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MPS Limited (MPSLTD) Q3 FY23 Earnings Concall Transcript

MPS Limited (NSE:MPSLTD) Q3 FY23 Earnings Concall dated Jan. 27, 2023.

Corporate Participants:

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sunit Malhotra — Chief Financial Officer

Sukhwant Singh — Chief Delivery Officer for India

Rajesh R. Jumani — Global Chief Revenue Officer, E-learning business

Analysts:

Keshav Garg — Counter Cyclical PMS — Analyst

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Jagvir Singh — — Analyst

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

Naveen Bothra — — Analyst

Bharath Javda — — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen. Good day and welcome to the Q3 FY’23 Earnings Call of MPS Limited. [Operator Instructions]. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rahul Arora, Chairman, CEO, and Managing Director. Thank you and over to you sir.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, from [Technical Issues] and welcome to our Q3 FY’23 earnings call. Today on the call, I have with me our CFO, Sunit Malhotra; our Chief Delivery Officer for India Operations Sukhwant Singh, and our Chief Revenue Officer for our E-learning business Rajesh Jumani. Sunit will kick things off in open segment today, by discussing our Q3 FY23 financial performance. Then Sukhwant will update us on the content business. Next, Rajesh will discuss our robust performance in E-learning business. Finally, I will discuss how FY23 is shaping up overall.

Let’s get going. Over to Sunit.

Sunit Malhotra — Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Rahul. We made a solid start in H2 FY23 with robust financial performance in Q3. At INR17.28 per share, we recorded our highest quarterly EPS in our history for the second consecutive time. At INR132.4 crores, FX adjusted revenue were up by 18.16% against previous year, primarily driven by three factors. Number-one, growth in front-end the business, particularly the scholarly customers including journals and books. Then, growth in the E-learning business stand alone and in AI design. And third is more stability in the platform business. I would like to now hand it over to Sukhwant to discuss content solutions performance in this quarter.

Sukhwant Singh — Chief Delivery Officer for India

Thank you, Sunit. Our content business serves two primary markets, education and, scholarly. So, revenue in the content solutions business grew by almost 10% in quarter three of FY23 over the same-period last year. And segment profit during the same-period grew by almost 44% due to the significant operating leverage available in this business. So, close to 10% growth in revenue, leading to a 44% expansion in the overall margins.

Our journal solution — journal division continued to lead the growth in the content solutions business in quarter three of FY23 and given the scale and highly profitable nature of this business, the scale up also meant margins continued to improve for the content solutions business.

The scholarly books business also did well in-quarter three of FY23. The trend towards offshoring continued in our education business, which is another significant part of our content business and the drive towards making content more accessible supported growth in the education segment. I would like to now hand it over to Rajesh Jumani to take us through the e-learning business performance in quarter three of FY’23.Over to you, Rajesh.

Rajesh R. Jumani — Global Chief Revenue Officer, E-learning business

Thank you, Sukhwant. The eLearning business significantly grew in Q3 FY23 due to the addition of EI design, impressive double-digit growth in standalone MPS Interactive and continued scale-up of product revenue adoption. The revenue grew from a consistent flow of products –projects, both from [Technical Issues] accounts, as well as new customers. We also secured a large project to build an experience center for a consortium of PSUs in India. And the project will be completed ahead for major event in February, which is next month. While margin significantly expanded in eLearning, they have yet to reach their true potential as we try to expand this further in Q4 of the current financial year and H1 FY24.Back to you Rahul.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Rajesh. As Sunit shared at the top of the call, we recorded our highest quarterly EPS in our history for the second consecutive time, quite an achievement considering how the macroeconomic environment is shaping up. We continue to be on target to beat our stated goal of [Technical Issues] impact in FY 23, as we shared earlier in 2022. As revenue grows, margins continue to expand given the significant operating leverage available in the business.

As a learning and platform business, three factors are giving us confidence. First, our content business is doing exceptionally well with our scholarly customer base. We are at in early innings of the growth story for the customer base and growth will continue to unfold in Q4, as well as in FY’24. After a steady pickup in FY23, performance will be even more impressive in the scholarly content business in FY24.

Second, while we reported growth and rich margin expansion in Q3 in the e-Learning business, our ambition is considerably higher. And it will begin to be unlocked in the first half of FY’24 as Rajesh pointed out. And finally, our platform business stabilize upon commencement of the third year of ownership of HighWire business. Modest growth in Q3 over Q2 in FY’23 confirmed that the transformation of HighWire is running on par with its five year per the activity driven.

