Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (NSE: IRCTC) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 13, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Sudhir Kumar — Director, Finance & Chief Financial Officer
Sanjay Kumar Jain — Executive Chairman of the Board, Managing Director
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Rahul Jain — Analyst
Jinesh Joshi — Analyst
Kashish Mehta — Analyst
Harsh Yadav — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the IRCTC Limited Q3FY26 earnings conference call hosted by Daulat Capital. 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your Touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Rahul Jain from Daulat Capital. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Rahul Jain — Analyst
Thank you. Elavik. Good afternoon everyone. On behalf of Dalat Capital, we welcome you all to the Q3FY26 earnings conference call of IRCTC Limited. I take this opportunity to welcome the management of IRCTC represented by Mr. Sanjay Kumar Jain who is Chairman and Managing Director of the company. Mr. Sudhir Kumar who is Director, Finance and CFO. We also have on the call Sri Rahul Himalayanji who is Director of Tourism and Marketing and Mr. Manoj Sharma, Director for Catering Services of the company. Now I would like to hand the conference over to ISTC Management to take the proceedings forward.
Over to you please.
Sanjay Kumar Jain — Executive Chairman of the Board, Managing Director
Thank you. Rao. Good afternoon. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to the earning call of IRCTC for the quarter ended 31 December 2025. The financial results for Q3.26 were announced yesterday and filed with the stock exchanges. I will begin with a brief overview of our performance after which our Director, Finance and CFO Mr. Sudhir Kumar will present a detailed financial and segment wise analysis. We will then open the floor for questions. Q3FY26 stood out to be extremely encouraging with the highest ever revenue and profitability in the company’s history. This reflects the strength of our operating model, resilient business segments and sustained momentum across core business verticals.
During the quarter, PAT stood at 394 crore rupees registering a healthy year on year growth of 15.5% driven by strong performance in Internet, ticketing, rail, near and tourism along with improved operational efficiencies and prudent cost management. EBITDA stood at 465 crore rupees, a jump of 11.5% year on year. Revenue from operations increased to 1449 crore rupees from 1225 crore in the corresponding quarter last year reflecting a growth of 18.2% with a robust contribution across all business segments. This consistent performance is anchored in a citizen centric business model, a strong brand positioning and continuous enhancement of our digital capabilities.
We remain committed to expanding new edge offerings, improving operational efficiency and leveraging technology to enhance customer experience while exploring emerging opportunities in tourism, hospitality and value added services. We are confident of sustaining this growth momentum supported by our strong financial position and commitment to long term stakeholder value. Thank you. I now hand over the call to Mr. Sudhir Kumar, our Director of Finance and CFO for a detailed discussion on the financial and segmental performance.
Sudhir Kumar — Director, Finance & Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the management team, I extend a warm welcome to all of you through this earning call to discuss our financial and operational performance for the third quarter of financial year 2025 26. I’m pleased to share that the company has delivered a strong and resilient performance during the quarter reflecting the robustness of our diversified business model and disciplined execution. Profit after tax stood at rupees 394 crores, registering a year on year growth of 15.5%. Total revenue for the quarter reached 1449 crore representing an 18.2% increase over the corresponding period.
Last year EBITDA rolled to 465 crore with a healthy EBITDA margin of 32.1%. Although margins moderated slightly due to changes in revenue mix, particularly higher contribution from catering and tourism, our overall profitability remains strong and sustainable. Let me now briefly highlight the segment wide performance. Internal testing continues to be our most profitable segment and a core strength of the company. Revenue stood at rupees 401 crore up 13.2% year on year. Nearly 89% of the reserved railway tickets in India are now booked through our online platform, underscoring our leadership in digital tipping. The segment delivered an impressive EBITDA margin of 85% reflecting strong operating leverage and cost efficiency.
Catering recorded revenue of 661 crore achieving a robust growth of 19.1% year on year. Margins were impacted due to higher sales in train waste catering operations and pilot initiatives such as branded catering projects along with our continued focus on enhancing customer value and passenger satisfaction. Despite this, the segment remains a steady and scalable growth driver supported by rising passenger volumes and ongoing service improvements. Railnear generated revenue of Rupees 98 crore, registering a 6.5% year on year. Growth margin improved during the quarter driven by economy in material cost and sustained operational efficiency along with strong brand acceptance in the market.
