VST TILLERS TRACTORS LTD (NSE: VSTT) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 15, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Nitin Agrawal — Chief Financial Officer
Antony Cherukara — Chief Executive Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Magesh — Analyst
Nihar — Analyst
Krish Jain — Analyst
Presentation:
Unidentified Participant
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to VST Tillers Tractors Limited 4 QFY 2526 Processor Conference Call hosted by 361 Capital Markets. From VST Tillers Tractors Limited Management. We have with us today Mr. VT Ravindra Managing Director. Mr. Anthony Saritara Chief Executive Officer and Ms. Nitin Agarwal, Chief Financial officer. At this point all participants will be in the listen only mode. And there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions. After the management presentation and the opening remarks.
Over to you, sir.
Nitin Agrawal — Chief Financial Officer
Good evening everyone. I’m Nithyan Agrawal, Chief financial officer of the company. And I welcome you to this conference call. The first slide is about Safe harbor statement. In the discussion we are covering the key highlights of the performance for the Q4 as well as for the full financial year. I’ll also take you through the sales volume and then followed by the financial performance. Both operational EBITDA as well as profit after tax and then some of the new product launches and the exhibitions which we are participating.
I am very pleased to inform all of you that we have registered a very strong growth of 25% in our overall revenue for the year. The revenue for the year is 1240 crore against 994 crore of last year. Also. This growth is driven by the sale in power tiller. We have sold highest number of power drillers in the year which is more than 50,000 plus number reflecting a very strong growth of 35%. Also the power weeder sales have grown from 7,400 units to 11,300 units. Domestic factory is also back on growth track.
Now we have registered a healthy growth of 18% on overall annual volume. We have also generated cash against last year of 76 crore. This year it is 132 crore. If you look at only the Q4 performance we have registered a revenue growth of 9%. It is rupees 328 crore against 301 crore in the quarter last year. Moving on to the sales volume for the full financial year. First FY26 against FY25. As you can see the power tiller has registered a growth of 35% this year we have sold 50,332 tillers including some of the export which was 37,297 last year.
Tractor domestic is at 4,596 units which is 18.6% growth. Okay, we are talking about Annual Yeah. In case of power bidder it is 11,346 against last year of 7,400. And power reaper which is the seasonal product for the full year we have sold 3,464 units of power tiller with a growth of 44%. Moving on only for the Q4 volumes. Power tiller for the quarter four is 12,958 against last year of 13,278. Vector domestic for the quarter itself the growth is around 20% with 1244 units. Export of tractors has also grown in quarter four.
430 units of tractors against 260 tractors in last year. Q4. Power weeder 2947 with 27% growth. And reaper as I said it’s a seasonal product so not much volume in Q4. Now we are moving to the overall financial performance. So first I talk about quarter four. So there is a 9% of growth in terms of revenue three which is at 328 crore. When we look at the profitability, what we have always been tracking and discussing with all of our analyst community is the operational EBITDA and how we calculate Operational EBITDA is completely excluding the other income as well as the fair value gain or loss which is coming from the investments.
So if we exclude that number we are at a strong 14.2% of operational EBITDA against 13.4% which is roughly 80 basis points of improvement in the current quarter. As you must have seen in the result announcement as well there is a fair value loss in the current quarter. Against in previous quarter also there was a loss but in the current quarter the loss is heavy. So if we exclude that impact to look at the operational profitability or operational path so the number will be around 39 crore against 28 crore of the same quarter last year.
So there is a healthy growth of 36% impact. If we exclude the fair value gain and loss moving on for the full year performance, as I said in the beginning there is a strong growth of 25% in revenue. We are at 1248 crore of revenue. Also on the operational EBITDA there’s a strong improvement of 220 basis point from 11.2% to 13.4%. Also in case of PAT, if we exclude the fair value gain and loss as I said it for the quarter as well. So the PAT will be 113 crore again 70 crore of last year. To calculate this we have excluded the fair value gain or loss from both the years.