We saw massive a raise during the impressive payback period of less than three years. The true growth will only unfold in the fourth and fifth years of ownership. Finally, our culture is our greatest asset. My teams are truly empowered and perform the duties with an ownership mindset. Keeping this context in mind, we have recommended an ESOP program and the shareholders of the Company have approved the Employee Stock Option Scheme 2023 on January 21st.

The scheme shall be supervised by the nomination of [Indecipherable] committee, including finalizing eligibility criteria, terms and conditions related to grant vesting exercising options by the employees under the scheme. The scheme shall be implemented in due course and administered by employees, etc., a little [Indecipherable] granted of the Company. The shares of the scheme will be sourced through the combination of secondary acquisition and primary issuance of shares. We look forward to your continued support in this exciting new growth phase of building scale for MPS. I would now like to open the call to your question.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you very much. [Operator Instructions].Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We’ll take our first question from the line of Keshav Garg from Counter Cyclical PMS. Please go ahead.

Keshav Garg — Counter Cyclical PMS — Analyst

Firstly, many congratulation for on-time high-profit numbers. Sir, I wanted to understand that just taking from initial commentary, so you said with the ESOP, you will buy shares, some of which is from the secondary market and from the primary of issuance. Sir, wat is the need for primary issuance right on the current [Indecipherable] from the secondary market so that the equity dilution can be avoided.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Correct. So, we the total number of shares that we sought approval for is about 400,000 shares. And our goal of course is to use up to 200,000 shares in the secondary acquisition and up to 200,000 from the primary. There is — and we don’t anticipate doing the primary for another couple of years. But, the reason we are having to go to the primarily is because of SEBI guidelines. We can only acquire a certain value for this purpose through secondary, which is basing on our balance sheet is up to 200,000 shares. So it’s more — compliance-related, nothing to do with [Indecipherable] maximize the secondary acquisition.

Keshav Garg — Counter Cyclical PMS — Analyst

Okay, sir. So also you did mention that — some jump in eLearning division. Some part of it was due to some one time orders that we’re doing for a consortium of PSUs, which is expected to conclude within this quarter. So with this one-off revenue, some portion on this INR37 crore quarterly run-rate, is this sustainable going-forward for eLearning division?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, so I would focus on the annual numbers. And the annual numbers are absolutely sustainable, in fact, [Indecipherable] below. As said, the guidance in the past said, eLearning business for us should grow at 15%, 20%, which is much higher than the other lines of business. And with respect to this particular project, every year, so we have a line of business called experience experience tender. With the exception perhaps one year for the last four, five years, we’ve been building experience centers every year.

So it’s not a one off, it’s just that it’s getting executed in the two quarters, so in the six month. So, we will have experience center projects every year, not that it will depend on the customer, whether it’s in Q1, Q2, Q3 or Q4, but it’s a very healthy part of our business. We tend to work with either large corporates in India or the PSUs — large PSUs in India and we’ve been doing that for the past five years under the ownership of MPS, but previously also when The Tata Group owned this eLearning. Even then, this is happening.

So this is a very steady business and this is a fabulous business and will continue going forward as well. In fact, so far, we’ve been only doing this is India, this line of business and our goal for the next few years is also to expand into additional neighboring markets within the Indian subcontinent, but also in the Middle East.

Keshav Garg — Counter Cyclical PMS — Analyst

Very helpful. Sir, also lastly, sir, if there is very encouragement that the platform solutions division has finally turned around and has grown Q-o-Q, So, sir, henceforth, this number will continue to grow or is there some one-off element and things are not stabilized.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, the one-off element is gone away, in fact, if you take the one-off element out this quarter, our margins would have been at 36% our EBITDA margins. And we expect that to carry forward into Q4, as well as next year 36% to 40% of EBITDA margin for the business. Yeah, so these is one-off expenses are done with and they’re absorbed entirely in Q3. With respect to revenue, we are expecting some modest growth in the platform business in FY24.

So continue — we hold the 36% EBITDA margin for sure and of course, if revenue picks up, even it is modestly, that can go further [Indecipherable].

Keshav Garg — Counter Cyclical PMS — Analyst

And sir, lastly, sir, last year, we did a share buyback in February. So sir, now January revenue [Technical Issues] should shareholders expect some earnings on that account [Technical Issues].

