Metropolis Healthcare Limited (NSE: METROPOLIS) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 05, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Ameera Shah — Managing Director
Surendran Chemmenkotil — Managing Director
Sameer Prakash Patel — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Nisha Shetty — Analyst
Surya Narayan Patra — Analyst
Sudarshan Agarwal — Analyst
Shyam Srinivasan — Analyst
Lokesh Manik — Analyst
Toshi Sheik — Analyst
Anshul Agarwal — Analyst
Tanya Chaudhary — Analyst
Naman Bagrecha — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
It. Ram. Sa. That. It. Sam. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3FY26 earnings conference call of Metropolis Healthcare Limited hosted by ICICI Securities. This conference call may contain forward looking statements about the company which are based on the beliefs, opinions and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements do not guarantee the future performance of the company. These statements do not guarantee the future performance of the company and it may involve risk and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. 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 four. Please note that this conference has been recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Nisha Shetty from ICICI Securities. Thank you. And over to you ma’. Am.
Nisha Shetty — Analyst
Thank you. Shubham, good morning.
operator
Sorry to interrupt. Ms. Nisha, you’re not audible.
Nisha Shetty — Analyst
Hello. Yes. On behalf of ICICI securities from you all on Q3FY26 earnings conference call of Metropolis Healthcare Limited. And I thank the Metropolis Healthcare management team for giving us this opportunity to host this call today. On this call we have with us Ms. Amira Shah, Chairperson and Whole Time Director, Mr. Surendran Chemin Kotel, Managing Director, Mr. Sameer Patel, Chief Financial Officer and Mr. Avduj Joshi, Chief Business Development Officer. I will now hand over the call to Ms. Amira Shah for her opening remarks. Thank you. Over to you ma’. Am.
Ameera Shah — Managing Director
Thank you Nisha. And good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today for the Q3 and nine month FY26 earnings conference call. As mentioned, I’m joined by our team. Our investor presentation and financial results have been uploaded on the stock exchange and our website and I hope everyone’s had an opportunity to review them. And I’ll begin with a quick brief overview of the industry landscape and our strategic priorities after which we’ll go through the operational and financial performance for the quarter. Over the past few quarters, the diagnostics industry has continued to demonstrate stable demand with growth increasingly driven by specialty diagnostics, preventive healthcare and complex testing rather than routine investigations alone.
Clinician behavior and patient awareness are steadily shifting towards greater emphasis on accuracy, depth of insight and precision led decision making at a global level. There has been considerable discussion around tariff actions and trade policies, particularly by the us. However, we’d like to clarify that healthcare and diagnostics is predominantly domestic in nature with localized sourcing and service delivery and remains largely neutral to these developments and at this time we do not see any material impact on our operations and cost structures. The recently announced union budget signals a clear priority for healthcare spanning pharmaceuticals, hospitals, diagnostics and allied services.
A strong focus on workforce development including upgrading existing allied health institutions and setting up new ones across public and private sectors, aims to add nearly 100,000 professionals across 10 disciplines over five years, strengthening diagnostic and clinical capacity. The budget also emphasizes tier 2 and regional healthcare infrastructure which should reduce patient migration to metros and improve access for undeserved populations. Overall, it reinforces a long term policy commitment to expanding healthcare access, capacity and quality across the value chain. For a healthcare leader like Metropolis, this will create opportunities that did not exist earlier, especially in smaller markets of India.
Within India, the diagnostic sector is gradually entering a phase of consolidation. The phase of unreasonable capital and poor unit economics seems to be over and the phase of consolidation is back in place. Financial and strategic capital is scouting for larger acquisitions with a stronger focus on long term growth and strong economics rather than discount led revenue growth. In this evolving environment, Metropolis remains well positioned given our strong brand recall among doctors and consumers, scientific leadership and Pan India network of labs and collection centers. We continue to believe we have a strong moat via our trusted brand, quality processes and scaled infrastructure and continue to scout for high quality and reasonably priced acquisitions.
A key milestone during the quarter was the launch of our center of Genomics established in Delhi following the integration of CodyGoft, which now functions as our national reference hub for advanced molecular testing and precision diagnostics supported by our CAP accredited laboratories in Gurgaon and Bombay. Together, this integrated platform of center of Genomics brings high throughput sequencing, advanced bioinformatics and strong clinical interpretation capabilities enabling us to deliver clinically actionable genomic insights at scale across oncology, reproductive health, inherited disorders and preventive genomics. This category of tests are growing fast in the industry and at Metropolis. We believe we are building the capabilities to become very significant players in this category.