If you look at full Year last year there was a gain of 24 crore. Against that there is a loss of 6 crore in the current year. So we have excluded both to talk about this pattern. Moving on, some of the new product launches which we have done during the year is Phantom series of tractors both in red and black color. For our SFM business we have launched front rotary weeders. These are India made weeders and also the rear rotary. These are the two new product in the SFM product category. In the quarter also we have participated in various exhibitions.
I thought it would be good to cover that in our analyst presentation. So this is about the new electric leader which we have shown in one of the recent Trishi Mela organized and it has a lot of people have participated in that exhibition. Moving on, we have launched. We have also participated in Global Agritech Summit which was also visited by some of the prominent people. We have signed an MoU with Kerala Agriculture University to work on topic of joint interest. That has also been done in the current quarter.
With this I thank you for participating. We’ll be opening for the question and answer session.
Questions and Answers:
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, thank you sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Any participants who wants to ask a question, please rise your hand. Alternatively you can also type in your question in the chat box. We’ll wait for a moment as the person to assemble. Sir. Sir, in the meantime can you briefly touch upon what is the outlook for 27 as of now as you look at it, sir.
Antony Cherukara
Good evening everyone. This is the CEO. Good to be interacting with all of you for Canvas conference call. It is very difficult to give view on how things would be going forward this year. But however, looking at April and May so far the demand is continuing to be good. The company has done well last month. April normally is a lower month compared to the other months of the year. However, we have grown both in the tractors and the tiller space in April. The demand scenario seems to be good in May as well.
So far however, couple of pertinent issues that is in front of us. One is the inflation that is hitting us both through fuel price rise as well as commodity price rise. That is something that we are handling right now. Various steps have been taken to ensure availability as well as to ensure the cost is managed well. The second aspect is the monsoon so that is slightly future looking. Future forward looking. The prediction is for 92% LPA kind of monsoon. Over the long period average it will be at 92%. However, if the spatial distribution and the timing of the rainfall is reasonable and with the Current comparatively better levels, the reservoir is the volumes would be decent. However, it’s fingers crossed because that is not something we can predict at this point. So it is kind of a volatile situation now to say conclusively what will happen in the next three months or so.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, anybody has a question, please raise your hand. In the meantime, I’ll read some question from the chat box. So this, this Phantom tractor series and we revamped Zeta range are central to the growth strategy. What has been the initial response from the market so far and how do These products improve EST’s competitive positioning in the market?
Antony Cherukara
Yeah, I will elaborate a little bit on this. While the tractor industry has grown like in the percentage which CFO shared with all of us and we have also grown, the compact tractor industry of less than 30 xp industry has not grown at that rate. However, with the help of the new launches, the Phantom launch, we have been able to grow faster than the industry growth in the combat four wheel drive tractor space. However, as rightly said, the larger growth is happening in the higher horsepower segment where we are entering using the VST Zetol tractors. Now those factors are stabilized. We are seeing good volume increases month on month. We are going to only few dealerships and establishing the product there. However, we are hoping to see very good growth in this financial.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, sir, there is a. Mr. Makesh, you can unmute and ask your question. I don’t know. Mr. Magesh?
Magesh
Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, please.
Magesh
Am I audible?
Unidentified Participant
Yeah.
Magesh
Yeah sir, congratulations. Good set of numbers. So sir, just wanted to know there. There was some, you know, acquisition or maybe some investment that we did in one of the electric tractor thing which was outside India that. So can you just please elaborate what is the outlook of management on bringing that technology to India and who are the other competitors in India, how that industry will scale up further?
Antony Cherukara
Yeah, so we had invested in Ximena Inc. In the us we were supplying the power trains, sorry, the drive trains to them as well. And with the new government, when it came in, the subsidies were removed for electric tractors in the US and also with the tariff, the drivetrain exports to the US stopped from all India. As far as the investment is concerned, we have provisioned for those investments already. Now coming to the technology gain and how BST is intending to use it. With this collaboration and with this work which we have done for the last three, four years, we have gained considerable expertise in drive trains suitable for electric tractors.
