NIIT Limited (NSE: NIITLTD) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Jan. 30, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Vijay Kumar Thadani — Vice Chairman and Managing Director
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Sanjeev Bansal — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Rahul Jain — Analyst
Presentation:
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Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3FY26 earnings conference call of NIIT Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vijay Tadani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director NIIT Ltd. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Vijay Kumar Thadani — Vice Chairman and Managing Director
Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to NIIT Limited Q3FY26 Earth Earnings Call. This is a busy result season and for you to spend your time with us. Truly grateful to you and we always learn from your questions and they lead us to deep introspection and sharpening our strategy. Today’s agenda is covering the quarter three and nine month results for financial year 2526. We’ll talk to you about the performance highlights. We would also like to explain to you this time it requires a little more explanation as to what changed this quarter and how we are handling that.
And lastly we’ll also talk to you about outlook and priorities for quarter four and beyond. So to address all your questions I have the full management team here. Chairman Mr. Pawar, another executive director and co founder Mr. P. Rajendran, the CEO of the company Panka Jathar, Sanjeev Bansal who’s the CFO of the company, Shilpa Dua who is the Chro as well as Mr. Sapnesh Lala who is a non Executive Director and also CEO of NIT Learning Systems Ltd. In addition to that we have the investor relations and senior colleagues from finance and business functions. Just to set the context, our performance in quarter three did not meet the expectation that we had from ourselves and we had entered the quarter with a double digit plus growth based on the schedules as well as the order book that we had at the beginning of the quarter and what we were expecting.
But we fell short driven primarily by a sharper than anticipated slowdown. That happened because in fresh hire training we have all been reading about the fact that fresh hire training in technology has been very muted. But this quarter we also saw that happening at the larger scale in BFSI which was quite sudden since it happened in the second half of the quarter where we had to push the dates out and therefore to that extent we could not record the revenue that we wanted and our expenses remained at the level and they were having planned for this and the future goal.
So taking into account that and how we have handled the situation and how AI enabled revenue is actually changing the way we are looking at things. How the pivot that we did in technology training a few quarters ago which helped us grow technology part of the training by 20% this quarter and more. I have Mr. Panka Jathar, CEO of the company to brief us and then we’ll open it for Q and A. Over to you Pankaj.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Vijay and good afternoon everyone.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
I will cover Q3 performance first starting with revenue and order intake and then.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Look at segment trends and profitability and.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Finally what we’re doing in Q4 to.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Improve execution and momentum.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Q3 FY26 performance revenue and order intake revenue in Q3 was 1014. This is the second consecutive quarter with.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Revenue above 1000 million.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
That’s 100 crores.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Revenue was up 3% year on year.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Excluding IM, new revenue was down 10% year on year largely due to compression and new hire training, most notably across.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Large private sector banks and top IT.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Services firms that are large customers. For us, order intake was at 822 million, marginally better than last year. What changed was the expectation is that we saw onboarding plans weaken materially in.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
The second half of the quarter which.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Pushed training start dates out and reduced batch volumes for BFSI and others contributed most to this shortfall. In terms of go to market mix and what worked for us, the enterprise go to market held up despite BFSI.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
And others moving down.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Our enterprise go to market execution was strong despite a significant slowdown in the large private sector bank hiring training Overall enterprise revenues grew 8% year on year led by enterprise tech which grew 18% year on year. Importantly, excluding IM Neo, enterprise tech grew 9% year on year reflecting an underlying improvement to the business. Why do we think this worked? We are trying to achieve a balance across early careers and working professionals. Our strategy to increase penetration across lateral job roles through upskilling reskilling has created a healthier balance between early careers and.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Working professionals in enterprise tech.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
This mix made enterprise tech structurally more resilient even as pressure hiring and onboarding remained volatile. On the consumer side, it’s overall down though tech is a bright spot even even within that consumer business declined 3% year on year driven by BFSI and others where revenue was down 36%. At the same time, consumer tech grew 22% year on year reflecting continued demand for tech skilling from job seekers and working professionals. Our direct to college strategy through NIO is paying dividends as tech clients become more discerning on talent quality and job readiness. Consumer tech grew at 22%.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
This is a good indicator of the.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Traction we are getting in terms of product mix. This translated to the following the mix shifted meaningfully this quarter with tech is to BFSI becoming 7624 which was 6535 last year. The proportion has changed decisively in favor of technology. Technology Programs revenue was at 766 million which is up 20% year on year. The key drivers behind this an increased investment in GTM and focus on advanced programs for the working professional audience has helped stabilize the business against hiring. Imeo contributed 128 million rupees in revenue in the quarter and is scaling well. The pressure was concentrated in BFSI and others segment.
