3,000 crore only. So you paid back around INR1,000 crore in this quarter. Am I right?
Ramesh Iyer
The interest-bearing is INR2,500 and the total LC is INR3,300 crores. That’s how the number comes.
Maulik Patel
Okay, okay. Okay. I think that acceptance number is also included in the non-interest bearing also component correct. Got it. Thank you. And just one more question. What’s the capex you have done so-far and the outlook for the next year, if you have probably finished the budget for the FY ’26.
Ramesh Iyer
Capex is — till nine months, you’ve done about INR270 crores, and the budget, of course, is underway. So we are going to — we’ll be finalizing it in the next month or so.
Maulik Patel
Great. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Levin Shah from Motilal Oswal. Please go-ahead.
Levin Shah
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is again on the US market. So when we see this quarter’s numbers, like Y-o-Y, the numbers are flat and sequentially, the US revenues overall for the company have grown by 8.5%. So when we look at margins, there has been a big drop both in cable and conductor you explained some of it, but despite US recovering quarter-on-quarter, the margins have gone down substantially. So can you help us explain what’s the — what’s impacting the margin despite US improving?
Kushal Desai
So in the short-term, there was an impact on freight for shipments that went to the US because suddenly you had this right sea issue and freight rates in the short-term had really shot up. Since the deliveries are on partly on DDP basis, there was — there was higher freight that was incurred, not only for the US, but for anything that otherwise would have gone through the Red Sea. So there were some of those factors that did come in. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, that has started also turning around and with this true stretch happened in the Middle-East, et-cetera, we — I think that will also settle down over some period of time. Plus, you’ve got to keep in mind that the domestic business also had gone up. So when you say US has gone up sequentially, overall exports have not increased over the same-period previous year.
Levin Shah
Yeah, sir, I was more comparing it with previous quarters. So Q2, the US share would have been lower versus Q3. Despite that, the Q2 margin —
Kushal Desai
So the US business is picking-up, but sir, the overall export business has not gone up substantially quarter-on-quarter.
Levin Shah
Yeah. Sure. And just on the US market per se, because that’s like our largest export market, excluding the shipping cost, if you were to look at contribution of gross margins on product like-to-like, has that gone down significantly due to competitive intensity or that has been intact?
Kushal Desai
No, so there has been some erosion in the margin, but it’s not — it’s not a huge erosion in the margin. So the competitiveness has been there, but it’s still better than what we would have got in the domestic market or even compared to many export markets, especially in areas where the UL approvals are not held by multiple competitors.
Levin Shah
Right. So, sir, will it be fair to say that once the US market recovers beginning Q4, we should — obviously, I understand that officially our guidance stays on the conductor margins, but we should see margin improvement because the US market will also pick-up and the shipping issue is also behind now.
Kushal Desai
Well, our target is to get you know up to 11% to 12% and so every effort is being made in that direction.
Levin Shah
Sure. And this 11% to 12% is a blended margin side, we are talking.
Ramesh Iyer
Cable division
Kushal Desai
And cable division has a cable.
Levin Shah
Okay. And on the conductor part, sir, with the US market improving, that segment should also see improvement in margin side sequentially?
Ramesh Iyer
Yeah, we have been guiding the number earlier and we continue with that guidance. There is no change in our guidance as what we have said earlier. Of course, with some tailwind and with the US mix improving, it can — it can be better, but we also need to see how the domestic market margins pans up during that period. But we continue with the guidance that we have shared earlier.
Kushal Desai
So there are two, three fundamental things which one can keep in mind, especially, see, near-term in this sort of a business where it’s more difficult to predict than something which is in the medium to longer-term. So a few fundamental changes have happened. One is that the base category of conductor has moved in India from ACSR to AL59. So that’s one big change that has happened.
Second thing that has happened in the short-term is that many tenders have gone back for reevaluation and refloating because the bids that came in exceeded the budgets on those tenders. So the — the premium product side has got a little bit slowed down. The third thing is that there is a clear case that reconducting to increase capacity going from point a to point B is far faster and better to do than setting up a brand-new line. And that’s something that CEA and the Government of India also understands in a more comprehensive policy in that direction is being looked at.