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so currently, at this particular Board meeting, a lot of the focus was on the ESOP scheme. I mean, I’d like to keep my Board focus. So once this, nonetheless, has been completed, at the next Board meeting, we will talk about redistribution of proceeds to the shareholders, which includes buyback, as well as the dividend [Technical Issues]. So we’ll be exploring that at the Board meeting for the annual results in May like we’ve done previously, and yes, absolutely there will be some quality distribution. What that form will be, we will discuss [Technical Issues].

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Okay, thank you very much, and best of luck.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We have our next question from the line of Hrishikesh Ghai, an Individual Investor. Please go ahead.

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Yeah, you mentioned about the impairment. I see that the other expenses have increased by almost INRINR6 crore rupees, approximately. So what exactly is the — exact quantum amount of that impairment. And my second question is there has been a dramatic

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

[Technical Issues]. What is the impairment you’re talking about [Technical Issues].

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Yeah, like, am I audible now.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, you’re audible, but you are referring to some impairment. There is no impairment. Could explain what the question was.

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Yeah, so there hasn’t been a spurt in other expenses from Q2 and Q3, for almost about INR6 crore approximately. So, I would like to know the reason for that. And my second question is, there has been dramatic improvements.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, likely the reason for that is outsourcing, primarily outsourcing, two items. One is outsourcing related to the largest experience center [Technical Issues]. And the second would be the one off expenses we’ve had in the HighWire business and [Technical Issues] cost items that — these are exit costs from the cost items. These are [Technical Issues]. It’s mostly — it’s a combination of outsourcing [Technical Issues].

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Okay and the other question is, there have been dramatic improvements in technologies in artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT, etc. So how would that affect our business like in the future and are we taking any steps to action and leverage on that.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Excellent question, excellent question. So any drive towards efficiency in automation for us presents a massive opportunity because it allows us to differentiate ourselves in our competition. Remember, we operate in a highly-fragmented market, — there are lots of these small players in the field. And we’re always looking to kind of look for opportunities where we can differentiate ourselves and consolidate that field.

And, of course, MPS tends to be at the forefront of new technology and new innovation. In machine-learning, we are little different. In fact, our R&D team based out of Bangalore, which is over 100 people branded MPS lab has made tremendous pride in this particular area. Specifically, the machine-learning, we’ve been supplying machine-learning in content production for a few years now. So it’s a very well-established practice, which has allowed us to achieve turnaround times much better than our competitors, as well as it also helped with margin expansion.

More recently, we started making exploration in areas like creating supplementary contents from core content, research integrity, searching the quality of language as we get varied format of inputs in terms of content manuscripts, creating images, but also using AI through check how images have been possibly manipulated. So, we tend to do a review of the imports that we get and the AI allows us to do a study quickly, as well as generating alternative text through AI for acceptability. So, we have a series of initiatives. Some are operating at a pilot level where we are co-developing things with our customers. Some are operating to emerging level where we’ve had a certain amount of volume go through the AI enabled workflow. And we are trying to figure out how do we now scale up to the next level. And then, in the certain areas like type setting and composition, where things are more established, as well. So, lots of initiatives on Board. We see it as a massive opportunity for MPS because while the Chennai floods and the pandemic allowed us to differentiate ourselves in terms of business that [Technical Issues].

This particular opportunity allows us to differentiate ourselves in terms of how quickly can we get our customers content to market. But also how — not just speed, but also the kind of the predictability of the quality. So, we are — we are totally embracing this. We’ve built products on top of this. And we see this as a massive opportunity to gain market share.

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Okay — that’s really great to hear. And so actually, it’s not a threat. It’s more like an opportunity I see.

Rajesh R. Jumani — Global Chief Revenue Officer, E-learning business

Yeah, basically, — the way we’re looking at it is that — there are hundreds and hundreds of players in this space, but our customers obviously want to work. At some point, the supply chain is going to be consolidated. And whenever you get the shock to the system, each shock is an opportunity for organized and resilient and professional peers like MPS to kind of gain market share. This is another shock in the system and we welcome the shock.

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Okay, that’s really nice to hear. In one of the previous meeting, you had said that you would have 40, 40, 30 operating margins target. So roughly, that would mean that we would again touch to our all time high of 35% operating margins in the next year. Would you — are we still on the course catching that.