BFSI and others revenue at 248 million was down 27% year on year led by reduced volumes for our TPAAS business. I now invite Sanjeev Bansal, our CFO to talk through some of the financial metrics.
Sanjeev Bansal — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Pankaj. Good afternoon everyone. I will talk through some of the financial indicators including ebitda, other income and balance sheet and cash flow. Despite the revenue miss we delivered positive margins in Q3. This was enabled by tight cost control even as we continue to invest in GTM capacity and new AI offerings. Depreciation was at 76 million. Net other income was 132 million comprising of other income of 191 million which is offset by exceptional expense of 54 million. Other income of 191 million includes treasury income of 101 million and other income of 90 million and 90 million includes interest on tax refunds of 63 million, rental income of 17 million and there is some transition related expense recovery of 5 million and other miscellaneous income of 5 million.
Exception expenses of 54 million includes one time impact of new wage code implementation 46 million and there’s an expense of 8 million which is relating to scheme of arrangements for merger of RPS and IB into NIIT. Other expenses 5 million includes net finance cost of 3 million, a forex loss of 2 million. All this has resulted into PAT of rupees 39 million and EPS of 29 paisa per share. As stated earlier, the business is in investment phase. Currently we are investing into making the business resilient across hiring cycles through expansion of gtm, new products and offerings, partnerships and inorganic investments.
Now coming to balance sheet and cash flows. DSO is at 59 days versus 68 days last year though it was 55 days last quarter. Capex 87 million in Q3. This is consistent with our Investment cycle cash and cash equivalent stands at 7122 million. Again similar last quarter. This is driven by working capital efficiency and salary income headcount stands at 939 million which is flat Q which is up from 720 last year aligned with growth initiative investments. This includes im new headcount. Thanks back to Pankaj.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Sanjeev. Let me now talk a little bit more about the last nine months of FY26. The performance and operating context. For the first nine months order intake was 3340 million rupees up 16% year on year and revenue was 2904 million.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Rupees up 7% year on year.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Over these last nine months we’ve navigated conflict related impact on volume, a prolonged and continued period of subdued IT hiring where we successfully de risked growth via GTM expansion, new customer additions and scaling, AI offerings and inorganic investments. Q3 for us has historically been a seasonally weaker quarter for some parts of our business. In the last few years it had shown better trends with a changing mix. However, the primary driver of the quarter on quarter decline this quarter was the push out of planned Q3 trainings due to the BFSI onboarding slowdown, especially in the second half or the business end of the quarter.
Some of the actions we’ve taken this year we’ve been investing in building blocks that widen the funnel and improve resilience across cycles. On the go to market we’ve added five sales leaders across NIIT including.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
And.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Eight enterprise sales managers, expanded coverage across GCC’s banks, NBFCs, Indian enterprises and with IM new coming into the fold, universities and colleges, increased brand visibility and targeted influencer led campaigns. We are seeing early results in the form of logo additions and customer base expansion across technology companies, financial service firms, Indian enterprises and universities. We added 37 new enterprise logos in the nine months of FY26 along with 20 new universities and colleges. The 20 new institutions are in addition to the more than 70 that were already IMU customers when they became part of niit. One of the interesting things I would like to mention is that our social media strategy is working and we’ve just.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Hit 1 million subscribers to the NIIT YouTube channel.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
In terms of platform and product, we’ve revamped the learning platform, launched deep skilling in new age technologies, integrated AI to enhance learner outcomes and internal production focus towards advanced programs for working professionals which are structurally better stability than pressure led hiring cycles, solutions and differentiation. We’ve added generative and agentic AI, AI digital coaching for banks and enterprises and sectoral solutions for auto, telecom consumer electronics. These solutions are improving differentiation and supporting share expansion within key accounts. While acknowledging that realized revenues depend on client onboarding and rollout timelines. IMNEO brings an AI first deep skilling SaaS platform which includes coding labs, assessments.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Placement automation and talent acquisition.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
This opens up the higher edge channel for us in terms of simplification and agility. We announced a merger of two wholly owned subsidiaries RPS Consulting and IFBI with.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
NIIT limited To simplify our structure and.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Reduce complexity thereby improving our agility. This process is on track. What are we doing now? We’ll accelerate what’s working tech, AI and onboarding, new logos continue scaling AI programs and workflow offerings, expand penetration into GCCS and India Enterprise where demand signals are comparatively healthier position reskilling around role evolution, particularly AI enabled role redesign through outcome led programs. On the BFSI and others front we are putting in place a recovery plan. We are diversifying beyond the top four private banks into a broader set of financial services including NBFCs and insurance players. We are also broadbasing across more banks to reduce concentration risk and structurally we are increasing the share of lateral upskilling programs to reduce dependence on pressure onboarding cycle.