This will be a key strategic growth lever for the next few years, generating business via B2C and B2B, a category of tests that require precision experience, interpretation by experts and a broad network of centers falling perfectly into Metropolis Right to win Alongside genomics, we continue to progress on our digital and AI journey in a measured and responsible way. While the potential of AI and pathology is significant, we believe that meaningful clinical adoption is still at an early stage and therefore our focus remains on selective high impact use cases rather than broad based deployment. Currently, AI is being applied in a few targeted areas at Metropolis in including enhanced depth interpretation, strengthening quality monitoring, supporting scientific selling and enhancing customer conversion.
At the same time, we are actively working on a pipeline of future applications across support interpretation, clinical decision support, workflow optimization and automating certain processes. Over the medium to long term, we believe AI will play an important role in improving productivity and report on around time and strengthening quality governance and pathology. AI can play an enabling role to improve productivity and analytics, but at this time it is unlikely to replace doctors or disrupt the industry cost structure overnight. As part of our science led innovation journey, we achieved an important milestone this quarter with the grant of our first patent by the Patent Office of the Government of India for a system focused on monitoring and managing TB related infections.
To our knowledge, this makes Metropolis one of the first listed diagnostic companies in India to receive a patent of this nature, reflecting our commitment to scientific research and clinical innovation. Adopting this tool may help us connect deeper with the prescribing doctor, treating TB patients and assisting them in diagnosis and treatment. On the inorganic front, our recent acquisitions are progressing well and are well integrated into the Metropolis system. At core diagnostics, the primary focus over the past quarters has been on operational alignment, process standardization and cost synergy. The Q3 margins for coal were expected to be slightly higher than Q2 because the plan was to launch the Genomics platform in Q3 25 which would have meant higher gross margins for these genomics tests.
However, due to delay of machine arrival into India, These got launched three months later in January 26th and these tests were therefore outsourced at lower gross margins earlier resulting in a lower ebitda. However, now these tests have started in house as of January 26th and in Q4 we expect a meaningful improvement in gross margin supporting a high single digit EBITDA margin for core in Q4 of this year. Our smaller acquisitions including Dehradun, Agra and Kolhapur continue to perform as expected, delivering margins better than the group average overall. By year end we expect our acquisition portfolio to demonstrate visible synergy benefits across revenue growth and test mix improvement and channel diversification.
Looking ahead, Q4 is typically a seasonally stronger quarter for the diagnostics industry. While seasonality patterns have become less predictable in the post Covid environment, we are seeing encouraging momentum entering the quarter with sustained traction across channels, improving productivity and better mix. We remain confident of delivering on our guidance of 12 to 13% organic growth rate and expanded margins for FY26 along gradual uptick in margins on the back of scale and operational efficiencies, material productivity and prudent cost management to conclude Metropolis remains firmly committed to building a high quality science led diagnostics platform anchored in accuracy, consistency and clinical trust.
With disciplined strategy execution and strong operational leadership, we believe we are well positioned to deliver sustained long term value for all stakeholders. Lastly, the Company is pleased to inform its shareholders that the Board of Directors has approved the issue of bonus shares in the ratio of 3:1, I.e. three fully paid up equity shares of face value rupees two each for every one existing equity share subject to the necessary statutory and shareholder approvals. This bonus issue, made by capitalizing a part of the Company’s reserves, reflects the Company’s strong financial position and continued confidence in its long term growth prospects.
This initiative aims to reward shareholders for their continued support while improving the liquidity of the Company’s equity shares in the market. With this, I’ll now ask Suren to walk you through the operational performance and the business drivers for the quarter.
Surendran Chemmenkotil — Managing Director
Thank you Amira and good morning everyone. We are pleased to report a strong performance for quarter three with group revenues growing 26% year on year and a nine month revenues increasing by 24 percentage on a year on year basis. Organic revenue growth remained healthy at 15 percentage for the quarter and 13 percentage for the nine months supported by balanced volume expansion, improving test mix and disciplined execution across businesses. What is particularly encouraging this quarter is the all round performance across segment geographies, patient volumes and margins. Q3 is typically a seasonally softer quarter for the diagnostic industry driven by festive holidays, reduced outpatient footfalls and lower elective procedures.
In addition, this year we also witnessed atypical seasonal behavior in quarter two with the usual infection led diagnostic demand not materializing as expected. Recognizing these early trends, we proactively recalibrated our operating focus, accelerating our efforts to build high quality B2B and institutional business in order to create a more strong, stable and predictable demand base entering quarter three. This strategic pivot helped us sustain growth momentum despite the absence of seasonal tailwinds and deliver balanced performance across B2C and B2B segments. Over the last year I have spoken about our efforts towards a structured cleanup of lower quality institutional accounts exiting businesses that were margin dilutive, operationally inefficient, misaligned with our service and quality standards.
