Cyient Limited (NSE: CYIENT) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Jul. 24, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Krishna Bodanapu — Executive Vice Chairman and Managing Director
Sukamal Banerjee — Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer
Prabhakar Atla — President and Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Sandeep Shah — Analyst
Kanshi Shah — Analyst
Shradha Agarwal — Analyst
Moez Chandani — Analyst
Dipesh Mehta — Analyst
Vivek Gupta — Analyst
Bhavik Mehta — Analyst
Pritesh Thakkar — Analyst
Ankur Pant — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Science Limited Q1 FY ’26 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 zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.I now hand the conference over to Mr Krishna Burinapu, Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Krishna Bodanapu — Executive Vice Chairman and Managing Director
Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Science Limited’s earnings call for the first-quarter of FY ’26. I’m Krishna, Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director and present with me on this call are Mr Sukumal Banerjee, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr, President and Chief Financial Officer.
Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today’s discussions may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. A detailed statement in this regard is available in our Investor Update, which has been emailed to you and is also posted on our corporate website. This call will be accompanied by an earnings call presentation, the details of which have been already shared with you.
Firstly, with the carve-out of the semiconductor business from BEP, the normal is segments under which we report our Group performance will be updated in this quarter. These segments will now include BEP, which is our engineering, technology and digital business in the traditional engineering business, but does not include the semiconductor business. P&L, which as you know is P&L, which is our manufacturing business in which time holds about 52% ownership.
The semiconductor business, which is now a fully-owned subsidy, but a service subsidiary with its own leaders, with its own management and with its own structure. And a segment called others where there’s a few smaller businesses, which are not material, but we will be part of our specifically for the moment. So the normal with which we will report going-forward will happen in four segments.
So the focus of this call will remain the segment. And to that extent, all numbers for the segment are like-for-like in the previous period, which means that the numbers have been restated to exclude our semiconductor business. The group numbers will include performance of all four segments coming to the highlights for this quarter, it is my pleasure to announce that the semiconductor business has been completed as planned.
As you know, the semiconductor business will be run as a start-up investment position for accelerated growth in an extremely fast-growing market where we have a strong value proposition. With our strong IT portfolio produce global talent and long-standing customer relationships. Science semiconductor is very well-positioned to tap into the high-growth opportunities in this semiconductor markets.
We’ve seen significant in the business from our customers, our partners and investors. For this business, the order intake for the quarter has exceeded budget by about 10%, reflecting growing customer interest in both our turnkey solutions and service offerings. This positive trans traction has already translated into early wins of large-scale programs.
I’m happy to report that we have onboarded several key hires and I can confidently say that we’re building one of the most competent high-performance teams in the industry, led by Suman Naray as the CEO; and as the CFO. We also have a stellar advisory Board of Industry veterans for helping us set-up the business and also helping us generate income.
Like I said, this is a start-up kind of an investment positioned for accelerated growth in a fast-growing market and we believe we have a very, very strong value proposition for this market, which will play-out in the coming quarters and years. The semiconductor business is a very ecosystem business, and I’m happy to say that we building a very strong partner ecosystem.
Along these lines, we have partnered with Smith to develop custom risk-based intelligence power solutions for AI power delivery, industrial robots and automotive markets. All these markets, as you know are fast-growing markets and show immense potential for growth.
Our collaboration with allows us to bring together embedded intelligence and advance our architecture in custom services platform built on a scalable and open platform. Coming to the DLM business, I’m pleased to announce that we’re seeing increased traction in our for B2S business. These tap into our design-led manufacturing capabilities that leverage both the design capabilities that resize within DEC and the manufacturing capabilities that reside within DLM.
Leveraging our aerospace expertise, Scient BLM and will deliver a unique world-class cabin management solution for the D2 — sorry, for the eco-class aircraft. This deal reiterates the distinct value proposition that time brings to its customers in terms of full-spoke product development and manufacturing, especially the safety crystal sectors like.
Further, and as you know, Science has always been a forerunner in-building a still steady India to address global opportunities and the global capacity constraints in ER&D and technology sectors. We are proud to announce our partnership with AICB in this direction and believe that we will be and believe that this will be a significant step towards realizing India’s potential as a global innovation Powerhouse. I believe that this initiative will help build an ER&D industry-ready diversified talent pool beyond just Tier-1 business, which is really the name of the. As you know, Mr Sukumar Banerjee joined us as the CEO in the middle of the Q4 of last year. This is the first-quarter as the CEO of the first full-quarter as the CEO of Times Limited and we will now take us through the business. But before that, I want to thank Sukumar for a very, very strong start to the ending and a very strong quarter to start the year. With that, Suman, over to you.