Number four is our renewable energy assets are continuing to grow. You see, wind has grown in single-digit, not double-digit in terms of the additions. But going-forward, there is a lot of wind capacity that’s actually coming on-stream. That again has a consequent impact on the business that Apar gets because we have a very good market-share on the wind side. So all of these things are pointing towards a better medium to longer-term position, even in the domestic market.
Levin Shah
Sure, that was helpful. Sir, and my last question is on-again on the US market. So what we have seen is post the new government there, they have put on-hold the IRA benefits that were to be given to the new renewable assets that were being put up. So how much of our revenue stand to impact due to this IRA regulation change in the US market?
Kushal Desai
So I think it’s just too early to sit and it’s just too early to sit and make a call on that. I think with a little bit of time passing by, the picture will get clearer. However, we have to keep in mind that some of these renewable assets generate power also very competitively in terms of cost. And if the cost of hydrocarbons like you’ve seen the brent and all of this also going up, it’s making renewables more competitive. Relatively. So some of these things have been put on-hold, but there is no judgment that has been passing that is to be canceled or any such thing. So I think before reacting immediately, some more time needs to pass by for clarity to prevail. Having said that, electrical requirements are going up and not down.
Levin Shah
Sure. So what I was trying to understand is how much of our cable segment — because I understand conductor segment may not be impacted with this IRA going away, if at all that happens. But how much of the cable segment revenue today would be related to this IRA related capex.
Kushal Desai
So we have a full mix of cables going-in there, right? We have medium voltage cables going-in there, we have or PV cables which are for renewables. We have cables that go into building and other infrastructure. So there is a whole range of cables. If you go to the Appar website you will see all the approvals in there and you’ll see all the different applications which they go into. So it’s not all focused only around you know renewables.
Levin Shah
Sure, sure. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot for the opportunity.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Pradak Gandhi. Please go-ahead.
Prerak Gandhi
Yes, hello, sir. Congratulations on the numbers and thank you for taking the question. So first of all, the thing is that you were bullish on the wind sector comparative to the solar despite solar being targeted at 300 gigawatts for the year FY 2030. So why do we see a faster growth in wind sector compared to the solar sector? And secondly, sir, with Trum coming in, US will be pushing for more indigenous operators, right? So do we see a loss of market-share over there in the near-future or at least in the medium-term.
Kushal Desai
Okay. So let me answer both your questions one-by-one. I didn’t say that I’m expecting a slowdown in the solar side. The solar side is continuing to grow. Wind has grown only single-digit year-on-year and we see that the wind capacity getting added in India is going to increase. So you will see another dimension of growth coming in. As the windmills increase, the cable business that is catering to windmills should also increase. And here, whatever growth happens, stands to gain because we have a very significant share in that segment. So I just wanted to clarify that part. As far as the — the second question was pertaining to
Prerak Gandhi
US from coming in.
Kushal Desai
So that I think we already answered that it’s just a matter of time before which we’ll get to know the clarity. Our market-share in the US is very minuscule. If you see $20 billion of cables being imported, we are not even at 1% of that. We are like at 1% of the import taking place. So there is a huge room to grow as long as there is a need for the cable and it can’t be produced locally, there is a — there is a potential for us to sell there.
Prerak Gandhi
Exactly. And sir, just a last question. Sir, the government, as per the report, we have seen that the capex cycle has been very slow. So do we expect the capex which is left in this past six months and the capex which will be announced in the budget, do we see an extension push towards the capex in the next nine months or next fiscal year?
Chaitanya Desai
Actually, in our conductor business, we have been seeing a good order flow and we anticipate that in future also based on already orders which have been placed at the Apex level and then to the EPC community, those orders either from the developers or from the EPC companies will keep us going for the whole next financial year. And even beyond that, we see a good flow of orders. So yeah, as we explained that the market has moved from one variety of conductor to another. So we see that business continuing in terms of strong demand in the local market.
Prerak Gandhi
Awesome. Thanks a lot, sir, and all the best. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Nikhil from Kizuna Well. Please go-ahead.