Turing delivered an excellent performance with revenue of rupees 289 crore marking a 29% year on year growth. Despite temporary geopolitical disruptions, EBITDA margins improved to 19% reflecting a better product mix and focused cost rationalization initiatives. Our overall third quarter results demonstrate the resilience of our business, disciplined cost management, strong digital backbone and unwavering focus on operational excellence. We remain confident in our growth momentum and are well positioned to create sustainable long term value for our stakeholders. With this I conclude my remarks. We will now open the floor for questions. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you, sir. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their 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 will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Jignesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Jinesh Joshi
Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on good set of numbers. Sir, my question is on the catering business which reported a very healthy growth of 19% in this quarter. So if you can highlight the reasons behind that. And also in the opening commentary you mentioned that margins were impacted due to the Vande Bharat project. So if you can just talk a bit about that as well.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Thank you. Mr. Joshi, a very good question. We have seen that our revenue from Vandevara trains this time the billing has increased by 70 crores and so the license, and so be the license fee. So the main reason for factoring business revenue enhancement is introduction of additional 40 trains during the period. And so far as margin is concerned, when we log the revenue for the Vande Bharat billing, it doesn’t give us that much license fee and additionally 5% GST we have to pay out of that. So that is the main reason of the margin not very high which you have indicated.
Jinesh Joshi
Shorter. And secondly you mentioned that 40 additional trends were introduced in this quarter which basically led to a very good growth. How to think from FY27 and 28 perspective. Because if I look at our catering business in one Q&Q, the growth was slightly weaker and suddenly we have seen a very sharp jump led by addition of trains. So can you give some color as to how many new trains are expected to be introduced in say 27 and 28? And how to think from the two year perspective, especially on the growth side.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Again it’s a very pertinent question. Important question, how it looked like in the catering business. So you must have seen the budget announcements and the discussion thereafter in the parliament and various media coverage wherein it is very categorically told by Rail Ministry that they are going to introduce 260 Vandevarat train sets. So these trains are already in the pipeline and that is certainly going to add good business for ifctc. Catrin.
Jinesh Joshi
Got that sir, one last bookkeeping question from my side. If you can just give out the figure for number of tickets that were booked in this quarter and what was the share of UPI transactions and also the breakdown between convenience and non convenience revenue. Yeah, so that is the last question from my side.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Our convenience revenue is 251crore and non convenience revenue is 150crore during this quarter. And the ticket booking average daily ticket booking in lakhs is around 14.64 lakhs per day as against 13.59 lakhs last year, December 24. And the UPI share has increased from 46.86% last year to 50.18%.
Jinesh Joshi
Thank you. Thank you so much sir. And all the best.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Thank you.
operator
A reminder to all participants, please press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Kashish Mehta from Daulat Capital. Please go ahead. Kashish, please go ahead with your question and unmute your line in case if you are on mute.
Kashish Mehta
Hi, am I audible?
operator
Yes.
Kashish Mehta
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question and congratulations to the team on the wonderful quarter. I have a couple of questions. So firstly on the payment aggregator license that IRCTC received the in principal approval in the previous quarter and it was said that by January end they would be submitting the final application. So just you know, the timelines treated on that thing and just wanted a view of how the management is, you know, looking at that thing from a strategic business driver potentially going ahead.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
So our document submission date has been extended by RBI till August this year and we have already engaged our technology service provider. So most likely will be. Most likely will be like submitting the documents at the earliest.
Kashish Mehta
Right. And one more question again so regarding real need, it was announced that, you know, the company will be undertaking four greenfield projects in FY27 I think. So again, you know, what are the timelines? Because naturally, you know, greenfield operations take a bit of time getting operationalized. And what sort of capacity expansion are we looking at once these plants, you know, get operational?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Raj, you see, first of all we are enhancing the capacity of our existing plant at Danapur and ambanath we are doubling its capacity. In addition our board has already sanctioned for installation of four new plants at Mysore, Priyagraj, Bhagalpur and Ranchi. So we’ll be adding around 25 to 30% capacity in same in one and a half years.
Kashish Mehta
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants. Please press time one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Harsh Yadav from Dollar Capital. Please go ahead.
Harsh Yadav
Hi. Am I audible?
operator
Yes. Harsh.
Harsh Yadav
Yeah. Congratulations on a wonderful set of numbers this quarter. I firstly just wanted to confirm the numbers for convenience. Non convenience. If I’m right then it was 251cr for convenience and also for a daily ticket booking. If you could share that. Again I missed that.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
I could not get you properly. But I think you want to know what is the share of convenience fee in the IT earning that is 251crore and non convenience fee realization is 150crores.
Harsh Yadav
Okay. Regarding your real meal volume. Could you share the the average volume of real meal bottles you sold per day in Q3 and how close are we to reaching that 2 million bottles per day capacity target.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Around. Average is 12.68 lakhs. Bottle.