Sukamal Banerjee — Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Krishna and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you again for joining our Q1 earnings call. Let me walk you through our Q1 FY ’26 performance and also share some key updates from a business perspective. Firstly, on headline results, we closed the quarter with revenue of $162 million, $162.7 million or in goodry terms.
And that translates to in US dollar terms, a growth of 0.9% quarter-over-quarter and a 1% year-over-year growth. In constant-currency terms, that translates to a decline of 1.5% quarter-over-quarter and remained flat year-over-year. Our EBIT stood at 12%, down 63 basis-points quarter-over-quarter and 61 basis-points year-over-year.
We are seeing strong traction in our new deals and opportunities, that is our non-renewal business from an order intake perspective. And as a measure, this has grown from 18% of our order intake in Q4 to 21% of our order intake in Q1, and we’ll continue to monitor this from a new business perspective. This momentum is expected to continue as we shift our pipeline to more of our growth or estate areas and studies that we are creating from that perspective.
As we mentioned in the last quarter, we have disbanded the aggregated business unit, which we used to call sustainability and we operate these business units with respective market focus. Hence, we are also redoing our reporting segment starting this quarter and we will ensure that you get all the comparatives from this perspective.
We’ll be reporting hence in three reporting segments. The first one being transportation and mobility, which is the transportation business of Aero and rail and we will be including auto and mobility as part of this. The second would be networks and infrastructure, which used to be our connectivity business and the utilities and geospecial business. We are bringing this together for various reasons, including similar focus in terms of service line. Also it creates the focus around intelligent management of networks and grades that we see good interest and traction and common technology basis to be leveraged.
And the third, we would be calling it the strategic units, which contributes of healthcare and life sciences, mining and minerals and energy. So to share some business unit performance-based on these three reporting segments, Transportation and mobility grew for us 2.5% quarter-over-quarter. These numbers are in US dollar terms and 7.3% year-over-year led by strong performance in the transportation segment. Networks and infrastructure declined 2.9% quarter-over-quarter and was flat year-over-year with a 0.2% marginal decline.
The Strategic saw a decline of 1.9% quarter-over-quarter and 6.3% year-over-year. Within these three business units, which constitute strategic units, two of them grew and one of them saw a double-digit quarter-over-quarter growth. My focus of go-forward, we have talked about the investment that we have been making around technology and how we’re going to take technology as a go-forward growth engine building on the core businesses that we have built over many years.
So the key — a key thing here is to ensure that we differentiate with our strength, which is our strong domain knowledge in each of these industry segments, each of the product areas and the products are life-cycle areas that we have been operating in for a long period of time. Hence, from our perspective, it is domain plus AI and domain plus digital, which is our GBM focus.
This quarter, our CPO team has sharpened our focus with three core tech-driven offerings, supported by four strategic technology. The three areas being asset lifecycle management, AI-driven engineering and quality and regulatory assurance. And from a core technology area perspective, they are data engineering, AI, platform software and embedded and product security.
So as we take this to-market, customer response has been quite encouraging and our strong foundation in core engine helps us to build credibility in these new areas from a domain led digital transformation and technology transformation perspective. Now to share some wins that we have had during this quarter, firstly, happy to share that we won a deal with an EPAC-based communication service provider for nearly $23 million for their wireless infrastructure rollout.
A global medical devices leader selected as their AI partner to established a AI Center of Excellence to build and scale operational and clinical solutions. Our Vodapur selected science AI-powered global network visibility management solutions has gone. The platform supported by data-driven intelligent confirmation analytics results in almost 50% decrease in errors and a time to fix these errors. This was a selection at a corporate-level, giving us the opportunity to take this offering across all entities across the globe, which is entities across the globe.
So for a private leader in private jet, an AFM manufacturer of private jet, we won a deal against one of the big four incumbents, a deal to digitize technical publication, demonstrating our domain plus digital technology progress in the market and in this quarter, we added 14 new logos in-quarter one. Apart from the initial deal closed in Q1, we see a continued pipeline of opportunities from these customers.