We have gained considerable expertise on battery packaging, BMS and the related activities for an electric tractor. With the technology gained and the expertise gained. We are in a position to launch electric tractors when we decide for it. However, we have decided to first launch electric beaters and electric tillers which we believe will get larger momentum and we have launched it. We have taken it to various exhibitions. We are now giving to few customers for real world usage. We are getting good responses from the market. Once we are able to establish the real world usage, the battery life cycle, the battery duration 2, 3 aspects which we are digging deep so that it becomes a huge success for the small and marginal farmer. We are intending to do a all India wide launch across India in early Q2 of this.
Magesh
All right, Great. Sir, sir, just wanted your. Is there any guidance that you want to give for FY27 or is there something that you would like to talk on the industry as such? I mean the tractor industry on overall basis, how do you see that will pan out in FY27 including the tillers segment? Also because there could be what we are seeing today with all the uncertainties the farming sector could well be impacted. So how do you see FY27 panning out for us and do you think that we will be able to maintain our growth trajectory in this FY27 and going at
Antony Cherukara
In FY26 we registered a growth of 25% and in the previous call I had made a statement that if we are able to do around 23 to 26% continuously on a CAGR up till FY30 we will get to our goal of 3000 crores. However, what you said is the reality of today. There are so many uncertainties. Definitely the monsoon will. If the distribution and the timing is disturbed will affect farming. Will affect missionary sale because the production and the cash in hand of the customer will get affected. It will definitely affect the farmers.
However, our strategy has been to structurally shift how we operate in the small and marginal farmer space for which we have created some massive activities which was piloted over the last one year. This is called Project Chakrapati where village level workers have been appointed. Huge amount of counters are being opened. Large amount of retail finance have started happening. If you remember two years back we were at 0% retail finance. I am very happy to say today last year we concluded with about 10% retail finance.
We want to grow it to 20% retail finance this financial year. With this the dependency on subsidies coming down year by year. With all these factors we believe we will be able to grow. While the macro factors will affect the industry in an adverse manner. All these strategies that have been put into place will Enable us to grow. Now the real question is what is the rate of growth we will be able to achieve this year? So I would suggest, or I would say that we want to look at over by. Over this year, that is month by month and quarter by quarter.
April we have grown. May we will grow. We are working towards that. And with that I believe that Q1 we can achieve growth compared to even previous year. Now we would like to look at Q2 as the realities play out. But however, you know, like I said, we will grow. But the real question is what is the rate of growth we want to exceed? What we want to achieve is 25%. But to tell you specifically where we will end up is quite difficult. Even all the uncertainty is in front of us.
Magesh
Fair enough, sir. And also sir, do you think that you’ll be able to maintain the EBITDA margins with the growth coming up? Or it might. Any guidance on the EBITDA margins are going ahead
Antony Cherukara
EBITDA like I have maintained in the last two to three years that I maintained that we will do an 11 to 13% margin. And also on the last call I have said we are moving with all the operational efficiency and the work we are doing, we are moving more towards 13 and 13 plus than the 11% guidance. So we are positive that we will be able to operate between 12 to 14%.
Magesh
When you say 25% growth that you are anticipating, sir, do you anticipate that on overall business or any specified business that you are very optimist about how exactly you see that 25% coming? I mean, like I said,
Antony Cherukara
25%. We have grown in FY26. Let me clarify to you. I am desisting from giving a growth percentage for this year.
Magesh
Yeah, but you said that you want. We want to grow 25%, right,
Antony Cherukara
25%. But the realities, the uncertainties are in front of us. So we don’t know exactly what it play out in quarter by quarter, month by month.
Magesh
Yeah, but, but which, which part of our business do you see that has the potential practice.
Antony Cherukara
As well as small and marginal format with machines, SFM machines as well as the tractor segment. Tractor segment More because we have stabilized all the products. SFM also more growth we are expecting considering all the structural shifts that we have done or we are doing.
Magesh
All right, sir, all the best to you. Thank you for answering all the questions.
Antony Cherukara
Thank you.
Unidentified Participant
Thanks Magesh. Mr. Nihar, you can unmute and ask your question.
Nihar
Hi. Hi sir. Thanks for the opportunity. So, just a couple of questions. One is on the zeta Brand. Right. I think you mentioned that we’ve gotten more confident in the last quarter and now are seeding the product more with all the trials done. You know, just going forward because this is a very new brand for us. How are we thinking about, you know, ramp up of this product from here? Because this effectively can drive, you know, material top line growth for us even while the industry may continue to slightly languish.
