Western Carriers (India) Ltd (NSE: WCIL) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Feb. 10, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Kanishka Sethia — Whole Time Director & Chief Executive Officer
Ashish Singhania — Head of Finance & Taxation
Analysts:
Priyanka Bhagat — Analyst
Aniket Kulkarni — Analyst
Aniket Redkar — Analyst
Rajiv Agrawal — Analyst
Utkarsh Maheshwari — Analyst
Jonas Bhutta — Analyst
Ashish Shah — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen. Good day and welcome to the Western Carriers India Limited Q3 FY25 earnings conference call. 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 call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchstone phone.
I now hand the conference over to Ms. Priyanka Bhagat from Ad Factors Investor Relations. Thank you. And over to you, ma’am.
Priyanka Bhagat — Analyst
Thank you. Good afternoon to all the participants joined on this call, a very warm welcome to our quarter three and nine month financial year 25 earnings conference call. To guide us through the results today we have the senior management team of Western Carriers India Limited headed by Mr. Kanishka Sethia, Chief Executive Officer. Before we begin, I would like to state that some of the statements made in today’s discussion may be forward looking in nature. The actual results may vary as they are dependent on several external factors.
With that said, I would now hand over to Mr. Kanishka to share his comments. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Kanishka Sethia — Whole Time Director & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you very much Priyanka and good morning and thank you everyone for your time on this this Monday morning call. I’m glad that all of you are here with us when we talk about our company’s Q3FY25 and going forward as well. So let me start the call by thanking you all for joining us today. This is our second earnings call. This is for the third quarter of FY25.
I would first of all like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for your continued interest and trust in Western carriers. It has been a very rewarding journey since our listing in September end and we are delighted to share the progress that we have made during this quarter and the first nine months of the financial year with you today. So I would like to start by providing an overview of the logistics and supply chain industry in India and give you some of the key numbers.
So just to refresh our memories, the India International trade in H1 was US$213 billion which was at a growth of 1%. The India international trade for import for H1 was $350 billion which was a 6% growth. Add to that the numbers that we have now for the India international trade, it has grown another 1.6% in exports to 327 billion and in import by 5.1% to 522.8 billion.
Let me also give you a brief overview of the logistics and supply chain industry in India today. As all of you would know and appreciate, the sector is undergoing a significant transformation driven by strong infra development, massive technological advances and great shifts in the market dynamics. With a projected growth of over 10% CAGR for the rest of the decade, it’s clear that logistics will play a critical and crucial role in India’s economic development.
As you know, one of the major pillars of the infra development that we have seen over the last decade or so is the expansion of Indian Railways DFCs, the Dedicated Freight corridors. The dedicated freight corridors is expected to greatly enhance the freight efficiencies and reduce transportation cost. One of the factors in which railways has always been behind road has been the speed. Now with the dedicated freight corridor the speed of the movements are dramatically increasing.
I will give examples deep dive into this on a later point, but with the development of the DFCS it is a fhuge expectation of freight efficiencies and cost reductions. We anticipate the full commissioning of the TFCS to be done by to be done by December of 2025 which will be a game changer for the sector. On the road transportation front, full truck load FTL requ remains dominant, but the faster growth of the less than truckload LTL offers promising opportunities and this gets exacerbated by the massive GST reforms and tech driven solutions.
The rise of three PL and multimodal logistic parks further signals a significant shift towards a more sophisticated and efficient logistics landscape as we move forward, as sustainability and e commerce integration becomes priorities. WCIL is well positioned to benefit from these trends by leveraging technology, sustainable practices and its ace. That is a huge amount of practical experience that the company has in creating complex and efficient supply chains.
Just to give a small, you know, company overview for people who are maybe joining us for the first time and since this is only our second earnings call, our company was founded in 1972 and has now built a legacy of only for five decades as a trusted provider of seamless multimodal logistics solutions encompassing the entire country.
We operate on a scalable asset light model and specialize in customized end to end supply chain solutions for key sectors which includes metals, FMCG, pharma, etc. 80% of our revenues come from clients who have been with us for over three years. Several have been with us for decades. This is a testament not only to the trust but also the confidence that they place on us. And with great trust comes great responsibility.
It is our company’s leading guide to ensure that that we deliver on the customer’s trust. So if you look at our logo at our motto, it’s not on time deliveries or just in time deliveries. It’s delivering trust. Because we are in the business of delivering trust. Ensuring that we meet our customers trusts is our guiding light is our north star.
Under the leadership of our founder Sri Rajendra Setha, we have remained dedicated to innovation and long term partnerships. Positioning ourselves as a preferred logistics partner in India for complex supply chain. We have built a repertoire of services, we have built a strong team and we are very focused and future focused on creating solutions for our customers.
Now I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about some of the highlights since our last call. And the biggest highlight has actually come over this weekend when your company was able to secure a landmark 1089 crore order from Vedanta Limited which we feel is one of the largest orders in Indian multimodal and supply chain solutions. This four year contract which will go on till 2028 covers the entire gamut of transportation and logistics of the several products which is aluminium ingots, billets, wire rods, big irons and exempt shipments from their plant in Jhar Sagoda to the major ports as well as the major domestic hubs.