This year we have systematically built a pipeline of better quality institutional and corporate partnerships with sharper focus on clinical engagement, service excellence and sustainable unit economics. This changed approach to institutional business has now started leading tangible results, contributing meaningfully to our quarter three performance and improving the overall quality of revenue mix. On the organic side, revenue grew by 15 percentage year on year supported by healthy patient volume growth of 9% year on year. In the B2C segment which contributed approximately 60% of our revenues, the revenue grew by 15% driven by strong performance in truhealth and specialty.
Truhealth continued to scale well supported by curated wellness packages, increasing prevending health adoption and deeper digital engagement. Specialty testing delivered robust growth through focused clinician engagement, scientific upselling and wider deployment. Of advanced tests across centers. Importantly, the integration of code diagnostic has begun to meaningfully enhance our specialty portfolio enabling us to cross sell super speciality and advanced oncology test into the broader metropolis, customer base and clinician network. This cross selling leveraging capabilities is strengthening our leadership in complex diagnostic and creating a sustainable pipeline for higher value. Test growth in the B2B segment which contributed to 40% of revenues, 15% year on year growth was driven by both volume expansion and improved realization. We deepened relationship with key institutional clients, laboratories and hospitals through dedicated account management, faster turnaround times and enhanced service quality.
Specialty testing within B2B demonstrated strong traction reflecting growing clinician confidence in our advanced diagnostic capabilities. Our corporate business played a particularly important role in stabilizing performance during this quarter by delivering predictable volumes, healthier realizations and more resilient revenue base. Geographically, our sustained focus on Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets continue to yield strong results. Over the past two years we have systematically expanded our footprints across cities and towns, building hub and spoke network that enable efficient scaling. During this quarter we added 110 new centers, most of it through the franchisee, taking total addition to more than 300 centers in nine months and strengthened our presence in 750 towns.
Now this network expansion is now translating into consistent volume growth, improved asset utilization and operating leverage on the margins for the organic business. We delivered a strong performance this year with a healthy 29.3% year on year expansion of EBITDA margins remaining robust at about 25 percentage. The improvement was driven by a combination of material cost efficiencies, operating leverage on fixed costs and sustained productivity initiatives across the network. Our focus on disciplined cost management, procurement optimization and workflow efficiency continue to translate into structural margin improvements. The quarter also included a one time impact on account of labor code implementation of about 9 crores at group level which would have effect on profitability.
Excluding this, the underlying performance remained very strong reinforcing the quality and sustainability of our earnings. Quality continues to remain the cornerstone of our operating philosophy. At the beginning of this year we launched the Internal Quality Control Index, a scientific performance framework designed to establish uniform, measurable and real time quality benchmarks and. Across the entire laboratory network. This framework tracks the full diagnostic journey from the pre analytics and logistics to laboratory examination and post analytical reporting using rigorous clinical and operational parameters. It enables early identification of deviations, rapid corrective actions and consistent diagnostic accuracy across geographies. In parallel, we continue to monitor our pre analytical compliance interests across all collection centers and logistic touch points, strengthening sample integrity and chain of custody even before samples enter the laboratory. Together, this initiative significantly enhanced governance, transparency and clinical reliability across the expanding network. Looking ahead into quarter four, we are encouraged by early momentum across channels, the favorable continued traction in specialty and wellness, expanding network reach and sustained productivity improvements.
We remain confident of closing the year on a very strong note in line with our growth and margin objectives. To conclude, quarter three reflects the strength of our operating model combining strategic agility, scientific leadership, disciplined execution and quality governance. We remain well positioned to sustain momentum and delivery long term value creation. With this now, I hand over to Samir Patel, our Chief Financial Officer to. Walk you through the financial performance. Thank you.
Sameer Prakash Patel — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Suresh Good morning everyone. Let me now share some of the key financial performance for fiscal 3 FY26. As informed in the previous quarter we have bifurcated our performance reporting on two aspects. For the current year, Amateur group includes four acquisitions of Core Diagnostic Scientific Pathology, AGRA and Ambigua Diagnostic Kolhapur. MHL Organic excludes these four acquisitions. Moving on to the financial and operating performance, first I would like to highlight operational performance for MHL on organic basis. Revenue and EBITDA grew at 15% and 29% respectively but excluding exception item grew at 52% on year on year basis.
Patient volumes stood at 3.3 million, a growth of 9% on year on year basis. Test volumes stood at 7 million a growth of 8% on year on year basis. With increasing contribution from TRU Health and specialty segment, our B2C and B2B revenue both grew by 15% on year over year basis. 2 health specialty segment grew by 25% and 16% respectively on year on year basis. B2C revenue contribution 60% of total revenue revenue for specialty and 2 health in B2C’s segment grew by 17% and 29% respectively on year to year basis. B2B revenue contributes to 40% of total revenue and B2B specialty group by 16% on year on year basis.