Nikhil
Yeah, hi. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Sir, I have one question like we said that Chinese players are entering the market where they have a fair — fair position, like in the markets in Australia, Africa and Latin-America. So what is the power strategy to compete with them in those markets? And sir, my second question is like in the export markets or employees are increasing and our order inflows are also increasing. Is there any kind of execution delays happening there because our export mix is going down.
Chaitanya Desai
So with regard to the Chinese, you know, having the advantage currently in certain geographies, it’s on account of the cheaper raw-material that they have in China, because the Government of China has made certain changes in their taxation and support to the various industries in China, which is enabling the Chinese conductor manufacturer or cable manufacturer to get Chinese aluminium at a much cheaper price compared to the rest of the world and that is helping them. So we have seen these cycles in the past come and go. Over a period of time, these are not sustainable because definitely if the price of the aluminum in China has kept at a lower number, number than it means the Chinese aluminum producers suffering as opposed to getting a fair price compared to the rest of the world. So we don’t think this may continue for long, but till it continues on, we feel it is better not to participate just for the sake of competing and incurring losses, it’s better to divert our capacity to the next best realization market, which is the Indian market. So this is the strategy we have taken for now.
Nikhil
Yes, sir. Understood. Sir, sir, my second question was like our export inquiries are increasing and our order inflows are also increasing in export because our order inflows are like 31% and our total order inflow was 67% up. So I’m asking that, is there any kind of delay in execution? Is there any kind of regulation problem going on there in the execution of export orders or something like that?
Chaitanya Desai
So some of the markets they have staggered delivery requirement. And generally in some of those countries, especially in the US, the procedures are more cumbersome in terms of actually starting the work on-the-ground compared to in India. India is one of the fastest for actually putting up the transmission lines. So yes, some delays have happened. But now things are sort of looking more clear in terms of orders on-hand and also in terms of the execution.
Nikhil
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Mayang Bhandari from. Please go-ahead
Mayank Bhandari
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my first question is on the revenue growth you’ve shown 23% in the conductor business and 17% in the nine-month period. If I were to understand the ForEx impact in this, what would be the ForEx impact in the growth — top-line growth for this?
Ramesh Iyer
It’s difficult to put a number exactly on the ForEx impact on the growth number because the top-line actually gets driven by your commodity prices, aluminum price, exchange rates and also the volume growth and also the mix of the product that goes into in some of the export markets, it also depends on whether the selling prices, including freight, whether it is a CIF contract, BDP contract or an FOB contract. So it’s a mixture of many things that goes into the value growth numbers. So it is difficult to separately identify which part has contributed to what. And therefore, we look at more volume numbers than the value numbers for this purpose.
Mayank Bhandari
So, sir, 19% of volume growth and 23% of value growth, the differential of 4% includes product mix and other factors you mentioned.
Chaitanya Desai
Various other factors, yes, as I mentioned, yes.
Mayank Bhandari
So product mix has ideally deteriorated this quarter.
Chaitanya Desai
As I said, it’s tough to put that number because it depends, as I said, product mix, export domestic ratio and within export also CIF, DDP contracts, FOB contracts, the price of aluminum and metals also that has also changed quarter-on-quarter. So it’s a mixed bag of various things that gets into the sales value growth.
Mayank Bhandari
Okay. And similar thing on the EBITDA post open period 4x that you show of INR29,593. So is there any number which is like three open forex period.
Chaitanya Desai
We have been sharing that earlier, but now consistently we have been using the post-open period from that number because that’s the number we have been consistently using it and it gives a proper representation for the business at all.
Mayank Bhandari
So I think for the other segments also, it is not possible to give breakdown in the volume and value.
Chaitanya Desai
Is it the same reason supply for all the divisions?
Mayank Bhandari
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of S. from HSBC. Please go-ahead.
S Karlekar
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, you highlighted 20 billion USA cable imports as a large opportunity. Sir, may I ask how much of that is really addressable considering the product portfolio that Appar has and the certification that you already have.
Kushal Desai
So in terms of the addressable products which we have, it is catering to over 50% of the — of the market in terms of — I mean the categories that we have UL approval for is almost 50% of the US market.