Antony Cherukara
See by FY30 in the last call also I have said in FY30 we will reach about 5 to 6000 tractors on the higher edge speed trend. That is what we are looking at. Three to four years is what we are looking at to get to. Because we are launching, we have only one variant of product right now that is 8 plus 2 3.5 liter engine product is what we have. We are launching couple of more variants this year and also we will be launching a four wheel drive variant going forward. With all these variants we will be at full range player in the IRHP segment with which in the next four years, that is by FY30 we should be able to do 5 to 6,000 numbers.
Nihar
Got it. And so what would be the volume this year for Zeta?
Antony Cherukara
We are targeting thousand numbers this year.
Nihar
So secondly on exports, you know, since we had some trouble in terms of Q2 relatively being slower, we’ve seen a good performance quarter on quarter with volumes improving with the entry that we were seeing into other countries in Europe and the relative revival that we’ve seen in Europe in terms of angry. How are we thinking about this segment going forward?
Antony Cherukara
In the last call I had said we will cover up in Q4. In fact, we covered lots of ground in Q4. We are also doing a Netherlands based operation in Europe which we said that we will be launching in June, July of this year which is going as per plan. With all these activities on the ground presence also in Europe, we are confident that we will be able to grow this business.
Nihar
Understood. And you know, while we’ve spoken about operational efficiency quite a bit in the past, we seen that reflect in terms of gross margins. Can you call out a couple of measures that have actually led to this improvement and if those are sustainable going forward?
Antony Cherukara
Yeah, if you look at our balance sheet, we have maintained mentoring levels very in a disciplined manner. I would say we are at about 36 days of inventory. In FY25 we had taken receivables to about 75 days. We have brought it down this year to 51 days and we believe there is some more room for improvement there in those operations. We will be working on it in the next two to three years. We should be structurally coming down further on perceivables where we can release more cash.
All this is guided by the supply chain model that we have built over the last three, four years, which is the TOC based supply chain model, the digitization that we have built, wherein complete transparency is maintained for suppliers. And we are continuing to build that with an SRM module which gives complete transparency to the supplier as to what is happening to his material in our factories. When the GRN is getting created, when the payment will get processed. Complete transparency, frictionless. Working together with VST is what we are promising our suppliers. With all these steps that we are doing, we believe that this efficiency will further improve and this can be sustained.
Nihar
Got it, Got it. Great, thank you. Thank you so much, sir.
Operator
Thanks Mr. Nigar. Anybody who has a question, please raise your hand. In the meantime I’ll go through the chat box. So now the commodities are going up. So whether you’ll be able to pass on to the market across segments,
Antony Cherukara
It is a most pertinent question at this point in time. Commodities are going up every day. Fuel prices have increased today morning as well. This is definitely affecting us. We have taken a price increase towards end of April. We are watching this closely. If this continues to grow or inflation continues to sustain, it will be difficult to pass on the entire inflation to the consumer. But right now we have passed on a bit of it already to the consumer, but not entirely. Our operational efficiencies are enabling us to buffer this to some point. But it’s wait and watch at this moment.
Unidentified Participant
One small clarification, sir. You said we have taken price hikes. It is across products or only for tractors and selective.
Antony Cherukara
Eros products, both power dealers as well as tractors.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, next in the question queue, Mr. Chris Jain, you can unmute and ask your question.
Krish Jain
Yeah, yeah. Hi. I hope I’m audible. So recently a player in the tractor industry has said that the industry this year will remain a little bit flattish given the high base of last year as well as the current uncertainties and cost inflation. So I just want to know whether you agree with the same in terms of the tactor industry and what are your growth expectations given the industry scenario. And maybe you can add on what you feel about small farm machines as well.