Sunit Malhotra — Chief Financial Officer

We are getting there, as you’ll see. I’m not going to be sharing any guidance for next year. I had shared guidance for the end of 2027, which is going to get to INR1,500 crores in revenue and at similar margins. Now, whether those are 30%, 35%, those are things that will play out every quarter, every year. But the bold vision is to get to INR1,500 crores topline at similar margin. Yeah, and I think the margin expansion continues to happen at MPS across different lines of business.

Hrishikesh Ghai — — Analyst

Okay, thanks. Congratulations on the excellent results.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We have a question from the line of Mahesh B P, an Individual Investor. Please go-ahead.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Hi, Rahul. Post the acquisition of EI Design, it was mentioned that they had a revenue estimate of around INR6.7 million for FY23. And MPS has around 10 months of revenue contribution from EI Design. MPs, eLearning had INR83.5 crore revenue in FY22. So, do you think with INR95 crores for nine months FY23, is there some miss in terms of the growth for the year design.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

No, there is no miss. All lines of business are growing. We’re, very happy with the growth that we have in eLearning. We are not seeing these as different lines of business because now, EI was — this was our fastest integration. So MPS interactive acquired EI Design in May or June of 2022. And we integrated teams within three months, our fastest and so, we are actually not even thinking of these as different lines of business. We’re thinking of this as one eLearning business and this can [Technical Issues] growing. It’s very difficult now to differentiate what is EI, what is MPS, its almost impossible. Because it’s all blended in now. Same teams, same leadership, you know, that kind of it. It’s difficult to [Technical Issues], yeah.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Okay. My second question is you had articulated a vision of INR50 million revenue for eLearning by 2027. Are there any factors other than valuation that is holding deals that you’re pursuing.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Nothing has been held up. We just did an acquisition like six months ago. So nothing is really held up. Everything is working fairly well. We have no issues on the acquisition side. I’m sorry, we did not understand your question.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

No, so the INR50 million revenue in that you have for eLearning, you know, does it still hold us.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, absolutely.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Because any delay in acquisition will — growth or a bigger acquisition.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I’m not understand what the delay you’re referring to. We just did one in May or June, right. So, there no delay.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

No, no, in the sensem in terms of the run rate that you need to get to $50 million, that’s what I am referring to.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

No, we are on-track to — the based on our business plans, we’re on track. I don’t think — we are ahead of the curve.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Okay, Great. That’s it from my end. Thank you.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We have a question from the line of Jagvir Singh from Shade Capital. Please go ahead.

Jagvir Singh — — Analyst

Sir, congratulations for a good set of numbers. And actually, I joined late — joined late to the conference. So my question is regarding the Q4. So we have achieved 31% EBITDA margin in the Q3, this quarter. So, these [Technical Issues] or we can see some kind of improvement in that new [Technical Issues] in FY24.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I think, we, again, normally don’t provide detailed guidance, but qualitatively, I can say is that in Q3 — Q4 is very similar to Q3. And the goal, of course, then very — Q3 in the sense that there was [Technical Issues] where we had this one-off expense in the platform business. So platform will go back to 36%. So with the exception of that one change, Q4 will be very similar to Q3 to and again like I was describing at the top of the call, the eLearning business should improve margins in the first half of FY24. So content margins should hold. platform margin, exit margin should be close to 36% this year. And then next year, eLearning margin should continue to improve. Our goal, of course, our next milestone is to move this from 25% to 30% on the eLearning side.

So, we’re hoping that by the second-half — so the first-half of the year we take all the actions and the second-half of the year, we start seeing the result of those actions. So yes, margins will only continue to improve from here.

Jagvir Singh — — Analyst

And, sir, any guidance the next year on the revenue front.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Not right now. I think — the vision continues – the bold vision continues to be on-track to get to INR15,00 crores by the end of 2027. And then, of course, once [Technical Issues], possibly, we can have the conversation talking about our Q1 results of the FY24.

Jagvir Singh — — Analyst

Thanks a lot, sir.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We have a follow-up question from the line of Keshav Garg from Counter Cyclical PMS. Please go ahead.

Keshav Garg — Counter Cyclical PMS — Analyst

Sir, just wanted to understand that what are you hearing from our major customers on the demand-side and, as well as on the pricing side.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I heard the demand-side, what was the second part.