Given the volatility that we saw last.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Quarter, we have to accelerate this transformation.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
On the IM NEO integration and synergies. We are maintaining a strong execution in this higher ed channel pursuing cross sell opportunities into enterprise relationships in a measured way, prioritizing conversion quality and delivery readiness. The road Ahead we are seeing improved.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Consumption of our differentiated outcome oriented offerings.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Across the technology landscape including working professionals and job seekers. Our investment thesis is showing in New Logos, Digital Engagement and Pipeline. BFSI remains cautious in the near term and we are actively managing concentration and phasing risk. In terms of guidance. We expect to be breakeven to low single digit margin in Q4. Given continued investments medium to long term, we still see substantial opportunity. We remain fully committed to our strategic objectives although timelines are difficult to predict.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Given the fluid environment.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
With that Vijay I hand it back to you Dave.
Vijay Kumar Thadani — Vice Chairman and Managing Director
Before I open it up for Q and A I just thought I’ll give an update on two important items. One which Pankaj has already spoken about and that is the how Iron NEO is getting integrated into the NIIT system. The second thing which I thought I would like to talk about is the merger of RPS Consulting and ifpi, the two subsidiaries of NIIT which are being merged into NIIT and this process is on and we expect to Complete it in the next eight to 10 weeks and we’ll of course keep you updated on that. In closing, I would only say while Q3 was a challenging quarter and the numbers in terms of the outcomes don’t appear to look very attractive, our strategy set is very much in place and is actually strengthening.
Our offerings are being very well appreciated. I think has referred to the 17.65% that they contribute to our revenue. The AI enabled and we are widening the demand base. We are accelerating the parts of the portfolio that are working, especially debt. And we are maintaining cost discipline by continuing targeted investments. So we would like to open this up for Q and A. And based on your questions, we will then include other colleagues of ours in this discussion. Pankaj, do you want to say one.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
More thing on the guidance? We are expecting double digit growth year on year in Q4.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
That’s the guidance we wanted to give for Q4.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
Yeah.
Pankaj Jathar — Chief Executive Officer
We can open it up for questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Ganesh Shetty, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you for the opportunity. I just want to have some information regarding our inorganic activities. Like this last quarter we had one small investment in IM new. Apart from that, as we have a good cash in our balance sheet and our growth targets are quite high. So I wish to ask you that whether there is any challenge in acquiring new capability or new company because of past phase of change of technology or hiring freeze in big companies. So can you throw some light on this, our inorganic initiative. And also I wish to know whether we wish to target any new sectors as talent building and also for AI capabilities which may be required by other sectors apart from BFSI and technology.
Can you please throw some light on this? Thank you.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Right, so let me try to respond on the inorganic part. And then Pankaj will also talk to you about how we are extending the capability that we have in AIR to help other sectors. In fact some other plants that we are working on. So inorganic activity. As you know, our approach has been to look at new segments, new capabilities, new geographies. And in these three areas we’ve been looking at niche companies where we’ll make investments. We have an active funnel. We are in discussions, in some cases fairly advanced discussions, but obviously we can talk about these only when a deal materializes, otherwise it leads to speculation.
But yes, we have a committed and fully committed team which is working on this and we will be sharing areas that we are looking at. The areas that we cover, as I said at the broad level is geography and capability. But it can be a new sector that we are looking at, for example ER&D or manufacturing, and we are open to opportunities where we can find where we can find companies and teams which can add value to our strategy at this point of time. That’s what I would like to share. We are very hopeful that we’ll be able to share some news with you in the coming quarters.