EBITDA stood at rupees 93 crore for growth of 29.3% on year on year basis. EBITDA margin stood at 25% increase of two hundred and eighty basis points on year on year basis PAT excluding Exception item stood at 48 crore. Growth of 52% year on year basis impact of labor code amounting to 8 crore is treated as exception items type margins excluding exception items to that 12.8% increase of 300 basis points. Second about key performance indicator for MHL group revenue grew by 26% on year on year basis patient volume stood at 3.5 million and test volume stood at 7.3 million.
A growth of 14% and 13% respectively on year on year basis. B2C and B2B revenue grew by 19 and 35% respectively on year on year basis. On MHL group basis, revenue from north now contributes 17% of overall revenue largely because of recent integrations which has its major presence and revenue coming from north region. EBITDA margin stood at 23.4%. The decrease compared to the organic business was largely attributable to lower margin profile of code against the margin for code edmids expected to meet the stated guidelines of high single digit as an exit run rate for Q4FY26 type excluding exception items 251 crore.
A growth of 63% year on year basis Impact of labor code amounting to Rupees nine crore is treated with exception item at a group level type Margin excluding exception item stood at 12.6% increase of 280 basis point. Estimated capex for the year is rupees 55 to 60 crore. This is largely towards strengthening and expanding our Pan India network. Operating IT systems and processes, scaling up high end equipment to support advanced and super specialty test capabilities. Speaking about liquidity, position and cash strength, the company remains net debt free with the current cash reserves of rupees 127 crore.
We will continue to accumulate cash to fund and support our future growth initiatives. That’s all from my side. With this I open the floor for question and answers.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on the Touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use answers 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 Surya Narayan Pathra from Philip Capital India. Please go ahead.
Surya Narayan Patra
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the Is it possible to share what is the organic volume growth that we would have seen in the test site.
Surendran Chemmenkotil
Organic Test. Volume growth is 8 percentage for this year towards this quarter.
Surya Narayan Patra
Okay, thank you for that. And my second question was, was on the genomic initiative. So we have added equipment and we have expanded the capability there and this is also considered to be a kind of valuable driver for us going ahead. But immediately we know that genomic never been a kind of high volume growth area for India so far and there is a kind of a rising competition on that front also with disruptive prices that it is talked about. So what is your thought process here and how do you see this opportunity really contributing incrementally in terms of value terms?
Ameera Shah
Thanks. Look, if you look at Metropolis positioning, we have never really been the company who’s focusing on tests which are commoditized in high volume. We’ve been the company who’s focusing on making sure that all the places that we are really working in are non commoditized areas which are really focusing on giving the right report to the patient when it’s required in the clinical setting. Genomics, if you look at the therapeutic areas which are growing the fastest in the world are actually oncology and neurology over the next 10 years and the same situation is going to be in India and for cancer and for any brain or nervous system areas.
Finally the most important tests are going to be genomics. So we expect this category to grow very fast over the next ten odd years and longer. And therefore being a critical player in that market is important and the business that comes, you know there are, you’re right, there are at least 7, 8 players in the space. But it’s only 7, 8 compared to, you know, all the other tests where you have 3 lakh players. So comparatively you’re talking about still this being a cohort which has lesser competition. And Even amongst the 7, 8 or 10, 15 players who are doing genomics we have to remember that the doctors are going to need the most quality and precise reports which is where Metropolis positioning will stay.
And we are finding that our pickup of genomics has been very rapid since we have launched them.
Surya Narayan Patra
Okay, thank you for that one. Next question is on the network expansion size. Generally it is also believed that there is a kind of mentor. Now clearly Metropolis is focusing more about setting up the asset after creating a strong network expansion over the recent years. But, and that’s why there is a kind of a model and moderation in the model network additional front that we have witnessed. But simultaneously that is also considered to be a kind of a key growth driver. So given that your thought process in the subsequent period.
Surendran Chemmenkotil
So I mean we have mentioned this. In the past also the largely the laboratory expansions are mostly done with to service the 750 towns that we are focusing now. The focus is on going deeper into the 750 towns and improving and enhancing the customer service network there are and mostly through the franchise channel. So that’s what we have been doing in the last 2, 3/4 and we continue to do that and we find enough and more opportunity to further expand our network in these 750 towns and we’ll keep doing this and get more volumes and revenue growth from the tier 3, tier 4 kind of cities.
Surya Narayan Patra
Okay, just last one point from my side, sir. See we have seen in the opening remark also you mentioned, ma’, am, that there is a kind of a volatile situation in terms of the currency, in terms of the trade issues, everything that we have witnessed. So while this industry is immune from all that, even it is a domestic one. But any impact that one should anticipate to the reagent cost and all that.