We will run the entire supply chain for them and this is a legacy for us. This is a proof of our commitment to our customers that they have again given this order to us. So this is a marquee achievement for your company. We also received about a month ago an order of 170 crores from the world’s largest and India’s only integrated zinc, lead and silver producer which is Hindustan Zinc Limited. This is also for the logistics of their finished goods which includes zinc and lead ingots for a period of four years.
Another contract that we have, which is Corollary to the 1089 from Vedanta is the materials handling contract from them for both their import domestic exim operations again at the Jhashada plant. And the order value of that is 139 crores. So these are three very large orders. I think it roughly adds up to around 1500 crores worth of orders. So you can see that our order books are very strong, are very healthy and unlike many other transportation organizations which get contracts for a much shorter period, three months, six months, a year, we have very long term contracts which gives us the time to build up and ramp up our efficiencies and improve our performances.
So that is some of the facts on the key achievements that we have. I also wanted to, before diving into the financials, give you guys a bit of the market outlook that we’ve seen so far. So if you remember in the first half we talked about that, you know, the domestic loading had been also very badly affected due to heavy rains in North India and Gujarat. North India and Gujarat are the major origin of looting in our country as you know. But this post, you know, H1 in quarter three we saw that, you know, this sector has picked up and we are seeing very good growth here in the domestic business.
If you remember, international supply chains we had pointed out in H1 as well has remained very adversely affected. The vessel schedules have been very erratic. There’s been massive congestion seen at transshipment ports and very little or less availability of space for exports has been a huge disruptor. And so the supply chain for international cargo, which is exile, remained under a lot of stress there. This led to congestions piling up of containers at the time of import as well as exports. And this situation is slightly eased off but it is not back to normal as yet.
So this is where we stand with regards to the situation in the domestic and international markets. This is the update with regards to the company overview as well as the logistics overview. I would now like to give some financial performance highlights and then talk about the steps forward. So in this quarter we’ve seen, you know, your company’s had a very stable nine months of revenue. This has been primarily driven by the very strong surge in domestic demand. So it has helped us have a very stable nine months and despite a lot of ups and downs, especially in the EXIM trade, we’ve been able to stay steady.
We’ve seen that in the nine months our container throughput has been 1:58,119 compared to almost the same 1:58,569. In the first nine months of the year, the Q3 container throughput has been 54,303 as opposed to 55,805 for Q4. This is a very stable number for us and the financial performance. Revenues from operations in Q3FY25 stood at a 443 approximate crores compared to 456 tip of about 2 and a half 3%. EBITDA was 233.93 compared to 373.49.
EBITDA margins stood at 5.28% for Q3FY25. PAT numbers were 131.96 million for Q3FY25. The console numbers for the first nine years of FY25 are as Revenue from operations 1297 1.41 million compared to 1284 1.29 million. The slight growth of about a percentage and a Half EBITDA was 949.91 compared to 1022.27. EBITDA margin was 7.32 in 9 months FY25 the PAT is at 51, 510.52 million.
So my whole assessment is that the revenues remain stable over the first nine months of the year despite major global political challenges which affected our EXIM volumes. The domestic volumes at the same time have shown a growth of 24% which has successfully offset this about 15% decline in Exim container volumes for the first nine months.
We feel that the situation has now improved quite a lot and we are anticipating double digit growth in Q4 on a year to year basis. The numbers for January, the bookings for January were very robust. We have good bookings in February and we are hopeful that in the remaining 50 odd days of this quarter we will be able to continue with this growth focus and may we deliver double digit growth in Q4 of year on year.
Our integrated multimodal business model continues to make very steady progress guided by a clear vision to become the leading logistics partner of choice in complex supply chain. Despite industry challenges, our strong client relationship, our razor sharp customer focus and making customers our true north has helped us create a very strong foundation of partnerships and has created the right impetus for a strong foundation for future growth.
I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the entire Western carriers team for their unwavering dedication strategic approach which has been instrumental in navigating industry shifts and capturing new opportunities. We also deeply value the trust and support of our stakeholders. Looking ahead, we remain focused on achieving greater operational excellence and are confident that the momentum we are building will drive even greater success.
With that, I would like to hand over the call to Sapna. Sapna? Oh, sorry Priyanka.
Operator
Should we begin with the question and answer session?
Kanishka Sethia — Whole Time Director & Chief Executive Officer
Sure.
Priyanka Bhagat — Analyst
Yes.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press Star and one on the Touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. To ask questions, please press star and 1. The first question is from Aniket Kulkarni from BM SPL Capital. Please go ahead.
Aniket Kulkarni
Yeah, good morning and thank you for taking my question. So I have a couple of them. So in your drhp I think it was mentioned that Western conglomerate was suspended from trading on the Calcutta stock exchange in 2014. So if you could explain why did that. That happen and how can you ensure investors that such promoter irregularities will not happen again in the future?