We are making continuous investments in AI on three dimensions. One is the dimension of building capability to build solutions as well as agents. For example, you heard about the new program in which Building Agent AI systems that we launched, but we are also working on one, building agents and working in doing R and D in that area. The second is building an AI powered platform which many parts of the organization are working on and third is to create AI content. AI learning content which we started was generic and was organized across various dimensions in the organization from literacy to expertise, fluency and expertise which now we are making sure that we make them more specific to particular domains so that work is going on.
But I am sure Pankaj will have many more things to say and can perhaps give you a couple of examples.
Pankaj Jathar
Also.
Pankaj Jathar
You’Ve covered the inorganic bacteria so I won’t go there. We’ve already we’ve talked about things that we’re looking at. I can talk a little bit about the Building Agentic AI Systems program that we launched recently as part of our digital offerings in the Direct to Consumer go to market. So.
Pankaj Jathar
The Building Agentic AI Systems program is designed to empower engineers with skills.
Pankaj Jathar
To architect autonomous goal oriented AI agents that drive enterprise transformations.
Pankaj Jathar
This is a 25 week hands on curriculum delivered through mentor led online sessions and practical projects. It equips participants with expertise in cutting.
Pankaj Jathar
Edge tools like LangChain, Llama Index and Azure.
Pankaj Jathar
AI Foundry enables learners to build scalable secure systems for real world applications such.
Pankaj Jathar
As compliance automation and financial analysis.
Pankaj Jathar
In designing this program, we aligned with.
Pankaj Jathar
Industry forecasts from people like McKinsey and Deloitte who’ve been projecting trillions in value from agentic AI.
Pankaj Jathar
This initiative addresses the growing talent gap.
Pankaj Jathar
In India’s AI ecosystem. This positions us NIIT as a leader in upskilling for the next wave of Intelligent automation. We anticipate a positive response from the learner community to this innovative program. Besides this, on the enterprise side, there’s a number of engagements we are running with customers.
Pankaj Jathar
These involve Gen AI and Agentic AI programs spanning across leadership enablement to hands on technical implementation. Our offerings include cloud native Gen AI programs across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Databricks. We also have GitHub, Copilot development acceleration.
Pankaj Jathar
Programs going on and specialized agentic AI training covering lag applications, workflow automation with ChatGPT, Zapier and AI Agent development for.
Pankaj Jathar
Leaders and decision makers. We deliver Gen AI Leadership programs tailored.
Pankaj Jathar
For manufacturing markets and cross industry transformation.
Pankaj Jathar
Alongside, we also have an AI mindset.
Pankaj Jathar
And transformative force of Gen AI Programs series that are going on with customers across different industries.
Pankaj Jathar
In terms of our foundational tier, we are also doing programs like AI for.
Pankaj Jathar
All, AI Fundamentals and AI Readiness Programs. While our Practitioner track features multiple cohorts.
Pankaj Jathar
Of AI Practitioner and AI Builder League programs, we complement these formal programs with.
Pankaj Jathar
Webinars, hackathons and campus initiatives delivered both synchronous and asynchronous across enterprise for mid.
Pankaj Jathar
Career professionals as well as early career segments.
Pankaj Jathar
Back to you.
Pankaj Jathar
Right.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Ganeshi, I hope you have answered your question.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah yes sir. My that’s good sir. My second question is regarding our B2B and B2C business. In spite of challenges in macros and hiring freeze, our B2B business is doing quite well due to our initiative with GSI and DCC. But our B2C business is quite soft during all these years. So I just want to have some flavor how the load ahead for B2C business. That’s all from me sir. All the best. Thank you very much.
Pankaj Jathar
Okay.
Pankaj Jathar
Thanks Manish for the question on the B2B side. Like you mentioned, we have taken some initiatives on engaging with a slightly different learner community within the same customer base.
Pankaj Jathar
So while we were earlier largely dependent.
Pankaj Jathar
On fresh hire training, we’ve changed our market to also include working professionals and delivering training programs which are more deep skilling and transformational in nature and this has helped us in that space. On the B2C segment this quarter. One of the things that did impact us was the slowdown in fresh hiring.
Pankaj Jathar
And while on the direct to consumer.