Antony Cherukara
Yeah, so like I said, the scenario is very difficult to predict. And I said earlier that I would like to take it over by over quarter by quarter, that is month by month and quarter by quarter. Because what is influencing every Quarter is changing every other day. So whether it will remain flat, of course I agree with some of the points. The base is high, the agriculture income is not going up. So if the base is already high and agriculture income is going up, not going up rather I kind of tend to agree there is no reason for that high growth that happened to continue. However, whether it will be flat, whether it will be negative or whether it be going growing single digits or higher single digits, it’s extremely difficult to predict.
Krish Jain
Yeah, sure sir. And next coming to the balance sheet. I see close to half of the balance sheet is currently sitting as investments. So if you could, you know they’ll point out your short term goals with this money because the, the this number is you know inflating the balance sheet size 2x and you know that is affecting the ROA roe numbers. So any comments on that?
Antony Cherukara
It is good to have very strong balance sheet that we have. But I agree with your question that we need to utilize those funds. Two, three directions that we are working on in utilizing those funds. Number one, we continue to invest in technology. We continue to invest in global growth. The work that we had stalled to enter the US market considering the tariffs that was there has been restarted. So by the end of 2027 we will be launching the products in the market trials will start happening this year onwards. The third aspect is we are working on possible inorganic opportunities. Very early to announce anything but I would say that some good work is happening in that direction as well. So three areas that we are working. One is technology and products. Second is global market expansion and third is inorganic growth.
Krish Jain
Yeah, sure. So just a follow up. So regarding inorganic acquisitions, are you looking at, you know, a particular mark in a company size or particular adjacency or you know exactly in the market that you are in right now. So any comments on that?
Antony Cherukara
We will be working in adjacencies or in our space. We don’t intend to diversify into unknown territories unless there is an absolute opportunity that comes up where we believe there would be very strong growth possible and very growth very strong bottom line possibilities for the future. That could be the only reason we will look at diversification. But at this point there is no none of those in front of us right now. We are working on adjacencies and opportunities in our space.
Krish Jain
Yeah, sure sir. That’s all from my side. Thank you for taking my questions. All the best to you for the coming years.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you Mr. Kish. This Jane again. I’ll go from the chat box. So is there any update on the land sale like this or our land? No. Is there any thing you want to share? There is
Antony Cherukara
No update as such on the land parcel.
Unidentified Participant
And then the next question is what is the ground level feedback that you are getting? Whether any percussion shortages being faced by the farmers or because of monsoon generally. Whether farmers are getting more cautious in the recent times. What are the ground level feedback that we have?
Antony Cherukara
Fertilizer availability looks like a problem to. I mean I don’t have data to exactly give out as to what is the shortage, what is the particular area. But the general talk is there is going to be shortage. I don’t have any more details on that than this.
Unidentified Participant
On the monsoon, sir. Whether the farmers are getting cautious because of IMDF predicted below normal monsoon.
Antony Cherukara
My experience with farmers all these years are that they prepare for farming every season. I don’t see. I have, I have so far not come across farmers who give up farming because there is an announcement that there could be a shortfall of rain. Because especially the farmers. We deal with small and marginal farmers. They are prepared for season and prepared for farming. But that is where, you know the rain gods have to bless us this year as well.
Unidentified Participant
There is a general question on inventory level. So what will be the inventory level for tractors and tillers for us as well as tractor industry?
Antony Cherukara
We operate at very low industry levels. Our overall industry, both tractors and tillers put together is inventory is only 36 days. I am not able to give a exact value for the inventory of the industry but my belief is it should be anywhere between 35 to 60 days. Player to player it might vary.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And on the implements though you touched upon what are the outlook for the implements in FY27?
Antony Cherukara
I didn’t understand the question. No,
Unidentified Participant
This weeders and other implements.
Antony Cherukara
So the leaders we have continued to grow. If you see the figures of bidders, we have grown quite well last year. Just a second, I’m just taking the exact number. Yeah, we have done 11,346, almost 52% growth we have registered last year. We believe that this growth rate will continue.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, there are no more questions. So do you want to make any closing comments? Sir, I think there are no more questions.
Antony Cherukara
Thank you everyone. Thank you so much and look forward to your continuous support and participation in. Thank you
Operator
On behalf of 361 Capital Market. We thank all the participants for joining the call and we can all disconnect our lines. Thank you.
Antony Cherukara
Thank you.