And secondly, again in the drhp, you had mentioned another risk citing that the Indian government rail logistics provider, which I’m assuming is Concord, if that goes private, then it can be alike.
Kanishka Sethia
One second, I’m actually not able to hear you. Could you please just repeat what you were saying? Your voice is. I’m not very clear.
Aniket Kulkarni
Is this better?
Kanishka Sethia
Much better. Please, please go ahead with your question.
Aniket Kulkarni
Yeah, so firstly, in your drhp, it was mentioned that Western Conglomerate was suspended from trading on the CIC in 2014. Right. So if you could explain why did that happen and how can you ensure investors that such promoter irregularities may not happen again in the future? Okay, I’ll ask the second one.
Kanishka Sethia
Okay. So Aniket, Calcutta Stock Exchange, Western Conglomerate was suspended. We’ve actually rectified everything. The entire incident is fully covered in our drhb. It was a documentation lapse which was cleared and completed. And as on the date of filing of our drhp, it was, you know, all the paperwork was absolutely completed and corrected. All other details are up on it, are already mentioned in our drhp.
Aniket Kulkarni
Okay, okay, understood. And secondly, you know, another risk on the drhp, you have mentioned that if the Indian rail logistics provider, which I’m assuming is Concord, goes private, it can be a big risk to the business. So if you can explain the potential impact on financials and business operations just in case Concord happens to go private.
Kanishka Sethia
Sure. So, Aniket, we work exclusively with Container Corporation as our container train operator. We do not work with any private container train operator as on date. And so, you know, in case the business shifts to a private hand, we look at it more as a change in scenario for us and not more as a business risk for us. We are customers for Container Corporation. We are providing the traffic to Container Corporation. So we are customers.
So even in the small chance of Concorde changing hands to a private party, we would still remain in a position of being the customer for whoever the owner is. Obviously the terms and conditions might change, the business relationship might change, as would happen in any change in ownership and management. But otherwise, I think this is our business model of working with Concord delivered very good growth as well as very good results for our customers.
Aniket Kulkarni
But will it have any effect on your margins or I mean, so will there be any substantial financial impact on the numbers is what I was looking up.
Kanishka Sethia
So if you ask me, my opinion personally, I don’t think so. But we are working on happenstance and conjectures of things which have not happened does not seem to be happening. So it’s very hard to actually give a very strong answer on this. But my gut feel is I don’t think there should be any issues at all because a customer is a customer, be it a government of India or a private hand, we will remain a customer. And we are the largest customers of Container Corporation. So we expect to be treated fairly with whoever the owner is. I hope that answers your question.
Aniket Kulkarni
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does. And lastly, we can squeeze one macro question. So, you know, just wanted to understand how the overall shift from road to rail affects the company’s overall business given that, you know, we have a strong railway business. So if you can explain broadly how will that benefit our company’s growth prospects. Thank you, sir.
Kanishka Sethia
Excellent question, Aniket. And this I briefly touched upon, this I briefly touched upon, Aniket, in the fact that if you look at our business in our country, and I’m just spitballing, you know, approximate numbers, 75% to 80% of, you know, business is dependent on railroad, 25, 30, 35% on rail, etc. So now what happens is railways has historically failed or been worse off than road in one aspect very clearly, that is transits. Road transits have dramatically improved over the last 10, 15 years. Railways has not. So the one major benefit that the road transportation network provided to customers was speed.
Now if you look at the other benefit, if you talk about the economies of scale, the volumes, you would expect that railways should be cheaper than road when it comes to long hauls, right? Because it’s economies of scale. 20002500 tons compared to 35 tons. So if rail could improve its transits, that would mean that it would be in a position to start getting more and more business away from road. This is exactly what is happening with the DFCs. You are seeing the DFCs are giving a throughput almost three times to four times more than the average rail throughputs on a daily basis.
So where a normal Indian railway, and again, I am just giving you an approximate number, runs about 120 to 150km. A DFC can very easily cover three times that distance in a day. So what are you doing? You are actually making railways compete more efficiently with road on running the DFCs. As more and more of the DFCs and the business gets consolidated, you have, you know, the ancillary industries like the multimodal logistics parks which are completely set up. You will find a key shift in logistics away from road transportation to rail.
The rail coefficient right now, if memory serves me right, is around 17 to 18%. This rail coefficient the government would like to see at around 40%. My gut feel is in the next 10 years or so we should achieve around 25 to 30% easily. We’ve already improved about 200 basis points in the last four years. And these are all data which are readily available. So you will see that there is going to be a seismic shift, I would like to say, from road to rail.
As that happens, your company remains in pole position. Remains in pole position to actually get the benefit out of it. We remain the largest fourth year asset light company in the space. So we are at a good, you know, starting point. And I feel, you know, that is a great opportunity not only for us, but for real transportation overall.
Aniket Kulkarni
Understood. Thank you so much for a detailed answer and best of luck for us. Thank you.
Kanishka Sethia
Thank you so much, Aniket, Appreciate your time. Thank you.