Pankaj Jathar
The technology side of programs, we saw a good uptick happening there.
Pankaj Jathar
So that did well for us in.
Pankaj Jathar
Spite of the slowing down on the VFSI segment.
Pankaj Jathar
So this is an area that we are focused on.
Pankaj Jathar
We are as we’ve called out previously as Sanjeev mentioned today we are in the investment cycle and we are building programs. We are investing in technology platforms, investing.
Pankaj Jathar
In content and in creating new programs.
Pankaj Jathar
Like the agent care system that I just spoke about. That’s a new offering that we brought to the market in this quarter and it’s part of a curriculum that we are designing around AI offerings that we will bring more of these to the market. So we are hoping that this will help us grow faster in this segment. Like you, we have also noticed that the growth in this segment has not been as much as we would have liked to and we are doubling down on bringing new products to the market to help this grow.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
All right, I think there would be other questions. Operator.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aman Prakash for an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you for giving me this chance. So it’s very heartening to see that there’s been a 20% year on year growth in the technology program. So I just wanted to ask that. We’ve been talking about AI on these concords for a while and now is the time when this industry is sort of really taking off in a way and NIT is the right company to capitalize on it. So considering, you know, the courses, the Identity KI program is a very good one. I’ve seen it and I just wanted to ask is it that maybe the cost structure is a bit too high and I mean what are your views on the cost structure and how can you make it more broad based? I just wanted to ask if it has not been too prohibitive, you know, to go like very mainstream and would it be possible that there are like, you know, shorter duration, extremely specialized courses also, especially for working professionals.
Thank you.
Pankaj Jathar
Thanks Amit.
Pankaj Jathar
I can take that question. So firstly, really glad that you’ve seen the agentic AI program and you think it’s a good one. Thankful to you for appreciating that.
Pankaj Jathar
And yes, it is part of a larger initiative we have and we will bring in programs which will be at different price points for different audience. This particular one is a more comprehensive program that we have.
Pankaj Jathar
It’s a 25 week duration program and.
Pankaj Jathar
The pricing was also done based on what we’ve seen in the market of.
Pankaj Jathar
Similar programs with this level of intensity and engagement. So we believe that it is priced well enough for the market to accept and we are seeing some early traction which gives us that feedback. But noted, your comment is noted. We are working on creating niche programs for different audiences within the working professional segment and these will be both Shorter duration, differentially priced and we are creating a whole many of these programs. I hope that answers your question.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
It was somewhat cost.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Different price points.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
To the learner. I thought he was also referring to our cost structure.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, sure. Thanks for your answer.
operator
Yeah, thank you. Participants who wishes to ask a question may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Daulat Capital. Please go ahead.
Rahul Jain
Yeah, hi, thanks for the opportunity. You know what I heard about the guidance was the one data which is like for Q4 we’re expecting 10% yoy are we articulating something for the collier and men or the implied number would give moreover that number for the full year which would be like low high single digit growth for the full year. Is that the right implication?
Pankaj Jathar
Yes Rahul, your understanding is correct.
Rahul Jain
And the way we started Xof I am new, I think the implied guidance was upwards of 15% for the core business. But where we are ending is probably a negative number. So I understand some of the challenges that you have identified as a reason for this Ms. But if we could articulate what would have led to our enthusiasm at that point of time because if I look at the hiring situation, general macro at the beginning of the year was, was, was weak even at that time. So what was driving the optimism then where we have, you know, significantly moved away from that point till today to have this kind of a discussion.
Pankaj Jathar
Thanks Rahul for the question. So beginning of the year you’re right.
Pankaj Jathar
Hiring sentiment has been muted but we.
Pankaj Jathar
Did see a few green shoots a couple of times where we saw numbers from some of our customers on hiring, at least on the hiring training engagements that we were doing and that led to a little bit of enthusiasm for us where we thought things were correcting and changing. And there have consistently been external factors which have also come in which have made changes to the real business.
Pankaj Jathar
This quarter.
Pankaj Jathar
We were struck by some of the push outs and changes in dates and requirements from the banking segment where new hire training got pushed out. And that’s the reason why this quarter suddenly we had to cope with that kind of external factor. Yeah, I don’t think I have much time.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Let me add to that Rahul, this year has been very interesting in terms of volatility. Just going back in the first quarter we had a zero fresh hired situation in technology and therefore in technology sector we were badly affected including training programs were pushed. You know there was war and all that kind of situation also. But we had orders and we recovered from that in quarter two and Quarter two, we were again on track. Now all this while BFSI for last two or three years has been very strong on hiring and that trend was continuing.
