NIIT Ltd

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I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vijay Thadani – Vice Chairman and Joint Managing Director. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for your continued interest in NIIT Limited, and joining us today in the middle of a busy Results season. We hope all is fine at your end. My purpose of this call is for us, our Management Team to provide you an update on our Quarter 1 Results for the year 2025-26, also some specific developments in terms of inorganic activity and also the way forward.

I have with me Pankaj Jathar, who is the CEO of the company; Sanjeev Bansal, who is the CFO; Kapil Saurabh, who manages M&A and Investor Relations; the whole team, the Head of HR, Technology, and we also have some of our directors, Mr. Sapnesh Lalla is here, who is the Non- Executive Director; and Rajendra Pawar, who will be joining us; and the third founder, Mr. Rajendran.

So, to make sure that we can answer all your questions and give you a correct brief of the situation, I will just set the context briefly. And then after that, Pankaj will take us through the details, and then I will step in whenever required.

With this background, let me begin by acknowledging that our organic performance this quarter does not meet our own expectations. In fact, we fell short of our guidance, both in terms of revenue growth as well as margins. That said, it's important to analyze, therefore, what happened and where did our energies go.

So, there was one part, which was some deliberate actions that we took, and the second where we could not foresee and it happened to us. More importantly, the efforts that we have made to remain confident in the direction that we are headed, and I think we are starting this call with that deep confidence.

It's important to note that during the quarter, in addition to the organic activity, we consummated two inorganic transactions, acquisition of 70% stake in iamneo, a very interesting AI-powered deep skilling SaaS platform, which adds a new capability, a new market segment, a new

Page 3 of 16 experience to NIIT. And the second was the purchase of the stake of ICICI Bank in our joint venture, IFBI, NIIT Institute of Finance Banking and Insurance Limited, thus making that as a wholly owned subsidiary.

I will invite Pankaj to walk us through this quarter's performance, and then we will step in and discuss the inorganic activity as well. Over to you, Pankaj.

Thank you, Vijay. Good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our Quarter 1 FY '26 earnings call. I echo Vijay's sentiment that we fell short of our guidance, both in terms of revenue growth as well as margins.

Let me first talk about what impacted the Q1 performance:

And as we start, I want to highlight that Q1 is a seasonally weak quarter for the business. Also that the results include the impact of iamneo acquisition and the IFBI transaction, which have been consolidated from April 17 and June 11, respectively.

Revenue for Quarter 1 was INR 841 million, up 2% year-on-year and down 3% quarter-on- quarter. iamneo financials are consolidated from April 17. The above includes INR 52 million in revenue contributed by iamneo. Excluding the same, the organic business declined by 4% year-on-year and by 9% quarter-on-quarter. EBITDA was negative INR 63 million.

While we had stated EBITDA will be negative this quarter, this includes the impact of the lower revenue and the planned investments. The business continued on its planned course of investments, which delivered an improved order flow, but did not benefit revenue or EBITDA.

Depreciation was INR 67 million versus INR 59 million last quarter and INR 56 million last year. This includes impact of the new acquisition.

Net other income was INR 179 million as compared to INR 221 million last quarter and INR 155 million last year, primarily comprising of treasury income. Profit after tax for the quarter was INR 44 million as compared to INR 131 million last quarter and INR 78 million last year.

Earnings per share was INR 0.32. Excluding the impact of inorganic transactions, PAT was roughly similar to last year.

Based on strong feedback from some of you, we would be sharing additional metrics. These are order intakes, and we will also give you a split of the Enterprise and Consumer business. The order intake. Order intake in Q1 was INR 1,065 million as compared to INR 778 million last year and INR 742 million last quarter, reflecting early impact of our investments.

Page 4 of 16 Enterprise business contributed to INR 574 million in revenue this quarter and was up 7% year- on-year. The Consumer business contributed the balance INR 267 million, which was down 8% year-on-year. The business mix was 68% is to 32% in favor of the Enterprise business in Quarter 1 versus 65% to 35% last year.

Revenue from technology programs was INR 587 million, up 7% year-on-year, while revenue from BFSI and other programs was INR 254 million, down 9% year-on-year. Technologies to BFSI, the ratio was 70:30 versus 66:34 last year.

I will run you through some balance sheet numbers. The balance sheet metrics remain strong.

DSO days was at 53 days, in line with the 54 days last year and 51 days last quarter. We are slightly up quarter-on-quarter due to seasonality.

Consistent with the investment cycle the company is in, CAPEX for the quarter was INR 81 million. Cash and equivalents at the end of the quarter at INR 7,115 million versus INR 7,580 million in Q4 last year and INR 7,185 million last year, Quarter 1.

Employee headcount at the end of the quarter was 885. This includes 151 employees from iamneo. Our Q1 performance was weighed down by several external and transitory factors.

Global system integrators, GSIs, are once again experiencing discretionary spending cuts and the slowdown in decision-making cycles. This prolonged uncertainty directly affected hiring, onboarding and training volumes, which is in sharp contrast to the pickup we had anticipated earlier in the year.