S Karlekar
Okay. So broadly more than 10 billion is
Kushal Desai
Report. Yeah
S Karlekar
Understand 50% of 20% — 20 billion number, right?
Kushal Desai
Yeah, that is the gross opportunity that is out there.
S Karlekar
Right. And sir, you also highlighted that in the meantime, when market was weak in US, you have been seeking approvals from the end-customers such as utilities. May I ask how far have you reached in that journey in terms of whether you’re in early-stage or mid-stage.
Kushal Desai
So I’d still say that we are in early-stage, simply because the number of utilities in the US is a very large number. There are over 300 utilities in the US, of which about 25 30 of them are very large in size and the rest of them then — because it’s a regional based your system. But the approval flow has continued — we are continuing to appoint more-and-more manufacturing reps make presentations to utilities and customers, etc. So the approval base is growing.
S Karlekar
Understood. And sir, my third and last question is that you highlighted retendering of orders because of the coated price coming higher than the budgeted price. Is that specific to power grid or that — is that the phenomena across other state department, central departments and PSUs?
Kushal Desai
Yeah, it is across various state utilities also and power grid also.
S Karlekar
Understood, sir. Thank you for answering my question and all the very best.
Kushal Desai
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Aman Soni from Invest Analytics. Please go-ahead
Aman Soni
Hello.
Operator
Yes, Mr Soni, go-ahead with your question.
Aman Soni
Could you provide insights on the anticipated capital expenditure allocation for the power sector in the upcoming financial budgets, especially, is there any indication of potential reduction in the government capex for the sector?
Kushal Desai
So I think I wouldn’t be in a position to just you know, answer that straight. But the fact that the government has been pushing for more renewable energy and more power assets to be added, I would not think that the budgets would be lower than what for FY ’26 would be lower than what they are for FY ’25. In any case, the — not all of it is funded by the government because there are tariff-based competitive bidding. So depending on who wins the business, then that is funded by the concerned developer. So as long as the projects happen, irrespect of who wins the business, government promoted company or otherwise, the growth should happen and it is a lot of it is driven by renewable energy where again a lot of the developers are non-government concerned.
Aman Soni
Thank you
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Amit from PL Capital. Please go-ahead.
Amit Anwani
Hi, sir. Thanks. Just a couple of more questions. One on domestic side, we have seen quite a strong growth and as you highlighted, the key reasons also wanted to understand which part of domestic side you’re facing competition? Is it premium products, conventional products, AL-59 and what was — any sense on what was the mix in first-nine months conventional versus AL-59 versus premium in domestic market?
Chaitanya Desai
Yeah. So we have converted most of the ACSR products into the AL59 products now. So that mix has completely been changed. It’s a much more superior product than the traditional ACSR product.
Kushal Desai
Which will fall under conventional.
Chaitanya Desai
Yeah, but it’s still — it’s still part of the conventional, but it’s on a higher-end of the conventional product.
Kushal Desai
And as far as the competition is concerned, currently, the market is much larger than the new supplies which are coming in the form of new entrants. But just that the overall structure in the Indian market does not allow very-high margins compared to some of the other markets outside. So the profitability difference is more on account of the product mix and geography mix as opposed to competition level.
Amit Anwani
Right? Possible to share how was what was the contribution in domestic market from AL-59 past nine months.
Chaitanya Desai
We don’t share that product level details, Samit
Amit Anwani
Right. Sir, last question on if possible for us to share the US sales contribution segment-wise or overall company-level.
Chaitanya Desai
It has improved sequentially, but the specific of that mix, we don’t share it out. But quarter-on-quarter it has improved by 8.5 percentage.
Amit Anwani
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Vimuk Shah from Goyam Labi Fintech. Please go-ahead.
Vimukh Shah
Yes, sir. Thank you for providing the opportunity. So I wanted to know that what are the trends that you are observing for the cooling solution in the data center and how we are positioning this need basically what are the opportunities do you see in this sector?