But and even last quarter, quarter two, they were very good. And even when we started this quarter, I think the confidence was coming from the dates that are available for us to build our projections. We have orders, we have dates and we have people who have to participate. We had capacity, we had dates and we had orders. I think in the second half of the quarter dates started getting pushed and some of them have crossed over to quarter four. There were also lesser working days for new dates to come in. So that would have had a small effect as well.
So I think the big gap which came that between 28th of October when we spoke to you folks and talked about our quarter three and the fact that we are wherever we are I think is largely due to the fact that those dates got missed out. And BFSI we have always had a strong run for last as many years that we can remember. In fact we used to say that percentage is increasing very, very rapidly. So I think that has been the disappointment of this quarter. But having said that, I think technology tried to do its best to recover from there.
The 20% growth in technology, 17.65% AI I think those are some positive highlights since in technology we’ve been through this before, we had a pivot which we had applied two or three, six or seven quarters ago of moving up the chain on training working pros and building a strong practice there which came to our rescue because technology hiring has not come back. But we have yet grown 20% year on year. On the other hand in BFSI because we are strongly dependent on thresher, I think that hit us more. That’s how I mean we explain it to ourselves as well as that’s what I’m sharing with you.
Our learning is we have to broad based that across to more working professionals and their banks are very sharp on how they manage their internal strengths. But we’ll have to find those ways.
Rahul Jain
Yeah, thanks for the color Vijay. My point is that if we see exof im Neo I think the business have not moved much in couple of years now and I understand that we have rightful product. But we are also seeing that the overall the hiring requirement for the tech business ideally should go down over coming years. In that light, do we see a need for a meaningful alteration into the offering that we have or widening in some sense to mitigate this kind of risk? Because at least where I am seeing from IT services hiring point of view, I’m not seeing even next 12 months going to be changed meaningfully.
So would that also imply that FY27 may not be as exciting?
Vijay Kumar Thadani
No. But in technology, despite no hiring we grew 20% and that I think at last year same time there was technology trading happening, not of this in fresh hires. So the fact that we have been able to pivot and that pivot has worked out, albeit I must say on the backing of a strong AI wave because reskilling of the 6 million workforce is a huge humongous opportunity and I think we have to take full advantage of that. So what gives us confidence for Future is number one that the 6 billion workforce which is already employed, whether they are in IDEs or pure IT services, I think those reskilling them is a great opportunity.
And much of that you are seeing in the numbers that we have shared with you. I have a feeling. And we strongly believe that there are similar opportunities sitting in other sectors also and I think we should see the benefits of those as we go forward. But there are other sectors we are studying. He referred to ER&D and he referred to manufacturing EV some of those areas we are actively seeking training opportunities and I think we’ll be able to share them with you. But large volume things which were happening in bssi, we’re trying to find equivalents of that and we think the technology wave at this point of time offers a significant opportunity for us to take advantage of the second is while yes, Ironneo is new, but I am NEO is also out of this balance sheet only.
So we opened a new segment which we bought rather than built and I think its contribution to our future will be significant. I think he already mentioned they are ahead of their numbers so I think they will contribute to the growth as well as we go forward.
Pankaj Jathar
Has crossed their last year numbers in nine months.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
So repeat that. Kapil is saying NIO has crossed their last year’s numbers in three quarters.
Rahul Jain
Yeah, yeah, which, which I’m seeing is implying close to 40% growth. So they’ve done really well. There’s no question. And so has been your track record on M and A historically for almost a decade. Since when. Since I’ve been following. So I understand what you just said Vijay, about the opportunity that we have on the reskilling side. It’s too early to talk about next year outlook. But you still believe 15, 20% growth is something one could clearly chase from the next couple of year point of view.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
You know, in Delhi we have just come out of a period in which if you can see 100 meters, you think you have a very wide visibility. I think we are seeing that in the environment, in the economic environment. I think for us to. We can see next quarter, but we could see next quarter, even last quarter. I can argue that out. But we feel much more certain about what is likely to happen in the next quarter. Our strategy, set our plans, we are finding ways and means to de risk them. But that’s the growth path you are familiar with.