Keshav Garg — Counter Cyclical PMS — Analyst

Sir pricing, is there any pricing pressure. Are there customers asking us to reduce our price?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

No I think. So on the demand-side, not yet. Having said that, we have stepped up our interactions. So, wherever we’re doing quarterly meetings and having monthly meetings, we’re trying to get our account managers to meet with our customers physically in-person as much as possible. So, we’ve definitely stepped-up the activity in terms of being in front of our customers. So far, nothing yet on the demand-side. On the pricing side also, not as much. There is a lot of conversation around improving speed-to-market on the content side. That’s in response to different question, I was talking about how these applications of machine-learning and AI enables some of that. But there’s a lot of conversation around kind of how do we go quicker to market. But so-far, not been too much conversation around demand side.

On price, of course, that happens every year where we will be at lower prices, we get more volume, but that’s been part for the course. Nothing unusual, which would happen in a recession there, people would ask for price cuts without any exchange — without an upside.

So, that of course the price cuts do happen with potential volume outside. Those have happened already. So, yeah, we are of course studying the macro and making sure that we are in front of our customers as much as possible. And also now that in person meetings are possible, we are trying to do as many physical meanings as possible, attending a lot of events as well. Nothing yet. And definitely, if and when we do hear something, we will report that on the earnings call.

Operator

We have our next question from the line of Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

Hope I am audible?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I can hear you.

Operator

Yes.

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

Hello.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, go ahead, I can hear you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

Yeah. First of all, congrats on these top numbers. Of course, you told about amount your prospect and all in terms of what kind of growth you see and let’s go very little deeper in terms of what aspects of the market are helping you achieving this kind of growth especially on the content side and also what was lifting up the traction on the platform side of the business?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sure, so when we look at our — growth strategy, we don’t think of our businesses as content, eLearning and platform. That was one big change we made a couple of years ago and possibly that mindset change has — we started to look at our customers in market segments instead of business segments. So while we report our results as content, eLearning and platform, when we go to the market and we fight for market share, we look at the market has scholarly, education, and corporate.

And there are different approaches for each of these markets. For scholarly market, we are following a very basic price volume approach where we are undercutting the competition to get more revenue and to get more — and also to built more volume. In addition to that, we are following a bundling approach so between our various — so we have a complete product ecosystem. And the fact there is product ecosystem, so we’re trying to cross sell as much across that ecosystem. And finally, we’re also trying to cross sell across our continent and platform business for the scholarly customer base. So — the market view is enabling us to sell different things to our customers across MPS versus trying to sell individual products and services.

So we’re looking at like, let’s say, we go to university press, we try to get more volume through the price wary approach. And then, we’ll try and cross sell. So their content customer, we will try and sell them a platform or with the platinum customers, we try and sell them content and or [Technical Issues] platform. That’s the approach for this scholarly market, which is kind of helping us quite a bit.

On the education side, there’s a couple of things that we’re doing.With the current customers, we are following an approach where we are taking the onshore, the U.S. based capabilities around content development and design. And combining that with our digital expertise that we acquired through eLearning business, so taking our eLearning capabilities and content capabilities and unlocking that synergy for our customer-base on the education side.

In addition to that, we are focusing more on immersive learning. So really learning by doing. Those solutions tend to be high-end also tend to be more recurring in nature, as well as in the education space, we are targeting not just the publishing community, but also education institutions. So we are now directly working with community colleges, universities and continuing education institutions. So that’s on the education side.

And then on the corporate side, through the acquisition of EI design, we’ve kind of inherited a marketing led approach. There is a new proprietary capability that we’ve acquired from EI where basically where through that approach, we get a lot of awareness and interest in the Company. And then, we’ve always been good at converting that awareness and interest into business. So we’re using these kind of taken the EI approach that we acquired and spending more dollars in there to get even more needs and then converting that through our solid approach.

In addition to that, we are expanding into new geographies on the eLearning side. So, we started doing business in India, We have new customers in Australia. So the rest of the world for the E-Learning business has picked up, which is again something that we are not attacking core. But again, has EI had a very strong customer-base in rest of the world and we’ve kind of been building on top of that.

Again, on the corporate side, we’ve also been leveraging on many industry partnerships. So, we have partnerships with industry associations. We tend to be an award-winning vendor partner. We participate in all the award process. And also, we have been very picky about the industries that will go after on the corporate side. We are trying to go after industries where there is sort of heavy spending on the learning and developments. So again. I think the big structural change that we made is that instead of thinking of this as business line, where we’re trying to sell content, platform, and eLearning to individual customers, we are now approaching it from a customer perspective, from outside in, saying that if you are currently customer, this is your business problem and this is how we can solve it. And likewise for education and corporate. And then within each of those markets, we are following different approaches that are custom to the market dynamics.