Kushal Desai
So you know so-far I mean cooling solutions in data centers are still at an early-stage most of the data centers are still using air so basically use cold air to you know take-away the heat and air is the worst conductor that’s out there. Liquid waste cooling can be significantly better but you know when you are looking at such strong SLAs and such high uptimes, it is not easy for you to try out a liquid solution versus this airs — air-cooling solution. So we’ve not — even though we have products in-place, we’ve also develop products. We’ve not yet been able to get it tested out at a test site. That’s why you don’t hear us talking much about our — because the product is actually fundamentally quite similar to a transformer. The whole difficulty is not in producing a product but is in getting a test site to produce — to test the product out.
Vimukh Shah
Okay. So are we looking to test into that segment actively or
Kushal Desai
So we are constantly in touch, but we haven’t yet had any breakthrough on that front. However, having said that, we are supplying cables to the data centers. And in that we have all the big names. So we have supplied to AWS, which is Amazon in India, we have supplied Microsoft. We have supplied Google, we have supplied Adani. So we have supplied all of these people and continue to bid on their cable business, but we haven’t had a chance of yet being able to get a test site for testing out our liquid cooling solution.
Vimukh Shah
Okay. Okay. My second question was like what are your growth expectations for the domestic market compared to the international market for upcoming financial year.
Ramesh Iyer
We have given a mixed guidance for both the domestic and global market put together and that’s what we continue to hold even now, which is cables division top-line growth of 25 percentage on value terms, conductor division about 10 percentage on volume terms and oil division about 5% to 8 percentage on volume terms. So it’s a blended of both domestic and export market. And depending on where the margins are higher, you may see domestic mix going higher or export mix going higher and also depending on external factors like US demand, etc., the mix during the period may keep on changing as you go-ahead.
Vimukh Shah
Okay. Okay. Thank you. That’s it. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Lambe from Individual Investor. Please go-ahead.
Pratik Lambe
Yeah. Hello, Kushal, sir. Thank you for the opportunity at this end-of-the call. I just had one question on the industry front, basically the transpar transmission industry in India. You alluded to your comments and also in your response to one of the participants that basically the slowdown in execution in the power transmission space is one of the reasons that you alluded to was due to the shortfall in — or the shortages of the components such as the transformers or the other things. So is that the main reason or any other key factors that you could associate with that slowdown? Because I feel — I understand that there has been a significant growth in the tendering activity as compared to last financial year, but it hasn’t happened on-the-ground. So could you — give some color on that or any other additional reasons for that?
Kushal Desai
Yeah. So let’s look — so there are various aspects to look at. One is that you know, the CEA has declared their plans. These are the time-frames in which they want to have addition. So when you compare versus what they’ve declared and what they themselves have declared in terms of achievement, there is a big gap, which is what I had brought up in the opening comments. Second thing is, tenders have been floated, but they have — there is a delay in their finalization. In some cases, tenders have just recently been finalized. So the execution is to take place. In some cases, the tenders have gone for retendering because they’ve had to fix the budgetary price quote or the price level.
So my — the reason for bringing all of this up is that there is a — there is significant pent-up demand. There were questions that people were asking on the — on the call that do you see government spending going down, will business come up in the next year — next few years like it has come up in the past. So I think these are all hints towards, what we feel is that the business is not going to slow-down. There is a pent-up demand which is there in-place compared to whatever the CEAs themselves have identified that they should have executed. They are run — they’re running at 50% for this transmission line side and if you look at the substation side, they are at 65% or whatever numbers that these themselves have declared. So there is going to be a catch-up going-forward. And there are some capacity increases taking place, but I think they’ll get absorbed against you know this increased demand that is going to happen.
Pratik Lambe
Okay. But even Kushal, sir, that 5,000 number that we have done in this nine-month period is still very low as compared to ’24, around 14,000 some circuit kilometers were added in the last financial year, but in the nine months, we are only at 5,000, leave aside the target. So of course, maybe election would have been one of the reasons, but there are some serious challenges faced by the — at the execution level, I understand.