Ameera Shah
See, at this point of time we don’t anticipate anything. But look, I mean if the rupee runs away like crazy, you know, there is obviously always a chance that vendors can come back and you know, potentially talk about renegotiation. But having said that, a lot reagents and vendors are actually more EU based and maybe even some Japan based and less, I would say us. So I don’t see there to be too much of a exposure at this point of time.
Surya Narayan Patra
Yeah, thank you.
Sameer Prakash Patel
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the Touchstone telephone. The next question comes from the line of Sudarshan Agarwal from Access Capital. Please go ahead.
Sudarshan Agarwal
Yeah, congrats on the good set of numbers. I was just looking at the data point wherein you kind of say that you have kind of closed down in this quarter. Can you tell me, is this to do with core of the recent acquisitions and what drove this close down and is there any more closures expected in the upcoming quarters?
Sameer Prakash Patel
Well, I think all the laboratories we have closed on in the last two quarters are largely because of integration. Wherever there are duplicate labs available in a town, we have just decided to go with only one of the two. And that’s always been the stated strategy that we had. And there are a couple of more labs that we may shut down in the quarter four as well. And the numbers could be little more lower than what we are starting the quarter with by the end of this year. Right. So you can expect maybe two, three more labs getting integrated.
Sudarshan Agarwal
Got it. And in terms of your volume growth, it has, you know, as you kind. Of guided, it will kind of improve. It has come at around 8 odd percent. Q4 is near term. But in a longer term do you expect this mid to high single digit patient volume growth kind of to sustain?
Sameer Prakash Patel
Yeah, 7 to 8 percentage volume growth has always been our aspirations in the near future and we are working towards that. We have started seeing the early successes on our programs and we continue to believe that 7 to 8 percentage of the range that we can strike the days to come.
Sudarshan Agarwal
Got it. And lastly on core diagnostics now, given the nature of these testing, I would believe that there is a lower portion of seasonality related to these oncogenomic tests. Right. So I think sequentially we would have seen a sharper drop in core based on certain assumptions that I’ve made. What drove these, I understand that there was some delay in machines, etc. But sequential drop in revenues has happened. Is that understanding correct?
Sameer Prakash Patel
No sharper drop. As you have been just mentioning, a slight drop because in quarter three, normally because of festivities etc. The procedures comes to an halt and it comes back in quarter four. So a very marginal drop in quarter three. But I mean we are seeing quarter four coming back in full form.
Sudarshan Agarwal
That’s it from my side. Thank you.
Sameer Prakash Patel
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Sriram Srivasan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Shyam Srinivasan
Yeah, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just first one on GST impact from a pricing perspective in Q3 or maybe in Q4, is there a change to how given all the reagent lower gsts, how does this pan out for us? Is it already reflective in our RPP for Q3 or we should expect realization to change in Q4?
Sameer Prakash Patel
See, there is a very marginal impact on the GST for us. What actually happened if you have observed it, the GST on materials into the diagnostic was at around 12 percentage and it’s moved up to 5 percentage. And some of the reagents are already at 5 percentage and some of them are at 12, 18% come down to now 5 percentage. So there’s a marginal benefit that we actually get comes into our, you know, results. But if you also know that, you know, in January every year we used to do a price revision. So this year we have delayed the price revision and we did not happen in January.
Basically so that at least know the customer continue to get the benefits of These revisions.
Shyam Srinivasan
Got it. Understanding the price revision again because I was going to come to that second question. Is the environment conducive for price increase. From a competitive standpoint? Yes. While GST benefits need to be passed on, do you think there is a revised timeline now of when you can relook at pricing for yourself?
Sameer Prakash Patel
Yes, we see the market is definitely maybe able to absorb some price increase and the environment is conducive, but we are delaying it, deferring it for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. I mean when exactly we will do it? That’s still a decision that we have to make it. We will keep observing the market for some more time and then at appropriate time we will use the price tables as well.
Shyam Srinivasan
Very helpful, thank you. Last question, just on like medium term thought process around guidance for top line only. If you are able to do 7, 6, 7% I’m just using patient volume goes 6, 7% somehow test volume and patient volume for you seems to be same number, similar numbers and you add RPP 5, 6%, you know, and then mix change. Let’s assume, which I’m sure should come in rpp. Why are we not able to grow. Faster than the 12 to 13%?
Sameer Prakash Patel
Well, I think we have delivered a 15 percentage growth in quarter three as you could see it. Right. And in the days to come, of course you know, you can expect improved performance on the top line.
Shyam Srinivasan
So there’s a day maybe in Q4 when you tell us fiscal 27 guidance, maybe you know, that is when you’ll outline what you’re going to grow next year.