Aniket Kulkarni
Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to participants that you may press star and one to join the question queue. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask questions please press star and 1. Next question is from Aniket Redkar who is an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Aniket Redkar
Thank you for the opportunity. So sir, I have some few questions. So recently we. We got the 170 crores order from the Hindustan Zinc. So how it aligns with the company’s long term object or can you elaborate on that?
Kanishka Sethia
Aniket. What? I am sorry, I’m losing you. Aniket, can you repeat what aligns with what?
Aniket Redkar
So, so recently we got the 170crores order from the Hindustan Zinc, right? Yes. So, so how are we going to align with the company’s long term objectives?
Kanishka Sethia
Okay, fine. Fair enough. So Aniket, this 170 crore order from Hindustan Zinc, which is, you know, the largest integrated producer of zinc, silver and lead in our country. This is for the movement of the finished goods and is spread over four years. We will run the entire supply chain for them for both their domestic movement to the major hubs as well as to their export hubs.
And this aligns completely with our goal because we will be producing, providing to them end to end solutions in running their supply chain more efficiently by trying to reduce whatever redundancies that come up into their system either in terms of detention damage, by ensuring that they meet their quarterly targets and monthly targets of dispatches for both products, domestic as well as exit.
So the idea is to create a solution which not only provides the best service to the customer but at the same time remains cost effective and something on which they can define. They don’t have to work with several vendors in trying to run their supply chain. Okay, I hope that answers your question.
Aniket Redkar
And sir, how do they influence that company’s operational capacity?
Kanishka Sethia
Can you repeat that?
Aniket Redkar
I mean, how do they influence the company’s operational capacity? Suppose if you are getting recently we got this order and in future also we are getting some other orders. So how are we planning to execute such orders in future?
Kanishka Sethia
So Aniket, what we do is we believe in creating teams of Scrum. Everywhere that we work, we create our own teams. We do not depend on external resources. We definitely do not depend on external manpower. So we create our own pool of talent. And whenever we launch the new product, Aniket, we try to create a team of Scrum which is basically we pull the best of the lots that we have and create a fresh team. So we create a system in which we have hierarchy. Every place you will find a system of hierarchy in our organization which is not to do with, you know, what your position is, but to do with your operations.
So if I have, for example, if I have a lead shift supervisor at plant A, I will also have a deputy lead at plant B below him. So when the deputy is fully trained, he will become a leader in another country, in another company. So what we do is we train our people to get into positions of responsibility and ownership by training them internally. So we don’t really have to work very hard in creating new systems. We keep building our resources accordingly. And the main resource to create are trained manpower. It’s much easier to get infrastructure in place, is not very.
So our main goal and main objective is to train our manpower to be in a position that we can very quickly replicate new supply chains for our customers. Now what happens, Aniket, is each of our supply chain solutions is customized to the customer’s need. So for example, the solution that we are giving for Hindustan Zinc is not exactly the same as what we are giving to Vedanta. So our people are cross trained in making sure that we meet the customers need to the exact requirement of their products and projects.
Aniket Redkar
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sir, go ahead.
Kanishka Sethia
And that is one of our core competences, Aniket, that we are able to create very customized solutions for our customers and we try to ensure that the supply chain becomes very efficient by having this very good trained manpower with us.
Aniket Redkar
So, so can we say for every contact we have the different kind of race?
Kanishka Sethia
For every contact we have what?
Aniket Redkar
Like for. I think it is impacted of.
Kanishka Sethia
I’m sorry, I’m actually losing you. I’m not able to hear what you’re saying.
Aniket Redkar
So I just wanted to understand. For every contact we are having a different kind of risk depend on the contract or the agreement.
Kanishka Sethia
Yes. So every contract is unique for us, Aniket. I wouldn’t call it a different kind of risk. I would call it a different kind of opportunity to basically operationalize and improve on the logistics solution that our customers have. So each one is a unique opportunity to grow. We go very deep with our customers. We enter into the DNA and try to sort of mix into it and create a solution which is a perfect fit for them. So you’re absolutely right. Each individual large contract that we get is a great opportunity for us to also learn and improve further.
Aniket Redkar
Okay, okay. So sir, given the current economic environment, so what is the management outlook for the remainder of this FY25 and can you use some revenue guidance for FY26 and 27?
Kanishka Sethia
So I feel, Aniket, it’s a fair question given, you know, how where we are. But despite these geopolitical challenges, our revenues, you know, for the first nine months has remained very stable. And this has been primarily driven by the growth in our domestic business. I feel with the situation now improving, we anticipate double digit growth in Q4 this year. So we are expecting strong double digit growth in Q4.
We have seen good growth in January, we are seeing good order, success. In February. And we are hopeful of a stellar March as well. Which is a year end for us. So we are hopeful of a double digit growth for the rest of the year. For the remaining two years I will give a guidance. Maybe you know, at the end of the year in April or May, whenever we talk next.
Aniket Redkar
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. And sir, one last question. What is the current status of our debt level?