Kushal Desai
So actually the execution level, especially for conductors, India is actually one of the best-in the world. We — a typical line from the time it’s been awarded, it actually runs in about three — between three and four years, a full-line comes up versus 10 plus years in the United States and something even longer than that in Europe. Now when you get a number reported here, it is actually a commission line. So it could be — they don’t — this commentary is not carrying what stage of completion is there for the gap. But our sense is that this tendering is going to continue to take place and the government is very aware of the total amount of electricity that needs to be moved. A lot of new-generation, you heard also the record amount of solar that has been awarded and is being generated. A lot of that is actually Gujarat, Rajasthan and in remote places. So you need evacuation lines that will bring the power in. So bottom-line, I think at this stage is that business is not going to subside in the local — in the domestic market. Looks like there is good amount of steam for the next few years to come.
Pratik Lambe
All right, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much for your response.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Piyush Arora from SYC Research. Please go-ahead.
Piyush Arora
Yes, sir. Just a question, just on the overall EBITDA margins of the company, do you think Q3 was the absolute bottom and we could see it basically moving up over the next financial year?
Ramesh Iyer
Yeah. Yeah. So as I said, do we continue to hold the guidances that we’ve given in the past and for the kind of product-line that we have, it is better to see these margins on a 12 month basis rather than on a quarter-on-quarter basis next question.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Harvek from an individual investor. Please go-ahead.
Hardik
Hello.
Operator
Yes, Sajek, your line is unmuted. Please proceed with your question.
Hardik
Yeah, my question is, this quarter the other expenses have increased by INR50 crores. Any light you can throw on it?
Chaitanya Desai
But that happens because of the terms of shipment. In some cases, the selling and general administration cost goes up depending on whether it is FOB contract or CIF contract, the freight cost, the processing cost and generally the selling, general and administration overheads changes depending on the product mix and the kind of sales that happens. So that’s the reason you see that swing happening.
Hardik
Is a reoccurring one for the next quarter or is it just
Chaitanya Desai
Sorry?
Hardik
For the other quarters, coming quarters or is it a one-time expense?
Chaitanya Desai
No, it’s better we measure based on the EBITDA because that takes into account all these factors. Typically other expenses can go up-and-down and most of it is already priced to the customers. However, the EBITDA margins and EBITDA percentage that we use takes into account all these kind of permutations and combination. So that’s a better way to judge the results.
Operator
Actually, what would be the overall growth rate for the coming year?
Chaitanya Desai
We have shared the guidances earlier. I repeated also in the call. So we continue to hold those guidances
Operator
Sir, you have any further questions?
Hardik
Thank you. That’s it.
Operator
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Mr Kushal Desai for closing comments.
Kushal Desai
Yeah. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for having taken out the time to attend our Q3 earnings call. Just in conclusion, I’d like to mention that the fundamental premise of electrification increasing and the electrical infrastructure increasing not only in India, but in most parts of the world as the energy transition takes place, there is really nothing that has changed this fundamental premise. Appar continues to remain focused in terms of growing the premium products in the domestic market as well as looking at growing the export markets. A market of specific focus for us has been the US market. And we believe that the fundamental steps there have to be taken — have to be done irrespective of whatever the policy is, which is to focus on getting utility approvals and building your credentials with respect to a larger customer-base in that market.
50% of the cables are imported into the United States and that equation cannot change in a big hurry as long as the demand exists. In the Indian market, we are seeing growth in the renewable side, both in terms of solar. Our expectation is that wind assets will get added at a faster pace, you know going-forward. We continue to grow our business in the infra space, especially with respect to railways, defense and these sectors as well. As Ramesh has guided, you know, all businesses are still looking at growing year-on-year even if there may be some short-term changes that happen because of certain events or because there is a movement in terms of freight or foreign-exchange rates, etc., etc.
If these businesses are looked at over 12 months or a longer period, I think the fundamental premise still remains the same. In addition to that, we’ve been running a number of programs to improve productivity and alluded to Industry 4.0 for the cable business, which is at a fairly advanced-stage. Once we start reaping the benefits of that, there will be a much more rapid implementation that happens in the conductor business, where a certain portion of equipments are actually common. And so productivity will also help drive some of the margins. So we still remain fairly optimistic and don’t believe that there is any fundamental changes that have — that have happened. So I’d like to leave you with that thought and once again, thank you for joining our Q3 earnings call.
Operator
Thank you. On behalf of Abar Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.