So yeah, it’s a very thoughtful exercise. It’s been years in making, of course, we’re seeing to develop now.

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

And, off course thanks for that detailed clarification. Just to add a little bit more here. If you could divide some of this incremental opportunity, of course, the capability addition, new addition, there is fresh perspective. But if you see from the client perspective, what is in the traction. Is it simple market-share gain for us or is there even better budget on the part of some behavioral change in terms of how they’re consuming some of this thing earlier versus a third party. Any such flavor from a client perspective if you put out.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Again, different thing for the [Technical Issues]. Only customer there is a desire to work with fewer partners. And we have one of the few partners that have both content and tech expertise. Normally, we go to a tech text vendor for the platform and you go a content vendor for the content expertise. Here, we’re able to work with us across both things, having two companies in one company or multiple companies in one company. And what it does to them is they’re trying to push more content out there, so it increases the cheaper market.

That’s why on the quality side, I think it’s yes has market share, but it’s basically almost a new market that we created. So there is a content market and a platform market, There is the content and platform market almost only MPS is operating certain market that combines both the markets. So that’s the play on the scholarly side.

On the education side, again, — on digital historically, they’ve had different vendors for content and different for digital. And very few vendors that can provide both. So there is an element again similar to scholarly that we [Technical Issues]. Another element to education is that we’ve entered entire new market. So previously, our entire revenue from education used to come from the major educational publishers. Today, we are working with these new learning companies that are emerging globally. We are working with universities, We’re working colleges. So, there is a market expansion that’s happened on the education side for us. And then on the corporate side, the market is growing at 10%, 12% on its own. The pie is increasing, of course, we are getting more market-share in that expanding pie.

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

[Technical Issues]

Operator

Mr. Jain, does that answer your question?

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

Yes, is does. Sir, last bit, if I may, which is related to I think, Rahul Ji spoke couple of quarters back that, it is their content that is now getting creative post COVID in terms of research. Is there any change to that view, in terms of your observation — does that continue [Technical Issues].

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, it’s definitely continuing and in fact, I think the customers are also getting becoming more thoughtful in their approach. So, for example, a lot of the recent conversations are about speed. How do we push more content faster. And that shows that, this is not just something that thy are flirting with, but they are committed to. So earlier, the conversations were more discovery. Now, it’s more about, okay, we know want to do this, what’s the engagement model is. And what’s the tech behind that engagement model that will make sure that what we have — our vision actually kind of justifies. So, absolutely, if there is anything, I think we move from discovery to now implementation.

Rahul Jain — Dolat Capital — Analyst

Nice to hear that. Thank you so much [Technical Issues] for your time.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We have a next question from the line of Naveen Bothra, an Individual Investor. Please go ahead.

Naveen Bothra — — Analyst

Yeah, congratulations for good set of numbers. Sir, my question is regarding the growth finance, which we are seeing that by FY27, we want to be INR15,00 crore revenue company. And we see our current revenues of around INR520 crores range. In the next four years, if the — and then say a huge compounding for the next four years. When we see our current revenues, except eLearning and the EI Design, the major growth initiatives coming through the inorganic part EI Design. So if you can throw some more light on this growth dynamics. Are we want to achieve organically, as well as inorganically, if can throw some more light on it?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. I’ll do that. Before I want to correct the data point that you shared. The eLearning business has not just grown because of the acquisition EI Design. If we take EI Design out, the standalone eLearning business grew at 27% in Q3. Just to make sure that we on all on the same page, the standalone e:earning business for MPS without the EI Design grew at 27%, which is pretty predominant obviously organically. So definitely, the eLearning business is growing faster than the rest of the rest of the segments. So it’s not just inorganic, it’s a blend of organic and inorganic. And what we envision is as we scale from INR500 crores to INR1,500 crores, about 60% of the incremental revenue will come inorganically and 40% will come organically, We think it’s — we envision it’s going to be a 60%, 40% split in the favor of inorganic as you take it from INR500 crores to INR1,500 crores.