Harsh Yadav
Okay. 12.68 lakhs. I had one more question. Around the Amrit Bharat station scheme we had previously noted that static catering units were being impacted by these station upgrades. So has that normalized here in Q3 now? Or are we seeing some revenue flow back from these upgraded stations yet? Or are we yet to see that.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Earlier we were having our projects at 543 Station. It has now increased to 563. These are the things.
Harsh Yadav
Okay. All right. I had a few more questions. If you could give me the time to ask them. I could. I also wanted to confirm the UPI transaction share. Was it 50.18%?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Yes.
Harsh Yadav
Okay. Also regarding the labor code impact. You had mentioned in the footnotes that you’re still assessing the labor code impact. And we’ve seen a lot of fear seeking your provisions this quarter. So could you give me like a broad range of quantum of any potential liabilities in the case in Q4.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
I. I don’t see there is any major major impact. Because we are still examining the impact impact as such in detail. Because there are two things which may. Which may come for us. Like earlier the duty used to be given at five years. So it has been reduced to one year and health checkup. So like for our regular employees we have no problem because we will see to that and whatever the impact, that will be adding to our cost. But that way we will compensate by increasing the volume and revenue of the business.
Harsh Yadav
So tourism did really well. And how much of this do you think would be the influx of seasonality would we be able to carry over to Q4 for Maharaja Express and Bharat Gaurav?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
You see all our segments have shown a very good increase and we are targeting to achieve 15% sustainable growth this year.
Harsh Yadav
Just one last question from my end. This is a little generic in nature but I just wanted to ask you. So you have a huge database and you know there. Are there any anonymized data insights or products that you’ve created for third parties that you would like to use or is it strictly for personal irctus due to privacy concerns?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
You see we have to see DPDP compliances and we have a very like. We have planned to introduce our unified portal and taking use of data available with us to cross sell our products. But this will be in compliance to DPDP guidelines.
Harsh Yadav
Okay. With these Swiggy Zomato integrations and E catering going, do you see any. Do you see this as a cannibalization of your onboard country car sales or is it purely incremental?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
You see there is no dearth of market for both kinds of things. Like. As I showed you the figure of this quarter both our normal catching also increased and our E catching also increased by say 25%. So the difference is like in basic catting we serve the Dal Chamwal Khan type of thing. But in E catering you can add to what you eat. So these both the things are complementing each other and I don’t see any downside anywhere in both the segments. Okay, it should be win win.
Harsh Yadav
Regarding the OTA platform that you had mentioned, I Are you aggressively looking to compete with private OTAs or non rail inventories like hotels or flights this year? Yeah, the focus will primarily be on cross selling existing rail passengers.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
You see our forte is rail passengers. But now at the moment our rail passengers are utilizing the services related travel related services from other OTA sites and from unorganized sector. Even if we are able to like capture some of the value added services services to our customer. This is a very good business proposition for us. Around 16 lakhs tickets we have are booking every day and our total other Transactions are only 10,030 which includes hotel, airlines, tour packages and all. So if we put a unified portal then we will be able to at least offer our services at a platform, a single platform to our Passengers and whatever packages we are working at the moment, we have got a very good feedback from the customers.
And most of these customers are our like family and friends kind of things from the word of mouth. So when we will be able to provide a platform, we are very sure to encase the process. Thank you.
Harsh Yadav
Just one final question from my end regarding one day Bharat. So as you see, one day Bharat take larger share of the catering mix. How does the unit economics actually differ if you compare it to standard or express mail, like the prepaid nature of it, is it working better for you? And how does it compare to what you had otherwise with the express trains and standard mail that you have?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
You see there are two kinds of trains. One is prepaid, another is postpaid. Vandevara trains are prepaid trains where we know the assumed number prior to departure of the train. So we get the assessment of volume and and we accordingly get a higher revenue share. Whereas in postpaid trains we are not sure of the volume. And in the process like passengers, they may or may not ask for the meals. So that that does not give us that much confidence. So increase in Vandevara trains. As I told that 260 Vandevhara train sets are getting introduced. So that that business is more good for our company, rather better for our company.
Harsh Yadav
Okay, thank you. Thank you. This was it.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants. Please press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Rahul Jain from Dollar Capital. Please go ahead.
Rahul Jain
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congratulations to the management for very strong results. I have few questions. Firstly on the catering business you said there was launch of more one day Bharat train. So this 40 odd number which you mentioned or the 70 odd crore number is the increase we saw on a yoy basis is what I understand and not on a QQ basis. Is that understanding? Right?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
All 40 trains are not Vandevaras. There are certain TOD trains are also there. Only 19 trains are Vandevarat out of this.