In parallel, the banking sector saw a clear pivot to a risk of stance. Elevated credit deposit ratios, rising stress in retail loan portfolios, and lower attrition levels prompted several banks to reassess and defer hiring plans, which in turn impacted committed and planned onboarding programs.

These dynamics resulted in sudden and deep reduction in training spends, creating a double whammy across GSIs and banks, significantly impacting our early career skilling and enterprise training volumes.

We witnessed delays in order intake and uncertainty leading to execution slippages across early career and work-pro learning programs, resulting in significantly lower training volume compared to our plan, affecting the utilization in ways we could not foresee and act on. The geopolitical conflict in the region had a direct, though localized impact during a two-week period in May. The situation led to cancellation of certain planned training batches and delays in the commencement of others.

Beyond the immediate disruption, the heightened tension contributed to a distracted decision- making environment, further affecting onboarding and program execution. Some of these effects extended into the following weeks, creating a cascading impact on trading volumes for the quarter and consequent impact on utilization.

Performance was impacted by planned front-loaded investments in AI and also in the go-to- market GTM engine, people, platform products, partnerships as well as sales and marketing.

We have invested in all of these across both Enterprise and Consumer businesses. Transaction- related and integration-related expenses tied to our recent inorganic growth actions.

We had certain transitionary expenses as we took advantage of the environment to fine-tune operations. Lower utilizations arising from order delays and onboarding deferrals below the planned capacity, leading to negative operating leverage.

An update on our strategy actions and progress on those. Despite these headwinds, this was also a quarter of purposeful execution and strategic build-out. We laid down strong foundations for building momentum in our business.

As guided earlier, we accelerated GTM investments, inducted senior leadership, expanded our sales teams and increased brand visibility through targeted marketing and influencer campaigns.

On the technology front, we revamped our learning platform, introduced deep skilling programs in new-age technologies and integrated agentic AI tools to enhance learner outcomes and internal productivity.

We expanded our offerings to include generative and agentic AI, AI and digital coaching for banks and enterprises and solutions tailored for sectors like Auto, Telecom and Consumer Electronics.

OEM partnerships now stand at 35, further strengthening our partner and solution ecosystem.

We completed the acquisition of iamneo, which brings AI-led SaaS platform for deep skilling and personalized learning capabilities and adds universities and colleges as a new channel, a strong strategic fit with clear synergies already in play.

We also acquired the remaining 19% in IFBI from ICICI Bank, simplifying our structure and improving our agility to address the BFSI sector.

And importantly, we are already seeing the early impact of these investments. We had a material uptick in order intake in Q1, and the momentum has continued into July, improved digital engagement and showing a stronger pipeline momentum. We signed 10 new logos this quarter across BFSI and our other business segments.

Further, despite the headwinds, order intake in the Enterprise segment was up 35% year-on-year and overall order intake, which includes iamneo was up 37% year-on-year.

While the near-term environment remains volatile, our conviction in the medium- to long-term opportunity is intact. When we met in the first half of May, our assessment was that the worst of the macro headwinds were likely behind us. However, the external environment turned more adverse than anticipated as the quarter progressed. Although global tariff pressures and macro uncertainty were known risks, the depth of the slowdown in onboarding across GSIs and BFSI and the cautious hiring sentiment became more pronounced later in the quarter. This contrasted with the strong intent on hiring we had heard from IT majors and consequent expectation on hiring pickup.

Also, while the geopolitical conflict in the region had already occurred earlier in the quarter, its cascading effects continued into the second half, leading to deferred decisions that reduced execution velocity in some programs. At that time, we were also seeing early indicators that the strategic investments we had made in our go-to-market engine, expanded solution offering and brand visibility were beginning to show positive traction. Importantly, those investments continue to deliver the intended impact.

We have seen progress in areas like order intake, new logo wins, digital engagement and customer pipeline, all of which validate the strategic choices we made. The momentum has continued into Q2. Early indicators, stronger order intake in July shows that our investments are causing an uptick in key metrics. In spite of the uncertainty, we remain confident in delivering sequential growth in Q2, and a steady progression through the year.

As a result, the growth momentum we had expected to convert in Q1 has now shifted out into Q2. The strategic momentum remains intact, but the realization of outcomes has been delayed by a quarter, and is coming at a higher than originally anticipated negative impact to profitability.

We expect strong sequential growth in Q2, driven by improving order flow driven by our GTM investments, which has created a stronger pipeline, better execution velocity and greater utilization of delivery capacity. However, given the Q1 base, our full year year-on-year growth is now expected to be lower than our original guidance. That said, we firmly believe Q2 will mark the beginning of a gradual and sustained recovery. Our investments in GTM, portfolio expansion and technology are now starting to yield results.

The market structural need for advanced next-generation skilling, particularly in AI, digital and domain-led learning remains robust. We are well positioned to serve this demand. We will continue to work on the inorganic growth mandate driven by the Board.

The current environment continues to be marked by significant volatility and uncertainty.