Kanishka Sethia
One second. For that I have my team with me which is Ashish, Surya and Sapna. I’m just giving the phone to Ashish. He’ll give you the exact numbers.
Aniket Redkar
Okay. Okay.
Ashish Singhania
As on 31st December that our total outstanding debt is 164 crores.
Aniket Redkar
64 crore. Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. This is from my side. And all the best for the future.
Kanishka Sethia
Thank you, Aniket. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from Rajiv Agarwal from Sterling Capital. Please go ahead.
Rajiv Agrawal
Thanks for the opportunity and very, very good introduction to your business. My two or three questions are regarding this quarter. 3. So why was there a drop in sales and margins? Can you give some reasons? And then my second question is regarding Vedanta’s order. So when will we start executing this order? And can you give me some sense of how much volumes, how much increase in volumes this order can lead to in the coming years? Because this is quite a big order. And also a sense of how much business in terms of volume you were doing earlier and now how much volumes due to the recent receipt, order or order you will be doing?
Kanishka Sethia
Rajiv ji, thank you for your question. First of all, your question was with regards to, you know, the dip that we have seen in the profitability. I would like to address that. That the overall dip in this quarter has primarily been driven by the international supply chain constraints. So the international supply chain, as you know, has been very adversely affected straight through this whole year.
For India, specifically, the erratic vessel schedules of incoming as well as outgoing and the congestion at transshipment port has created a small crisis for us. What happens is when at the transshipment port you have vessels which are not regular, your containers sort of get clubbed together. And for imports, what we have seen is that instead of a lot of 300, 400, 500 containers, we’ve had 800 or 1,000 containers which have come, for example at the port of Vizag.
Now if you have double or more than double the size of import of containers which come in, see your infrastructure throughput remains the same, Rajiv ji. Right. So if you have at Vizag two lines and you can place two rakes a day, you’re not going to be able to do four rakes because that’s your infrastructural constraint. But where you had earlier 400 containers which you could have cleared in a matter of three days. Now you have 800 containers which takes about six to seven days. Despite the best efforts.
So when you take longer to clear your imports or take longer to clear your exports it leads to a situation in which the costs go up either in terms of detention, damage handling or double handling. So that is the reason why we’ve seen a dip in our quarterly profits. This time it’s really nothing to do with our own efficiencies but more to do with the geopolitical situation.
Rajiv Agrawal
So will this detention. So these detention and demurra are reimbursable by the client. I understood.
Kanishka Sethia
No, no. So not all of it. Rajiv ji, what happens is if you have to meet a vessel schedule, if you have to make the handling, you know, if you kept it at one berth, the ship we have not been able to catch because the ship has come. There is detention, there is congestion. So it’s not a straight pass through to the customers. It depends on your order booking and the terms of your contract. So not everything can be passed on to the customer.
Rajiv Agrawal
Okay. Okay. And my second question regarding this Vedanta order. Like how much volumes you were doing earlier and how much extra volume are you doing now? So I like you were must be doing X volumes two or three years back. And now…
Kanishka Sethia
So Rajiv ji, this the the whole contract is a long term, a mega long term contract, sir. It’s any contract over three years. I call it a mega long term. So it’s a four year contract, sir. And so what it does is it gives us an opportunity to actually in the next one, this and the next quarter basically streamline our operations. Put in place the assets and the equipment to further improve the operations. This Vedanta plant is the largest integrated manufacturer of aluminium in our country. And it has very lofty goals of capex. They have done a lot of capex. They are doing a lot of Capex. So the volumes are expected to grow.
Now Rajiv ji, I want to mention here that we are a derived industry. So by derived industry what I mean is whatever the manufacturing that my principals will do is the additional volume that I will go. So to get an exact idea of the amount or the quantum of work that will increase for me. Actually, we need to refer to my principals since I am the sole supply chain partner here. Whatever additional capex and product movement will happen will all happen through. I would like to say that in the next three to four years Vedanta expects, you know, very robust growth year on year in this plant.
Rajiv Agrawal
Okay. And one thing I want to understand further is that in last I was going through your prospectus. So in last three years your throughput volume, total throughput volume has remained more or less constant. But your sales have increased in the last three years.
Kanishka Sethia
So, so what has increased in three years?
Rajiv Agrawal
Sales. While sales have increased in the last three years. But throughput volume has more or less remained the same. So what is contributing to this increase in sales?
Kanishka Sethia
I just want to understand sales. This is a good question. The sales has increased definitely, sir. The reason is that there is a major shift, especially if you look at this year’s numbers as well, sir, that you will find that the revenues till nine months of this year we are slightly ahead of last year by maybe a percent or percent and a half. But the shift you will see is in the business pie, sir.
So domestic business has actually surged 24%, you know, and. But the ex IM volumes because of the geopolitical reasons has shrunk by about 15%. And I’m giving you approximate numbers, [foreign speech] the product mix completely changes, you know, so and what happens is because we are in bed with our customers, what happens is that volume gets shifted for us. So if for example Vedanta doesn’t do as many lakes of export, it is trying to pump up as much of domestic.