In US dollar terms, our key accounts, which constributes of 36 accounts grew 11% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter and from the top-20 accounts perspective, it grew 10% year-over-year and 6% quarter-on-quarter are showing the focus that we are bringing on our top customers and how business is moving from that.
So from an employees and customer engagement perspective, I’m happy to share our associate satisfaction survey for 2025 put us in the top-quartile of all tech companies with a score of 90. Our CSAT survey, our customer satisfaction survey are is the highest score that we have bought since 2011, again facing us in the top quartine amongst tech services industry. We have also taken a step unlike many of our peers to commit to our employees by going ahead with a phased merit increase rollout in Q1 of FY ’26, we commit — we remain committed to rewarding performance while staying prudent in the current market environment.
However, we would also like to ensure we stay focused on people first derived from our values first people. Quickly, let me add some leadership updates as we have been building up our leadership team and the changes that we have brought and the necessary talent as we go-forward in our journey.
So we welcome Kavita Kuru as our Chief People Officer. She joins us after a near six-year at USC Global, where she plays the Chief People Officer and other strategy roles through a high-growth phase of that company. We welcome Aruna Broy slightly earlier in this quarter after a stellar career in Tech Mahindra to become the SVP of our Connectivity Business Unit; and Ram, who joined us after to lead the HLS Healthcare and Life Sciences BU and who had a long stand at Tech focused on med devices and has joined us this last quarter as part of our leadership team and as we build-out our leadership team.
We also got recognition from several analysts let me share I’m happy to share that Zinor selected us in the leadership zone across key 11 key zones, which includes Tier-1 traders in aerospace, telecommunications, semiconductors and healthcare. And from a technology perspective, we were recognized for digital engineering, industrial, industry port auto and data and AI engineering. IIC chose us as a leader of our aerospace and defense services in North-America and Europe and a rising star in software-defined vehicles. HFS noticed the acknowledged us in terms of our presence as an enterprise innovator in energy and energy and utilities and Everest Group ranked us as a major contender for industry or auto. So to close, as announced last quarter, we continue with our no guidance policy for Q2 and the remainder of FY ’26, we see this as a phase of stabilization of our business. I fully believe that Scient is well-positioned to capitalize on emerging opportunities, driven by focused tech investments, our strong industry mix, our robust customer-base and our foundation of delivery and sales. With that, let me invite our President and CFO, Atla, to share some more details around the financial results..
Prabhakar Atla — President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you,. Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for your time today and for your kind participation in the call today. As a quick summary, here are the key financial highlights for the quarter. As mentioned by Krishna and Usumal, the DET numbers are excluding our semicon business and all DET comparators are like-to-like for the previous period.
DE revenue for Q1 came in at $162.7 million, a growth of 3.6% year-on-year in rupee terms and a degrowth of 1.5% quarter-on-quarter in constant-currency terms. These numbers include signed intercompany charges to signed, which are marginal and interim in nature. DEP EBIT for Q1 came in at 12%, which is a 63 bps drop quarter-on-quarter, primarily due to the first tranche of wage hikes we announced in this quarter as mentioned earlier.
The DET PAT for the quarter remained very strong at INR163 crores, representing a 7.4% growth quarter-on-quarter and a 30% growth year-on-year. This quarter, we had significant tailwinds in our PAT from unrealized FX gain due to favorable currency movements. The FCF to PAT consumption is around 70% for this quarter vers to one-off payments we are in the current quarter for previously provisioned expenses.
As regards Group performance, which now includes all the four segments, group revenue grew by 2.2% year-on-year in rupee terms, while the PAT grew by 7% year-on-year. The for Q1 was quite strong at INR200 crores INR, which represents a 125% to conversion for the quarter.
Both at BET level and at Group level, our cash position continues to be extremely strong due to consistent focus on. At Group level, our cash position improved by about INR262 crores quarter-on-quarter and we will continue to focus and remain focused on — remain focused on cash-flow as an important area of interest for us.
With this, thank you again for your time, and I will now hand over the call to the moderator for Q&A. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star then 1 on their touchstone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press R then participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Again, to register for a question, please press R, then one. Our first question comes from the line of Sandeep Shah from Securities. Please go-ahead.