Sameer Prakash Patel
Yeah. See the, the estimate for this year was 12 to 13 percentage and you know, we would like to hit the higher end of the 12 to 13 percentage bracket that we have been talking about it and hence you know, a similar trends that you will see it in quarter four as well.
Shyam Srinivasan
Thank you. All the best.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and when on a test on telephone, the next question comes from the line of Lokesh Manik from Valium Capital. Please go ahead.
Lokesh Manik
Yes. Hi, good morning ma’ am and members of the team. Just a couple of questions. Mayank on my end one is on routine testing, you’ve seen a growth of 12%. Your industry peers, you know, actually seen a decrease in that segment. So would it be attributed to, you know, the geography that we are present in or would this, would you attribute this to our strategy of focusing more on volume which has been our strategy for the last three to four Quarters or maybe months.
Sameer Prakash Patel
See the routine and semi special. In fact, all the test volumes category wise that we have mentioned in the investor deck is at a consolidated level. Right. And so in the routine and semi special number that you are seeing, 15, 16 percentage growth in quarter three is including all the new entities that we added during this year.
Lokesh Manik
Yes. So even in organic we have grown. 12% if I’m not mistaken.
Ameera Shah
In organic the test volume growth is 8%.
Ameera Shah
I’m talking about the revenue growth, the segment revenue that we.
Lokesh Manik
I was just wondering if it’s driven. By geography that we are in the west of India that is driving it or this is more a focus strategy.
Ameera Shah
Not really. I mean it’s. At the end of the day it’s your execution strength. So it’s not so much about the geography or in actually if you see north is probably the fastest growing geography for us. So I think it’s about, I think it’s about the strategy and the execution of it.
Surendran Chemmenkotil
12% is routine and 9% is semi special.
Lokesh Manik
Understood. This was on the back of, you know, the peers underperforming. So I thought, you know, maybe I just want the clarity where it was coming from. That is one second is the GLT test, the GLT drugs which are coming off patent. So do we have a focus strategy out there to, you know, take advantage of testing requirements that will come because of this or do we believe that, you know, you know, the requirements are pretty much fulfilled in the existing test menu that we are offering to.
Ameera Shah
See. The GLP therapies that are all coming out will all require a baseline testing to find out what’s happening in the body to moderate dosage along with a continuous monitoring to see whether it’s actually effective and not harming the body in any way. So our expectation is that like any other drug, if people are going to take medicines, they are going to have to monitor their blood levels as the underlying effect. So of course with GLP is coming in a big way, we do expect that our GLP packages as well as all the other products we have launched will pick up in a fairly bigger way.
And we’ve launched all of these GLP fund packages already.
Lokesh Manik
That’s it from my side. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. If you wish to ask a question, you may press Star and one on the Touchstone telephone. The next question comes from the line of. From bmspn, please go ahead.
Surya Narayan Patra
Yeah, hi. So we keep, I keep seeing some sort of rumor keep floating around WhatsApp. About reliance entering the Genomics field and you know, charging very low rates for testing. So how is this, how strong are these rupas? Could you speak what you’re hearing on ground and how this affects your genomics business, if at all?
Ameera Shah
Look, I think difficult to comment obviously on their strategy or what they’re doing, but there was already a business, a genomics business which was in distress, which they then acquired from I think nclt and I don’t know where it is because obviously they are not in the larger space of pathology. But what we are told is that it’s more of a data strategy which is more D2C and more of a screening test and not a diagnostic test. The difference between the two is you can do a screening test but you can’t actually take any decision unless it’s a diagnostic test because that is more confirmatory versus screening test.
Gives you some info, but you can’t really take any action on it. So. But of course the time will tell sort of which direction it goes in. I think Metropolis positioning is very different, which is we are all in the diagnostic space, which means we work very closely with prescribing doctors for very complex diseases to say that look, this is definitely what’s happening in the genome, in the body and therefore this is the action that you can take from it. So two different strategies. A little bit like if I were to give a comparison, there are many organizations doing wellness screen screening which may give you a sort of broad indication of what’s happening in your body, but you can’t actually take a decision on it versus a metropolis which will give you very final results where you’ll take action based on it.
Surya Narayan Patra
Understood? Understood. Great. Thank you for the clarification. And just one more question on the labor code. You know, I keep trying to understand what could happen over the next 10 year old, obviously over a very long period of time that can reduce the competition. So obviously government regulation is one which I don’t think much has happened on. Correct me if I’m wrong, but even labor court acts as some form of government regulation. So you see that as a possible catalyst to reducing competition in any way.