So for us, while the EXIM number drops, since we are working on both sides of the business, you’re actually able to buffer it up with a domestic number, sir. And that is why you’re seeing the change. So what that means, and it’s not a prophecy, but what that means is as your, you know, your this global situation gets more and more settled, that means there is a tremendous opportunity for the EXIM numbers to at least go back to where it was. Where it was not even talking about, you know, I’m not even talking about major growth forecast. But if we can even make up the 15% of the dip in our exit numbers, you can see the kind of opportunity that lies.
Rajiv Agrawal
Okay, but the one thing is not clear to me that in last three years, if I see the total domestic Numbers for this F66, it is around 60,000 TEUs. And EXIM is around 150 TUs. And domestic has been stable around this number for last three years. So for this year what you are saying. I understood. But for the last three years, why even though domestic revenues, domestic volumes were the same. But. And, but why did this sales increase? Because this logic. What was the last three years?
Kanishka Sethia
It’s a fair question, Rajiv ji. And though I don’t have unfortunately the numbers of the previous years with me, what my gut feel is, what happens is a lot of the movement of the domestic is slightly of a longer haul when you’re doing domestic and you’re reducing Exim. And EXIM is a shorter haul, sir. So one rake of domestic might actually book higher revenue than one rake of exim. And that’s my gut feels as if unfortunately I don’t have those numbers in front of me. I can’t tell you with certainty, but that’s what my gut feel is.
Rajiv Agrawal
Okay. And how much progress have we made on the receivable days? So what can we expect for at the end of the year?
Kanishka Sethia
So on the receivables we are working very hard since you know what happens in our business. We’ve had two or three very large new orders. Whenever we do new orders we do proof of concepts. Obviously you know, the initial part, the capital deployment is large till you know the work order is settled in and you know the payments start coming in. So since we’ve had a lot of new orders that have come in the receivables slightly higher, we are working very hard on actually reducing it quarter on quarter. And I think the benefit of that will be visible from next year more than this year, sir.
Rajiv Agrawal
So this Vedanta order, does it carry the same margins as the overall company margins or it is?
Kanishka Sethia
I do not know, sir. Actually to be honest with you, because we don’t salami slice margins like that. We look at the overall profitability of our business and it depends on various sectors. It’s, it’s not, you know, just looking at individual businesses separately but looking at businesses holistically, sir. So I don’t know the answer to that, sir.
Rajiv Agrawal
Okay, thanks. Okay. Thank you sir for the opportunity.
Kanishka Sethia
Thank you. Rajiv ji, thank you for taking this time out on a Monday morning.
Rajiv Agrawal
Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to participants that you may press star and one to join the question queue. The next question is from Utkarsh Maheshwari from Reliance General Insurance company limited. Please go ahead.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
Hi Kaneshka, how are you?
Kanishka Sethia
Good morning, sir. Good morning to you. How are you, sir?
Utkarsh Maheshwari
All good. All good. I just want to understand. You mentioned that you will be doing double digit growth this year. I mean this is for the F25 or I mean for the quarter you want to speak?
Kanishka Sethia
[foreign speech]
Utkarsh Maheshwari
[foreign speech]
Kanishka Sethia
For this quarter itself. Sir.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
I just want to understand [foreign speech] Vedanta, what could be a turnaround time for us to you know book start booking revenue? I mean it’s a four year long contract. It’s almost like what should be a transition time for you to start looking from the perspective of when you will start booking the revenues.
Kanishka Sethia
Already revenue booking has started in this and it will ramp up further as we go ahead. Sir.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
Okay. And I believe it will be for both important export both the insight for the…
Kanishka Sethia
Both, sir.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
Any other color on the different industries…
Kanishka Sethia
That we should be in a position to give double digit growth in quarter four for sure. Sir.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
Okay. And I mean it is fair to assume that you should at least do a like to life. I compare with the last years there should be some nominal growth in the overall revenues.
Kanishka Sethia
Yes sir. I am very very confident that we will be able to give revenue growth this year.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
And probably some improvement margins could be also anticipated.
Kanishka Sethia
So margin improvement I am. It’s too early to say sir. Because all of these new projects and work is in progress. But margin improvement should happen in the long term for sure. Sir.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
Yeah. Over the next course of say once the teasing covers are over, once you get.
Kanishka Sethia
Yes, yes yes. We build up on our efficiencies as our efficiencies get better and the volume movement becomes better. So what has happened in this year is because you know the exim trade is so hammered and there are so many erratic schedules which are happening there. The programs in the customers end are also changing dynamically. Sir. So once there is a better clarity on the functioning of the logistics, you know we become more and more profitable. Sir. So as these situations get normalized you will see that our efficiencies and hopefully that will lead to better margin improvements.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
Any specific industry or sector which you believe should contribute more. I mean though, I mean your job is more like it’s spread across industries 3, 4 categories largely. So what are — I mean if you can highlight the areas where you believe there is a pain or where you believe there is a possibility of a gain. In nutshell just name by category wise industries.