Sandeep Shah
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just one observation. There has been a significant declassification. So looking at the PPT and NXI, we are unable to compare the performance, especially on a DET, which is a core business as per the earlier definition. So we would have liked at least for the next four quarters, we could have continued with the presentation in the old format as well because both on BET, including semiconductor, looks like there is a big decline as well and there is a big decline in the EBIT margin, because DET semiconductor revenue has declined, semiconductor has posted a loss, so which is not fully reflected in the current new declassification. I do agree the strategic plans are different. But how to look at semiconductor as a business on a going-forward basis, will it continue what — any estimate in terms of at a segment level, what kind of losses it can generate in this year and when you expect that turnaround?
And second, within the new classification DE, can you give us some clarity in terms of growth prospects as per new sub-segments of DED piece.
Krishna Bodanapu
Okay. So why don’t I first answer the semiconductor piece? I think this quarter, yes, there was a degrowth in revenue and there was a degrowth in EBIT margin, but that was deliberate because the new classification and in the new — sorry, not the new classification, the new structure, there are a few things that we have to do one-side, which will just not reflect going-forward.
The business will fit for a certain scale, which is a revenue, which is roughly, if you taken $10 million a quarter, we should be back-to-back to at least level margins in semiconductor also. And with the order book that we have in the first-quarter, we’re quite confident that it’s not in the second-quarter and definitely the 3rd-quarter, we will at least start to deliver in-line with the margins in the semiconductor business.
The reason why we’ve split it out as such is, it has very different strategic plans and this quarter, we also implemented a few things to help us plan. In terms of our letting in business, in terms of the investments that we’ve made, like I said, we’ve built-in — we’ve aggressively built a very strong leadership team because we do want to go down the 10 keysic part very quickly and aggressively.
So we think we definitely are confident that that’s the right thing to do to really reflect the capabilities and the strength and the focus that we have in that business. And also, like I said, we’ll see we’ve done a lot of work even in the previous quarters and we’ll have the right kind of business or right kind of order intake is in-place, which gives us confidence that by Q3, we should be back to DAV kind of margins in semiconductor also with about that 10 million kind of a run-rate we will be back into that.
So I’d say semiconductor logistics here and now we’re just working through the execution issue right now or not even issue, the execution realities of running into this every business. For the prospects in the redefined DAC business, I’ll hand the call over to to talk about it.
Prabhakar Atla
Yeah, sure. Thank you, Krishna. So just to bring some color on the question you asked. As mentioned, transportation mobilities, aerospace, rail and automotive together, you saw the results for this quarter, which has grown in this segment. And we feel reasonably confident about this trend to continue. We are seeing aerospace being the leading driver for the growth and we will also have deals come our way from a cost takeout perspective from rail and automotive.
And so we do feel reasonably confident to continue in some growth phase-in this particular segment. Network and infrastructure, which is connectivity business and utilities and geospecials. This segment will take a couple of quarters to stabilize and start growing, but we feel very confident. I mean, you heard the announcement I made regarding the selection by Vodafone.
So as we change over our service offering and service portfolio from a little bit of the past portfolio to the new portfolio and the areas that we want to focus on the future, we should start seeing growth. So from a more or less year-over-year flat to a 2.9% quarter-over-quarter decline, we should see — start seeing reasonable numbers in couple of quarters.
In the strategic units, as I already shared, two of the three business units grew, one of them grew double-digits and if I leave one specific major program out-of-the third business unit, which is energy, that unit also. So we are seeing the momentum in these units and we would like to continue to make sure that we focus on doing the right level of investments for these two business units can continue to grow.
Hopefully that answers your question.
Sandeep Shah
So thanks. If I have more, we’ll come back.
Prabhakar Atla
Sure.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all the participants, if you wish to register for a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone now. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kanshi Shah from MC Research. Please go-ahead.
Kanshi Shah
Hello. Yes, ma’am, please go-ahead. Yeah . Hi. So thank you for taking my questions. I just had one question. So is it possible for you to provide us with the order intake for DED in terms of US dollar terms or is that as possible. Like last-time you — till last quarter, you used to provide that, but I get it that now that player is not part of it, but can you still give us certain light over it?
Prabhakar Atla
Sure. So we’ll come back to you on this data point. I mean, it is — it is something that we were trying to work-out in terms of how we presented. We’ll make sure that you get the data-set. Okay. One data point I wanted to add, which I already talked about in my opening commentary, which is the growth in the non-renewal business and I think that is the primary tracker that you would like to follow and ensure that we get the growth in the right areas.