Rahul Jain
Sure. And the 260 or train
Sanjay Kumar Jain
is a year. On year basis,
Rahul Jain
sure. And on the 260 train. Of course these would come over the period of years. It won’t happen in the current fiscal alone. Is that also a fair estimate?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Yeah, yeah, that I told when they were asking about 20, 27, 28 estimates there. I have told.
Rahul Jain
Sure. Then moving to the rail near segment, can we have any assessment in terms of what percentage of total demand for the segment is currently served by rail near and what more untapped opportunity exists for us as our more and more plants will come.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Around. 50% and 60% depending upon season is being served.
Rahul Jain
So basically even if we increase our capacity by close to 100% we will still be able to accommodate on the demand side of it.
Rahul Jain
Yeah, that’s why our management is like going to add capacity, add new plants. We are thinking further thinking because not yet done anything but thinking. We are time we are thinking to tie up with certain other brands also. Discussion is going on but not fructified in anything at the moment that we will let you know once the things happen.
Rahul Jain
Sure. And in the in the tourism segment we saw significant growth. Can you give some breakup in terms of the revenue mix? How much it came from luxury train or Maharaja kind of train? How much it came from Tejas Bharat Gaurav. Any breakup on the tourism segment, state tirtha and all would be great to understand.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Maharaja’s revenue grew by 39% and in absolute term it is 53.14 crore. Our state tirth and Bharat Gaurav train revenue grew by 51% and it’s a 118.91 crore. Our air ticketing business also grew by 41% and but the figure is 6.74 crore. Our budget hotel and rail Yatri Nivas business grew by 38% in absolute term 5.3 crore and other packages announced by 19% which is 55.26 crore.
Rahul Jain
Anything on Tejas? What was the revenue for Tejas?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Tejas revenue is 50 crores.
Rahul Jain
Thank you. And from I can understand that catering momentum should broadly continue given that this has come from more train launches. But from a tourism point of view how the pipeline looks like. Do we expect the Q4 to see some moderation because the seasonality would be lower or you think there is enough routes that are identified for Bharat Gauravar State tirtha even in Q4 to continue the momentum.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
You see overall this year we will be able to achieve 15% and I don’t see any dip in the because you see Maharaja Express is also running in this Q4 and that is the that is giving us the highest ever revenue. And our state and Bharat Gaurav trains are also in fact we have added one train. So that will add to our revenue.
Rahul Jain
Sure. And on the lastly on the on the ticketing business we said that payment gateway business would be taking some time before we commercialize that part. In the interim, do we see any driver for this segment to grow other the train network expansion that we already covered. Is there any other segment or any other driver?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
No. Payment gateway will be announcing in a in arithmetical mode only. Not in a geometric provision mode till we get a license. And regarding we are more focusing on non convenience fee revenue which has grew by 26% this quarter. So will focus more on non convenience. Fees.
Rahul Jain
And any specific part of that revenue stream that has seen this growth. In this particular quarter.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
You see all segments have due like in our marketing and ad revenue it is 24.78 crore as against 13.29 crores. We achieved in December 24th as in business also grew by 62 crore. 62.47 crore we have achieved in the business as against 52.53 crores. Similarly our loyalty program has given 21.88 crore as against 15.35. So all our segment has shown a good increase. Thank you.
Rahul Jain
Those were my questions and best wishes for the time ahead.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Thank you very much.
operator
Participants please press star and one to ask a question. A reminder to all participants please press time one to ask a question. Participants you may press time one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Aarti, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. So thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations on good set of numbers. So my first question is on the ticketing business. So you said that 89% of tickets are already booked online. So what are the key growth drivers you are seeing in this business going forward?
Sudhir Kumar
No, you are already 29%.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
As I told earlier we are focusing more on non convenience fees. And in fact this quarter it has increased by 26%. So that’s the main thing we are looking at looking forward.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And could you just share the current occupancy trend for the previous excess stream.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Just a moment. It is Lucknow percentage is 69% and Ahmedabad is 109%.
Unidentified Participant
And are we planning to add any new route?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
Any. What’s your question please?
Unidentified Participant
Are we planning to add any new route for the previous express like any new service?
Sanjay Kumar Jain
No. No. Not yet.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants. You may press star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing remarks.
Sanjay Kumar Jain
A very good evening to everyone. I’m Rahul Himalayan, Director of tourism and marketing. First of all I would like to congratulate us for doing quite well in Q3. We had a revenue from operations going at 18.29% and PAT at 15.54%. But what is more important that Q1 to Q3, also growth. And we are all now motivated, inspired to do well for this financial year. 2025, 26. Wishing you all the best. Thank you.
operator
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Daulat Capital, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.