Ameera Shah
Look, I mean, I think definitely with government coming in with stronger regulatory frameworks, whether it’s on the wage code, whether it’s on the quality framework, certainly will help organize the unorganized sector, obviously. But this depends on enforcement and it depends on, you know, whether people follow the rules on the ground, you know, in the unorganized sector. But by the way, we are also seeing for the first time, I would Say in a long time. We are seeing the government very intent on sort of creating deregulation and appropriate regulation in multiple sectors across the country, including healthcare and an intent to want to give some compliance framework which is focused on not only access and affordability but also quality care.
So I’m actually quite hopeful that we might actually actually find the sector starting to organize in a better way compared to what I’ve seen in the last 20 years.
Surya Narayan Patra
Agreed. Let’s hope that happens.
Ameera Shah
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question, maybe the star and one. The next question comes from the line of Toshit Sheikh from BNP Pariva, please go ahead.
Toshi Sheik
Thanks for the opportunity. Ma’, am, is it possible can you share the nine month organic revenue growth from northern India? The idea is to just to understand. Whether metropolis positioning has changed after acquisition. In the northern market, mainly to B2C market.
Sameer Prakash Patel
Yeah, I mean the northern part of the country is growing faster for us than you know, the rest of the country. And you know I think we have just translated into in terms of the contribution which has gone up from 9 percentage to 17 percentage. Right. In the last three quarters after the acquisitions.
Toshi Sheik
This would include a co diagnostic as well.
Sameer Prakash Patel
Right.
Toshi Sheik
I would appreciate if you can highlight the organic revenue growth over there.
Sameer Prakash Patel
Oh well, at this point of time I won’t be able to give you the specifics but I think it’s growing faster than the company’s revenue growth, I can tell you that.
Toshi Sheik
Thanks.
operator
Thank you. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press start and run on a test tone telephone. The next question comes from the line of Anshul Agarwal from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Anshul Agarwal
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Hope I’m audible.
Surendran Chemmenkotil
Yes.
Anshul Agarwal
Great. First question is on organic margins. I believe our organic margins for the nine month period have expanded by about 100bps. If I recollect this was a slated target. Have you seen any tailwinds from GST etc which has sort of resulted into this expansion? Or do we expect this 100 bit sort of expansion in margins to continue as our lab network sort of matures?
Sameer Prakash Patel
Sachul, I have already mentioned that you know the GST impact is very marginal and and the margin expansion is largely on the back of the material productivity improvement and other productivity initiatives are taken in the organization and the beginning of the year we have made an estimate of 70 to 100 bps improvement in the margins and we stay put with that. You can see that coming in the coming quarter as well.
Anshul Agarwal
Second question was on our radiology foray, any comment on how that piece is sort of shaping up and any plans to sort of enter into the advanced radiology space even on a pilot basis?
Ameera Shah
I think, you know, we are looking at two spaces. One is on the low end radiology space and how we can potentially scale that up. I think we had mentioned earlier that we already made some progress on this in this last year where now a fair number of our centers have got ECG for sure, but also in some cases, cases X ray and sonography. And we’ll continue to sort of scale that up. And you know, there are multiple opportunities we believe that can be leveraged through that model. On the high end radiology, we are certainly exploring to see whether we can pilot, you know, a couple of centers and sort of see what kind of results we get.
And the idea would be obviously to leverage our very strong brand with doctors, with consumers, along with obviously a brand for technical excellence and very good customer service. So we will certainly try to see if we can pilot something and then see the results of it before we scale up.
Anshul Agarwal
Got it. Thank you. The third question I had was on preventive healthcare testing on our business. The results have been very strong. Could you help me understand from what I understand, while online players sort of created this market for even organized players, even on price, still on pricing front, preventive packages by organized players as well as us are slightly or meaningfully higher versus these online players. What according to you is driving growth in this segment? Is it maturity of the population at large? What exactly do you believe is driving this growth in preventive testing for organized health as well as metropolitan?
Sameer Prakash Patel
Three things. You know, I think we have mentioned in the past and then I reiterate that three things are helping on the preventive, you know, health, which is wellness and the bundle packages growth. One of course is much better awareness that we are able to create as an industry. We are able to create much better awareness. And secondly, the affordability of doing, the need for doing these preventive checkups are also getting better. And in our case particularly our ability to, I mean engage with our customer base on a regular baseline customer lifecycle management process and digital channels, etc is getting better.
So combination of all this, I think we are seeing, you know, the true health portfolios expanding, you know, every.
Ameera Shah
Just to add to that, I mean, I think in healthcare we often find that like you said, even though the market was created by the sort of digital health tech players, finally the most important component is trust, consumer trust. And I think that even though the market Creation happened. I think the ones who probably benefited more are the ones, the incumbents where there was already a brand trust created between the consumer and the institution. Then obviously it depends on how you execute, execute that and whether you’re able to pick up that market creation.