So overall, I can assure you that our order intake is going well.
Kanshi Shah
Okay, okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Agarwal from AMSEC. Please go-ahead.
Shradha Agarwal
Yeah, hi. Sir, just two questions. How should we look at margins build-up for the coming quarters in terms of puts and takes what are the plans for salary hike? And how do we look to margins in the coming quarters for the year?
Krishna Bodanapu
MR, thank you for the question. Did you have a second question also
Shradha Agarwal
Yeah. Yeah. And within transportation, you did indicate that aero is doing well for you. So within aero, what are the demand trends? Is it more around MRO-related work still or we’ve seen some green shoots of design-related work also coming in?
Krishna Bodanapu
Sure. So thank you,. I’ll take the first question on margins and pass-on to Sukumar for the second question on the real-estate business. But as we speak about margins, we are working on three different elements, which in a way are also three different moving parts. The first is our continued investment in sales because we see a significant opportunity in the technology area by the pipeline and wins that we are currently seeing.
The second is the wage mix that we already announced for the first-quarter, the first tranche of them. And these two, we don’t give them a statement. The first is basically investment into future and second is recognition to our people to support it. But to mitigate this, we are currently working on the Phase-2 of the cost program or cost optimization program. There is no evolve in the much broader picture of margin expansion year-on-year.
So as things stand today, these three elements that focused investment in sales, the wage hike that we gave in the first launch and the Phase of optimization of cost. So to synchronize them with the revenue as a trajectory as it was in the year. So to come it up in short-term, we think it is too early for us to comment on the full-year picture and we will develop the future as we execute on all the three levers that we spoke up earlier and also the revenue guidance. But for the medium-term, a few things are.
One is we have in the past very clearly demonstrated our ability — our ability to control our cost and expand our margin and you know where we were able to take the margins to in the past. So we are very confident of what we can control. And therefore, we retain our earlier view and our earliest goal that this business has the potential to get to 15% EBIT margin in the medium-term.
So that remains still our view and our question. So last-time you have indicated that 15% is your margin over the next 10 to-4 months. So that still remains right. So we’re calling it a medium-term question and we are speaking to that has been planned. Okay. And this is if I may respond to your question on aerospace.
Prabhakar Atla
I think we are seeing opportunities across-the-board. So I shared some of the progress we are making around digital deals as our customers modernize many of their processes and in areas like tech publication and tech documentation. We are seeing progress because as Krishna mentioned, the Deutsche Aircraft Group and the announcement that we have done with regards to complete design for manufacturing in many pockets.
And we are seeing substantial scale-up from many of our customers, not so much in terms of new designs, but just scale-up of their businesses as the number of units in the market needs to, in some cases even triple just in the next five years. That leads to many manufacturing opportunities as well as opportunities with regards to how we help them scale-up in that overall process.
And we are also seeing opportunities because of defense both directly, but more importantly, because of the surge in defense spend, the outsourcing which is going on around commercial work is going on.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mohesh Chandani from Ambit. Please go-ahead.
Moez Chandani
Hi, good evening and thank you for taking my question. So my first question is on the global uncertainty that you called out, which happened sometime in March. So how did that evolve throughout the quarter? Any sense of that changing as we enter July and your outlook in terms of Q2 based on the global uncertainty.
Krishna Bodanapu
Sure. So firstly, as we had shared last-time, March and April were definitely a phase where there was higher uncertainty and lack of decision-making in our customer-base. That has definitely eased since then, especially in May and June and I think some of it as our customers figured out how to manage the new reality. And also obviously, as you are well aware, some of the deals that we talked about and now are slowly starting to fall in-place.
So I think it has probably reached more of a stabilization phase. Does it affect business for our customers and hence us the answer still remains yes but definitely it’s not enough least mode like it was in March and April.
Moez Chandani
Okay, understood. And then maybe from a geographic perspective, I think it looks like Europe seems to have seen a bit of a decline this quarter. Anything specific in that segment, particularly because we’ve had issues with projects from the acquisition in the past. So anything you’d like to call-out there?
Krishna Bodanapu
No, I would not say that there is any holistic trend, which we are observing in Europe in terms of why Europe numbers are down. I think this is just how the numbers have played out. I think both Europe and North-America, I would say remain strong.
Moez Chandani
Got that. Understood. Thank you. That is all.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go-ahead.