You’ve been with us for such a long time that we are seeking and we are trying to find ways to de risk that. So sure, yes, we would like to do that. But for me to stand up and say that that can happen, I, I think many other people have to participate in it, some of it, some of whom are not in this room and who occupy higher chairs.
Rahul Jain
Right, and last bit on. Sorry, sorry please. Yeah, sorry. Pankaj. Lastly, on the, you know, the other income side which has been supporting the cause for us. So are we seeing, you know, with you know, all this rates coming off, do we expect the next year other income to be lower than what we recorded for this, this year given some bit of investment that would have reduced the cash balances and the overall yield in the upcoming maturing deposit would be much lower.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
I think you will be able to guide us better than I can because we have, we have two elements. We have debt mutual funds and we have fixed deposits. Fixed deposits have fixed 10 years. So you will know what it is. Debt, mutual funds, unfortunately we don’t control and those are mark to market corrections that we have to make which appear in our financials. This time particularly we have two elements which are contributing more than that. One is the wage code. Wage code has a provision that we have to make statutorily and that is, I think you shared already, Sanjeev, 44 million.
And the second is we have this scheme going on right now which hopefully will reduce our overall cost structure, improve the agility and help us work better. And that is to merge IFBI and RPS into NIIT. That scheme is towards the end, I think another two, eight to 10 weeks we should see that scheme getting over. So there were costs associated with that which have a provision. Our tax has a higher provision this time because on wage code, on a prudent basis we haven’t taken any benefits. So our tax rate is coming to nearly 29% which is not normal.
But then we don’t have bids. So we always do take more prudent decisions in this matter. And that’s how we have done and I think he explained also. So these situations should correct themselves and accordingly I think you will see impact of that up to EBIT we control the matter. After EBIT our cash balance by the way increased last quarter we got some more cash and we therefore at 712.
Sanjeev Bansal
Odd crores, 27 crore has been added since last year.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
So 712 crores cash balance at the end of the quarter. That should put us in a strong position going forward.
Rahul Jain
Sure, sure. That’s all from my side and best time. Best wishes for the time. Thank you.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Thank you Rahul. Thank you. Questions and support both.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question you may press Star and one. Participants you may press Star and one to ask a question now.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Operator, if there are no more questions I’ll ask Pankaj to just give us a. Since we have a couple of minutes give us a flavor of what we have been doing in AI based solutions.
operator
Surely sir, as we don’t have anyone in a question queue I now hand over to the management for closing remarks.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Pankaj.
Pankaj Jathar
So on AI Village we talked about.
Pankaj Jathar
It a little bit on the call.
Pankaj Jathar
So there is. On the B2B and the B2C side both. On the B2C side we launched the AgentIQ AI Building AgentIC AI Systems program. It’s a 25 week hands on program that we’ve launched. It is an online mentor led program which will give participants expertise in some cutting edge tools like LangChain, llama index, Azure, AI foundry etc. We built this program aligning with research from large consultancy houses which are projecting huge value in agentic AI areas. This is also meant to address the talent gap in the country’s AI ecosystem. We are seeing a positive response to this program and we’re doubling down on that.
Pankaj Jathar
It is part of a larger curriculum.
Pankaj Jathar
Of of AI focused programs that we are launching. On the enterprise side we are running various Gen AI and agentic AI kinds of programs. I won’t go into too much detail but we have program.
Pankaj Jathar
We are currently running programs from the.
Pankaj Jathar
Top floor of the company down to the execution level. So we have programs running such as Jenny AI for Leaders Creating an AI.
Pankaj Jathar
Mindset Transformative Force of Gen AI.
Pankaj Jathar
These are some of the enablement series that we’re running.
Pankaj Jathar
We also have foundational tier programs going.
Pankaj Jathar
On like AI for All AI Fundamentals and AI Readiness. We also have AI Practitioner and AI Builder kind of programs. We complement these consistently with webinars. We also run hackathons and run campus initiatives where we help uncover interesting AI solutions and AI talent.
Vijay Kumar Thadani
Thank you, Pankaj. If there are still no more questions, then. Operator, we can close the call.
operator
Yes. We don’t have any question, Kim. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of NIIT Limited. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.
Pankaj Jathar
All right.