Anshul Agarwal
Just to follow up on that. So from what I can gather from your comments, pricing is not or is probably not the, is probably not a key lever in determining what customers are choosing or the diagnostic player that they’re choosing from. In preventive healthcare. Would that be a fair assumption to make?
Ameera Shah
Now look, I think, no, I think that I would not say that price is not an important factor in preventive healthcare. I think in illness and curative healthcare is definitely not an important factor. But in preventive healthcare I think it’s still an important factor but it’s not the only factor. We have to remember that finally if somebody is buying something they still have to trust what comes out of it. So I think the quality of it, the acceptance by the doctor, the convenience, the experience that you go through, these are all other very important. The interpretation you give is there a doctor doing a consultation with you at the end of it? These are all very important parts of also how people choose a wellness package.
Price is one of them but definitely not the only and most important factor.
Surendran Chemmenkotil
And Anshul, we also created a lot. Of value into the overall healthcheck packages of last 3, 4 quarters. We have introduced ECG, we have introduced vitals checking and we introduced doctor consultation within Metropolis. So the customers are seeing value in all these things and hence the repeatability and all that is getting better.
Anshul Agarwal
Just one last book review question for man. Could you help us understand what is the capex number for the nine month period?
Surendran Chemmenkotil
The nine month period is about close. To 40 crores at a group level and we think that you know for the full year basis this could be something close to 60 crores.
Anshul Agarwal
Perfect. That’s it from my end. Thank you very much for your answers.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Tanya Chaudhary from investech. Please go ahead.
Tanya Chaudhary
Hi. Hi Akash. So my question is to Amira ma’. Am. Ma’, Am, in one of the interviews you had told that you know, speciality and especially now the genomics is a high value and test but it won’t be margin accretive. However it will increase the EBITDA per patient. So I just wanted to get your, get a sense, you know, get light on, on the, you know, on the margin accretive nature of this same and Whether this will, whether and if it’s not margin accretive, whether our efforts at cost and other synergies will help us drive up the margins.
Thank you.
Ameera Shah
Thank you for the question. Just to clarify what I mean by margin accretive or higher EBITDA today, if you look at the group margin of the organization, close to about 25% on the MHL organic business. Right. And if the question is that is genomics margin going to be higher than that on an individual standalone test, maybe at this point? No. The reason for that is because the gross margins on these super specialized tests are lower than they are on the routine test. Having said that. But if an existing who’s already coming to you for certain tests or comes to you with a bundle of tests, some routine along with a genomics test, then that additional EBITDA that it adds to your sample is quite.
So I think the way we have to look at it is that are you picking up a single genomic sample on its own or are you picking it up as a battery of tests, which includes genomics. And if you are picking it up as a battery of tests, largely the majority, it will still give you a margin accretion versus if you are picking up only a genomics test alone because the tests are different. I hope that’s more clear.
Tanya Chaudhary
Yeah, that’s it ma’. Am. Thank you very much for the clarification.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Naman Bhagaricha from IFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Naman Bagrecha
Hello, thanks for the opportunity. Just specific questions. If you look the labor force charges, there’s an impact of almost around 2.3 bids, part of which would be recurring in nature, at least. On a recurring basis.
Sameer Prakash Patel
On the recurring basis I turned amount would be around 5 to 6 crores, not more than that.
Naman Bagrecha
And can you also give us let’s say the APEX guidance? What I believe was there we were targeting to improve the CQ per lab ratio from let’s say around 20, 22. Labs, 2022 collection centers for lab to around 30. So by when do we expect that? To. When do we expect that?
Sameer Prakash Patel
Well, I mean that’s an aspirational goal. I already mentioned it that way. Right. And that the number of labs that getting consolidated and the centers are going up. It’s a gradual progression and you know, it’s very difficult for me to put a timeline to when will you hit the 30 number. And I also believe that it just doesn’t matter whether when you will hit it, but as long as you’re progressing in the right direction.
Naman Bagrecha
Any Capex guidance that you would like to give for the next few years?
Surendran Chemmenkotil
No, we at this point of time. Know and I think at a later stage maybe we’ll be able to share with you.
Naman Bagrecha
Thank you.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. That was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Ameera Shah
Thank you for joining us for this Q3 call. As you can hear from the team, we are very strong and confident on the direction that we are heading in and the commitments made to our investors and shareholders in the beginning of the year around margin expansion and a growth overall revenue guidance. I think we’ve seen that we’ve been able to show that in the first nine months and we continue to see that in Q4 as well. We are very excited about the coming year and we hope that at the end of this quarter of Q4 we’ll be able to give you a strategic plan and a guidance for next year as well.
And I think the market continues to be strong and Metropolis position continues to be in the leadership position. So thank you all for joining and look forward to speaking soon.
operator
Thank you on behalf of ICICI Securities. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your mic. Thank you.