Dipesh Mehta
Thanks for the opportunity. And considering the steps which we have taken as well as to this, are we confident Q1 onwards performance is likely to improve for us? And when I say incremental performance, I’m referring to sequential revenue growth trajectory. That is question number-one.
Krishna Bodanapu
That your voice is not coming very clearly.
Dipesh Mehta
Yeah. So the question is about let’s say, sequential revenue growth trajectory considering the leadership organization as well as the investments we are making in sales. Are we confident now going-forward our sequential revenue growth trajectory is on the upward call? That is question one. Question two about the strategic unit. I think the comment which you made about two of the three business units for you. But when I look overall performance of that segment, it is sizably weak, decline kind of thing when I look Y-o-Y Q-o-Q. So if you can provide more detail around it, let’s say what constitute and how big is it segment — sub-segment rather?
And if you can provide some detail around which sub-segment growth trajectory or maybe on the one kind of trend? Thank you.
Krishna Bodanapu
So I’ll let Sukumal answer the prognosis for growth that I thought or talk about this semiconductor.
Sukamal Banerjee
Sure, right. So I hope you have understood your question. Line was definitely a little bit of a challenge, but from perspective of what I took away from the question, firstly, in terms of our sequential growth, as we have stated, we are not providing guidance and I shared that we believe we are at a stabilization phase of our business and that is where I would like to leave it from a quarter-over-quarter guidance perspective.
So specifically the strategy business and explaining the numbers, yes, two of the three segments grew quarter-over-quarter and one of the segments de-grew and that is what resulted in the overall decline. And within the — that segment — the segment which degrew, which is energy, it is one project and which is coming to an end in the near-future is what is affecting those numbers and if you leave that project out, even energy saw quarter-over quarter-four so
Krishna Bodanapu
And if I may just add color on semiconductor, which is the other piece. We are like I said, we’ve also saw sequential, so that’s a very. We’ve made the investments. We’ve brought in a lot of the right people and we’re very confident what we have working intelligence
Operator
Deepesh, sir, your line has dropped. I have unmuted your line once again.
Dipesh Mehta
Yeah so my line was disconnected and can you maybe possible? Can you repeat the answer? Okay. Would you want from the beginning or did you that would be helpful if possible.
Sukamal Banerjee
So just to summarize again, what I shared is, as we have mentioned before, we have stopped giving guidance. So from a quarter-over-quarter perspective, I would like to leave it there. And as I shared, we are reaching a stabilization phase of our business, which is what I would leave the first part of the question with. On the strategic business units, yes, to repeat, two of the three business units grew quarter-over-quarter. The third one also grew quarter-over-quarter, leaving one project out.
So we are facing a one project issue, a significant project, which will get over the next couple of quarters. So underlying momentum in all the three businesses remain strong.
Dipesh Mehta
Understand. And that project is fairly large in size, which leading to some kind of overall performance get impacted. That’s what one should understand?
Sukamal Banerjee
That is correct.
Dipesh Mehta
And whether this project is to-end which can provide headwind for growth?
Sukamal Banerjee
If your question was if it’s going to provide headwind for growth in future quarters for one or two more quarters here.
Dipesh Mehta
Okay. Okay.,
Operator
Sir, do you have any further questions?
Dipesh Mehta
No, thanks.
Operator
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, if you wish to join the question queue, please press star and one now. Our next question comes from the line of Vivek Gupta, an investor. Please go-ahead.
Vivek Gupta
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. So I just have a basic statement to make which might push management for some kind of interscription. So how does management team when they lay out the guidances in previous quarters, then not those guidances then stop, they stop giving the guidances. So the kind of page, how does management in perspect and what are ops to create stakeholders value in the company
Operator
Sorry? Sorry to interrupt Vivek, sir, your line was not that clear. If you’re using a speaker phone, you may request to use handset and re-ask the question once again.
Vivek Gupta
Is it better now?
Operator
This is much better, sir. Yes, please go-ahead.
Vivek Gupta
So I have a basic statement to make. So I wanted to understand that how does science management feel like the downfall which they have faced from past couple of quarters like from giving guidances, not meeting those guidances and then they eventually stop giving those guidances then — and the downfall which they are facing in the business. So what are your plans like how they are planning to create stakeholders wealth the company? Yeah. So today, let me complete once, please. So it’s a very easy statement to make that we have stopped giving guidances and all those things. But at one given point of time, management used to sound very confident over con-calls and that confidence has been shaken and that’s clearly evident from the kind of statements which management is making.