Naveen Bothra — — Analyst

And the capital allocation for the 60% part, as well as the return to shareholders and all these things.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sir. So currently, yeah, so in what I described — as I mentioned, sorry about that. what I’ve described was the underlying assumption is that the profile of acquisitions will be in the $15 million to $30 million range in revenue so and will be funded from internal accruals. So that’s the current assumption. When I talk about INR500 crores to INR1,500 cores that’s the underlying assumption on the inorganic side. Now having said that, if suddenly we find this great opportunity, which is greater than $30 million in revenue and checks all my boxes of it’s a growing company, if it’s a accretive, it’s strategically enhances our capability, portfolio, etc., then, we would look at even a combination of debt and equity financing. But that again, we will have to detail out when the right opportunity presents itself.

So far, the numbers that I’m giving to you assume we will acquire businesses in the $15 million, $30 range and funded from internal growth.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We have a question from the line of Mahesh, B.P., an Individual Investor. Please go ahead.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Hi, will you look at the inorganic growth in content vertical given that it is a very high margin business?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so we are actually looking at all verticals, but the thing that we — on content, we would do an acquisition if it does provide us something meaningful something new that we don’t have. So on the content side as Sukhwant was describing in his opening remarks, they focus entirely on education and scholarly. So, if there’s anything out there that gets us into a third — there’s lots of — content has, 700 different types of fee. If something gets us into an additional fee or within education and scholarly, if there is some new capability that we do not possess absolutely, so it has to be from our perspective like I described, it has to be a growing company. It has to be EPS accretive. We’re not looking at doing sinking ships anymore. We want things to be accretive. And finally, it should add some strategic advantage where we go to the market, we say this was asked before, but now this does this and therefore that’s sort of a multiplier effect.

But so it’s a — its absolutely looking looking at that as well, but you will have to further — the boxes a content acquisition would need to check would obviously be far more than eLearning acquisition or platform acquisition.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Is new logos also a factor?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

No I think. So yes, on the eLearning side and on the platform side, yes. Whereas on the content side, I think content side I think that’s [Technical Issues]approach. Iif the acquisition all it provides us is new logos, that’s not interesting because that we should ideally be just be doing organically.

Mahesh B.P. — — Analyst

Okay, That’s it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Bharath Javda, an Individual Investor. Please go ahead.

Bharath Javda — — Analyst

Yeah, good evening. First of all congratulations on amazing sets of numbers. I’ve been following the company from last two, three years. And you said to set the right expectations and delivered on it, so congratulations on that. My one question is I’m I audible?

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, yeah.

Operator

Yes, but not clear though. Can you use your handset please?

Bharath Javda — — Analyst

Yeah, so my question is as of now, we are running three lines of business, platform, content, and eLearning. So is there any plan to expand the line of business through organic or inorganically.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so, organically we are kind of already expanded into one more line, which is marketing communication. So, like. I was explaining on the previous call — on the previous question in a different context, we operate this business where we build these large physical and virtual experience centers for many of the leading brands in in India, including large corporate, as well as PSUs. So that vertical is now emerging organically as a vertical called marketing communications, currently all of that revenue was sitting within eLearning.

When it becomes material, we can potentially — currently, it’s not material enough for us to call it a full segment. If it does, we will look at that. And of course, if there is an opportunity on the acquisition side presents itself to accelerate that aspect, we will pursue that. But other than that, for the — currently we are looking at content, eLearning and platforms, and of course, the fourth one is marketing communications, which we organically already invested and created. But the focus really is on these three plus one segment that we have.

Bharath Javda — — Analyst

Okay, okay, thank you so much.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Rahul Arora for closing comments. Over to you. sir.

Rahul Arora — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you everyone for your excellent observations and thoughtful questions. To conclude my comments, I’m delighted with our continued progress in this new phase of building scale for MPS. Market-leading margins in the content business, sustainable organic and inorganic growth in the eLearning business, and untapped potential in the platform business form a potent coatings combination towards vision 2027, which I have articulated previously, but I repeat that my vision for MPS in 2027 is to create a compelling learning company of a meaningful scale that will help the world learn smarter.

We aspire to be the provider of choice in our market that powers experiential learning experiences through the latest technology innovation. What you’re seeing today is a result of the hard work and diligence and ownership mindset of me and my team over the last five years. Very similar to the bamboo plants [Technical Issues] and nutted, and suddenly you start to see results. I think this is here now is a bamboo moment for MPS where things are finally starting to [Technical Issues].

So thank you for all your support and patience over the years. And look-forward to your continued support. through the following years.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Closing Remarks].

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