Kanishka Sethia
This is a very good question. I honestly feel that all categories would gain by the consolidation with rail movement. You know Industrial chemicals is one. MSME is one. Metals also has a huge scope to improve for the pharma fmcg. So I think you universally all sectors will improve in this.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
And in current nine months which is the one sector which has been the biggest pain area for us and which is one of the best area for us as a sector?
Kanishka Sethia
Pain area, sector wise I don’t see any pain areas. As such, the pain has been the scheduling and the, you know, the conversion from exim to domestic etc. The areas of opportunities remain MSME and industrial chemicals as well as growing business in metals also. Sir. So these are three areas in which we see great growth opportunities.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
How are the pharma and fmcg? I mean, they are firing as desired or there’s a decline over there also?
Kanishka Sethia
There is not much decline, sir. But they are not firing also. I would say they are stable right now. And we are hopeful that we will be able to, you know, make some growth there. We are working on some large proposals which hopefully we should be able to fortify in the next quarter or so, sir.
Utkarsh Maheshwari
Okay, fair point. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot.
Kanishka Sethia
Thank you, Utkarji. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to participants that you may press Star and one to join the question queue. Next question is from Jonas Butta from Birla Mutual Fund. Please go ahead. Jonas. You may go ahead with your question.
Jonas Bhutta
Yeah, good morning, sir. I hope I’m audible.
Kanishka Sethia
Yes, sir. Good morning. You’re audible, sir.
Jonas Bhutta
Yeah. So firstly, congratulations on a decent show in a challenging environment. A couple of questions. Firstly, for the nine months in the roughly 1300 crores worth of sales that we’ve booked, what would be the share of new business that was sort of not present in the last year’s base, but we’ve sort of procured through the year and sort of executed it?
Kanishka Sethia
Fair question, Jonah. Sir, unfortunately I don’t have this data with me. I’ll be happy to share it with you later on. So let me prepare this. I unfortunately don’t have this data with me right now.
Jonas Bhutta
Yeah, and the second question was on the Vedanta order. So you know, it is an existing client for us that gives us significant business. So this order is an incremental win over that or you know, it is just renewing of the old contract with some growth. So how should we read into this? 250 crores, thereabouts of annual revenue potential from Vedanta. Will it sort of help you double contribution of Vedanta or you know, just sort of provide a nominal inflationary growth on it?
Kanishka Sethia
No, sir, actually this being an all encompassing contract, we expect it to give us a good incremental growth, sir. Because their projects as well as their throughputs are also increasing. And as their throughputs increase, we will be in a position to actually back the entire, you know, the logistics for it. So we are the sole supply chain partners. So we are hopeful that this contract will not only strengthen our position but also actually give us a large incremental volume not only at Vedanta but at Hindustan Zinc. And we are very hopeful that this will actually help us get into the other sectors of the business and industry in the group as well.
Jonas Bhutta
Sir, that’s it from my side. Thank you.
Kanishka Sethia
Thank you sir. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask questions, please press star. And one next question is from Ashish Shah from Business Match. Please go ahead.
Ashish Shah
Hello. Good morning sir. Thank you for allowing me to ask a question. I’m slightly new to the company so you know, please pardon my ignorance. Sir, my question are two of them and both slightly long term which is let’s say two to three years out. So can you help us understand how should we look at growth for a company like ours? And what are the levers really available for you to meaningfully grow two, three, four years out? So is new customer acquisition a lever? Are new segments a lever? New geography is a lever. What are some of the levers available for us? Or are you going to go more deeper into the pockets of customers? What are some of the levers available with us to meaningfully grow earnings two to three years out?
Kanishka Sethia
It’s a wonderful question. Ashish ji and I actually spend a lot of time as a key person in the company in trying to answer exactly what you are saying, sir. So your question is very well taken. And we work on both sides of it, sir, not only do we look at mining of our current customers deeper, we also look at trying to do more business with the customers.
For example, I will give you an example of one of our customers which is Tata Steel where we started working in one of their clients which is Jamshedpur. And over the last few years we also started working in their other plants which is Kalinga Nagar as well as Angkor. So you know that is basically getting a deeper business share with the same customer.
At the same time we are focused on creating new customer acquisition. Ours being a complex supply chain business, we have to work that much harder in explaining our business models and creating a new solution to our customers. We, unlike road transportation are not working on the model of replacing one vendor with the other but with one solution which is more efficient than the other. So that takes slightly longer. But the good side of that flip side of the slightly longer is that.
Mostly our contracts are sticky, and it helps us to remain with the customer. And the customer remains loyal to us if we are able to provide that customized solution to them. So it is an opportunity on both sides not only to expand with our current customers. And here Ashi ji, I would like to tell you something which I am very proud about that if you look at our list of clientele, the marquee clientele that we have in metals, in pharma, in fmcg, in industrial is I feel one of the best in the industry.