Krishna Bodanapu
Yes, please okay that we are not confident. We are very confident where the business is
Vivek Gupta
So your voice is not clear.
Krishna Bodanapu
Is my voice clear enough,
Vivek Gupta
Little better.
Krishna Bodanapu
Okay. So I’ll say I can realize that we’re very confident where the businesses. If you look at our guidance question, where we are in our business and if you look at a lot of the peer set-in our business, the most guidance because we can only tell you what the lay of the land is, how the business is looking. And we will let you use your best judgment in terms of what you believe the numbers will be and what you believe the stock price should be or the stock?
Vivek Gupta
I’m not talking about the stock price, sir. So I’m not talking about the stock price in totality. So I’m talking from the business standpoint. So the downfall the business has seen, so see they eventually —
Operator
Vivek, sir, may we request you return to the question queue for any follow-up questions, please?
Vivek Gupta
But this question itself has not been answered.
Operator
Sir, there are other people waiting in the queue.
Vivek Gupta
At least let management conclude please, then I’ll not put any further questions.
Krishna Bodanapu
So I just say, yeah, I do not agree with the gentlemen view. I think we have been very fruitful in terms of where the business is going, not giving guidance with a choice, it’s a choice that most companies who are at our makes as much because we give you a color of where the business continues to decide what the valuations, et-cetera. I am very confident about the business. I don’t — I do not agree that we have made any statements that make us feel less confident.
If you look at the performance of the business this quarter compared to our peers on the side, it’s better than any other peer or better than most of our peers is the ER&D business and we are in the. So while we’ve had some challenges in the past, we are very confident that we’re over those challenges and we will continue to deliver very, very strong number.
So I do respect this will be the suggestable statement, but I will leave it.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bhavik Mehta from JPMorgan. Please go-ahead.
Bhavik Mehta
Hi, thank you. So Kamal, it’s been a few months since you took over. So just wanted to understand key strategic changes you have brought into the business and what are the key metrics you’d be monitoring to gauge the success of those initiatives going-forward.
Sukamal Banerjee
Sure, Valik, thanks for your question. I think the two, three key things that I have already kind of shared and I will probably bring it back-in terms of the question that you asked. So first and foremost, the focus on new business and the metrics that I shared about percentage of new business that we are booking versus renewals, that is something that we’re going to focus on intensely.
Second is our focus on growing the growth areas. And as I mentioned, the key focus that we are trying to drive is the sharp focus around technology in terms of what do we do with technology. What science is known for in the market is its domain strength around the product areas, the areas of plant operations and the network that we operate.
And how we make sure that we are bringing technology to those aspects to bring a domain plus AI and a digital and a digital claim into the market. Our wins against a much bigger competition with this approach just in 1/4 brings confidence about the approach we are taking.
Of course, there are far more detailed steps that we will talk about from a strategy perspective, which probably is best left for a follow-up call. But essentially three things, how do we improve our go-to-market and the elements within go-to-market like-new business areas and new business bookings.
Second is with regards to the technology focus and what we do with the technology focus. And third, of course, overall organizational effectiveness and the changes that we are making with regards to leadership and how we align our team with regards to the new direction?
Bhavik Mehta
Okay, got it. That’s helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pritesh Thakkar from PL Capital. Please go-ahead.
Pritesh Thakkar
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. So I just have one question. Correct me if I’m wrong, we are in the journey of replacing the project-led revenues to more of a annuity sort of a top-line now. So how far have you reached in that journey? And if you can also provide the concentration mix of annuity versus project-led revenue at this level.
Sukamal Banerjee
So starting with the last part of your question, which is with regards to annuity versus project-led. So a large portion of our revenue tends to be annuity, even though the content of that work keeps on changing. As you can understand that the Domain knowledge and the engineering knowledge which our teams bring — build-up over a period of time for many years is precious to our customers. So even though actual project work or the nature of work may have shifted, it tends to be more annuity in terms of leverage of that knowledge. We do have some project work, especially in some businesses like energy, but leaving those aside, it mostly tends to be annuity of nature. And then of course, as we win new programs, they quite often, especially in the technology space for digital AI. They tend to start in the project mode. And as we build-up like the EIQE win I shared, it originally started-off with a small group of concept. We went to a couple of projects after that and then eventually became an AIQE. That’s what we’re going to run for them for the next two years. So yes, from a starting of an engagement perspective, it may be project-based, but eventually it tends to become annuity. Even if that annuity may not be forever annuity, but at least for a the year period of time.