Our customers give us that opportunity to actually grow with them in their newer businesses or in their expansion. At the same time we target large corporate customers where we feel that we’ll be a good mix. We never target customers where we can only give them a very small incremental benefit. So we try to create solutions and that is where you know we are able to excel. Sir, we are into problem solving more than trying. Just get incremental revenues.
Ashish Shah
Sir. Is there a way for you all to share anything with us like in terms of either new customer acquisition or how much deeper you’ve gone in the pockets or new geographies you entered or new verticals over the last three, five years? If either now or in a future conference call or adding up in your PPD will just help us, you have to at least understand how much more levers do you have to grow this business?
Kanishka Sethia
Sure, sir. So Ashi ji, I would like to tell you that there is a huge amount of scope of growth. We do very little business on the northern dedicated trade corridor which is running from say Delhi to Bombay. So there is a huge opportunity to actually consolidate that business. There is tremendous opportunity on the western side of our country. Though we work pan India, a large portion of our contracting is happening from east because that’s where the metal manufacturing is. That means the rest of the country also where we are present, we have an opportunity to grow our footprint, sir.
South, West, North, Northeast and those are the areas in which the businesses are growing also, sir. So if you see the northeast, we are a dominant player. East, we are a very dominant player. South, north and west remain areas in which we can actually consolidate and improve our footprint. We’ve been working on that, sir. So we’ve increased our footprint in the west and we are very focused on the west as well as north and South. Over the years, I would say last three to five years, we’ve actually grown our revenue and India everywhere, sir.
Ashish Shah
Okay, that’s very helpful. So the second question I had is you have mentioned more than one place is that we are an asset light business. So at the same time for a previous participant was asking us when you bid for a contract, what kind of margins you have. We said you take a very holistic approach. So when you bid for a contract, how do you want us to look at it in terms of either a payback period, consideration, if you’re an asset light model. So how should we look at that? That you have a return on capital matrix or how do you bid for a contract?
Kanishka Sethia
The way we bid for a contract. A first is that the customer’s requirement is my true north. Sir, I once as a company we take a project Ashiji, I do not look at anything aside from the fact that I have to meet the commitment to my customer. I am very true to our motto which is delivering trust. He’s trusted me to make his exports. End of the year, end of the month, I will move mountains to try to do it. Everything else accrues and follows from it.
So what happens in the asset light model? Sir, we remain extremely asset light compared to the kind of business that we are doing. We do capex exactly in areas in which we need to run our supply chain. So for example, if I need a small Tata Ace from say Bombay to Thane, I will not invest that Tata Ace if I can get it from the market. But if it’s a specialized container reach or is a special design container which cannot be gotten into the market, I will do the capex for my customers needs. My capex are only where I need them to run my supply chain. My capex are for no other reason at all.
Ashish Shah
Sure sir, that’s helpful. So large part of your capital when you bid for a contract is working capital, right? So you would be trying to look at return on capital for the money yet invested in working capital. So is there a number you have that like typically three years, four years, like how do you want us to look at it? I think if you’re, if you’re, you know, if you’re unable to give a number on the margin front then how should you look at it this way?
Kanishka Sethia
So it’s a very fair question Ashish, I will tell you as a company we have a principle that we don’t do business for the sake of business. You know, that is the mindset of a character set that I want to grow for the sake of growth. I want to grow organically and at the same time I want to grow profitably. So I do not try to undermine or undercut competition and just try to do the business and get that top line. Unless the business is profitable as well as for me, we avoid those businesses. So we have our internal benchmark and matrices and when we try to a pitch for business and we take new business.
So I can proudly tell you that there is a lot of businesses that we forsake. We do not even participate in which are, you know, plain vanilla in nature, homogeneous in nature, where we feel we cannot add any value to it. It. So, for example, Ashiji [foreign speech] I will not be able to meet in those cost centers that small business has, right? Because I have a cost overhead I have run establishment. So I will not bid for businesses like that, sir.
Ashish Shah
Okay. So thank you very much for your time. All the best.
Kanishka Sethia
Thank you, Ashish ji. [foreign speech] But your questions are razor sharp, sir. And thank you for that.
Ashish Shah
Thank you very much, sir.
Kanishka Sethia
Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you very much. That was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference back to Mr. Satya for closing comments.
Kanishka Sethia
Sure. So thank you everyone for taking time out on a Monday morning. You know, my job becomes that much harder on a Monday morning and a Friday evening than any other time. So thank you everyone for your patience and hearing me out. I’d like to take a moment to thank first of all, all our clients, our vendor partners, our employees, stakeholders for their unwavering support and trust. [foreign speech] It is because of this teamwork that we’ve been able to create what we’ve created.
And I am very confident that together we are shaping a future of innovation and efficiency for the Indian logistics sector. I think it is an opportunity time to be in this industry. I feel that this is an industry which is going to give tremendous returns to our country. And I think we are in a very good position to actually partake of this. We are very optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead of us. And I look forward to building value with you all as we go ahead. Thank you so much for your time and have a nice day.
Operator
Thank you very much on behalf of Western Carriers India Limited. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect your lines.