Pritesh Thakkar
You can also provide the of annuity of this project with other.
Sukamal Banerjee
I don’t have that answer handy and that is not a metric we’ve manage or measure because there’s constant change in that data. But if there is any specific follow-up, I will have our Investor Relationship because Steve get back.
Pritesh Thakkar
Thank you so much.
Sukamal Banerjee
Yeah.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ankur Pant from IIFL. Please go-ahead.
Ankur Pant
Hi, good evening. So my first question is, so Karal, how did — how do you think the quarter panned out versus your expectations at the beginning of the quarter. So what were the positive and negative surprises and was the growth in-line with what you were expecting or better or worse? How did you see the quarter?
Sukamal Banerjee
Sure. I think if you look at, as Krishna called out a little while back, we — all of us are in a tough market right now. And if you do our immediate peer comparison, we have done the best amongst the peer group. So from that perspective, obviously, it is gratifying in terms of where we started versus where we ended, it definitely built-up momentum towards the second-half of the quarter. So we did better than we were expecting in the beginning of the quarter, something that we intend to take forward into Q2. But again, there are always uncertainties given the current environment and that is what we reflected in our guidance as well.
From a perspective of things that surprised us, we were hoping some of the programs that we — orders that we wanted to close definitely had a right shift because as I called out, March and April were a standstill time-frame and that delayed some of the processes. But again, those are not deals lost. They are deals which are right shifted and hopefully we should be able to get them over the last year.
Ankur Pant
Sure. And secondly, what — were you able to implement the changes that you had planned during the quarter? I mean, the pace of these changes, is it going slower-than-expected or in-line? And what are the key pain points that you are trying to resolve at this point?
Sukamal Banerjee
So there are three kinds of change, right, change that you can do immediately and the results also show-up immediately. There are change that you can do immediately, but the results take time and there are changes which takes time and the results also take time. So I would say the first one is obviously something we have done and we are also seeing some results of it. I shared some of those metrics. Some of the areas of focus that we’ve brought in technology area and the deals that we have won, which are things or evidence of how we can bring change in a quick manner.
There are things that results will show-up over a period of time, which are reflecting in our pipeline right now and the retency of our pipeline and eventually will turn translate to results. And yes, there are some changes which take time and I think those are things that we have already initiated as various change initiatives within the company and in three, four quarters, they will start showing results
Ankur Pant
Okay. Thank you. And finally, I wasn’t quite clear as to what was your commentary on margins, both BET and semiconductor business, like how are you viewing that? If you could please explain that?
Sukamal Banerjee
Yeah. Sure. I’ll let take that question.
Prabhakar Atla
On margins,, just to repeat what I said earlier. It is too early for us in the year to comment on this full-year picture of how the margin might evolve. And anyway, we are not providing guidance for the year as we. But for the medium-term, we are fairly confident and retain our view that the business has a potential and also a goal to invest in and medium-term.
Ankur Pant
Sure. Thank you,. Thank you, Sukunal, and all the best.
Sukamal Banerjee
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Mr Krishna for closing comments.
Krishna Bodanapu
Thanks. Thank you very much and thanks to everybody for participating. Like I said, this has been first full-quarter as the CEO and I’m pleased that we’ve made some very good progress. Like I — like we said, in a difficult quarter, we have outperformed most of our peers, especially the CR&D companies. We have set-up a lot of good things in-place from a revenue growth perspective and a margin perspective.
Now we want to be prudent in how we comment. And therefore, at this point, as said, stabilization has come in. Of course, stabilization is the first step before growth comes in, but we are quite confident this stabilization has come in, which means that thousands is really on what we price and deliver growth from a time perspective.
From a time perspective, I just want to assure everybody that business is set-up for some great growth. The first-quarter from a revenue perspective, it wasn’t expected just such as things that we moved around cleaned up, et-cetera. But from a growth and margin perspective, price increase, we should be — from a margin perspective, we should be at the same level.
Of course, growth trajectory is something that we’re watching out before we deliver — we believe that business will deliver absolidated growth. So thank you very much for all the support and the question. We will again speak next quarter. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. On behalf of Scient Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.