Despite this, based on a strong order inflow in Q1 and July, we expect Q2 revenue growth in the

Page 7 of 16 range of 13% to 16%. As we continue to invest in strategic initiatives, margins for Q2 are expected to remain negative, marginally negative.

For the full year, we project revenue growth of 15% to 20%, contingent on macroeconomic conditions not becoming worse than they are. Given the fluid external environment, we will reassess and update our guidance on a quarterly basis. Medium to long term, we continue to see a significant opportunity ahead and remain fully committed to delivering on our long-term strategic objectives.

I need to reiterate, NIIT has a strong and trusted brand, a differentiated deep skilling methodology delivered over a scalable AI-powered delivery platform with proven outcomes.

We have 200-plus active corporate partnerships, customers with revenue greater than 90% from repeat customer orders. We have 35 OEM partnerships that give us early access to cutting-edge technology.

Strong balance sheet to continue investments in innovation and growth, significant business transformation cycles ahead, which would create demand for specialized talent. We are well poised to take advantage of that demand. The focused entity enables us to be nimble and agile to address this market.

We will continue to look for opportunities for both organic and inorganic growth. We completed one of these in April of a young, fast-growing, profitable and innovative company.

I will invite Vijay back to provide us an update on iamneo.

Thanks, Pankaj. I will just give a brief -- I think you have all been through the releases that we made on strategic acquisition of iamneo. We bought a 70% stake in iamneo Edutech Private Limited, a leading provider of deep skilling technology training solutions through a scalable AI- powered SaaS platform. The transaction was approved by NIIT's Board of Directors at its meeting on April 17.

And under this agreement, NIIT will acquire the remaining 30% in phases from iamneo's promoters, subject to achievement of agreed financial milestones. iamneo's founding leadership is continuing in their existing roles and continues to drive growth. This strategic acquisition unlocks substantial growth opportunities, enabling NIIT and iamneo to deliver robust outcome- driven learning solutions at scale for undergraduates and early career professionals through universities as well as corporates.

The initial transaction value at its 70% stake was INR 609 million, which included INR 100 million primary infusion and INR 509 million in secondary purchase subject to closing adjustments and true-ups. NIIT will acquire the remaining 30% in phases from FY '25 to '30, linked to defined performance milestones.

Page 8 of 16 The transaction is expected to be growth, margin and EPS accretive from the very first year. So, we are very excited about this achievement and warmly welcome iamneo's team, founders and their full family to the NIIT family. iamneo's innovative solutions significantly enhance our capability to deliver impactful digital transformation curricula at scale. And I think we have got going from the word go from 17th April, and I think are doing some exciting things together.

The second transaction is the purchase of the stake of ICICI Bank in our joint venture, NIIT Institute of Finance Banking and Insurance. In June, NIIT purchased 19.28%, 18.78% from ICICI and 0.49% from certain individuals in IFBI from ICICI Bank and individual shareholders at a consideration of INR 62.7 million. Consequent to this, IFBI is now a 100% subsidiary of NIIT Limited. This transaction enables simplification of operating structure and increase in speed and agility in decision-making and expansion of scope, substantially beyond banks in the BFSI industry.

So, though it was a challenging quarter like Pankaj shared, it was also a building quarter. We believe that the strategic levers we have activated in Quarter 1 are setting the stage for a stronger performance in the coming quarters. We are confident that the groundwork we have laid can translate into both -- will translate into both growth and acceleration as well as margin improvement as we go on.

I would like to now open it for question and answers -- questions so that we and our full Management Team here will be happy to answer. Over to you.

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

So, while people are figuring out their questions and digesting what we have just shared, let me ask Pankaj to use this time to talk a little bit about our AI initiatives and how we are leveraging AI to build a very strong competitive edge in the markets that we operate in.

And I will also tell Sapnesh, as Sapnesh, in fact, has talked about it on other platforms to supplement what Pankaj talked.

Sure. Thanks, Vijay. So, we have already shared with you that -- I mean, our business is on Enterprise and Consumer side. So, I will talk about our AI initiatives along those lines. So, on the Enterprise side, we are working with a number of customers where we are helping them understand how they can leverage AI in their business. So, we are training management teams, leadership teams on better utilization of AI internally, and then training organizations on productivity improvement using AI.

We have built training programs along these lines. We have also built some tools which companies can use as sandbox for practicing or understanding how they can utilize AI. That's on Enterprise side, external training.

Page 9 of 16 On the Consumer side, we have incorporated training programs as part of products that we sell directly to consumers, and they can skill themselves on how to use AI in their career and progression.

On the third dimension, we are also using AI internally for NIITans to become more productive.

We are using it very specifically in our courseware creation processes and in our program creation to improve our productivity cycles.

And I would love Sapnesh to talk to us a little bit more on what the NIIT ecosystem is doing with AI.

Thanks, Pankaj. I think AI is fundamentally changing how a number of jobs get done. And this change is going to be rapid, and it's going to be -- change is going to be quite fundamental. So, as Pankaj talked about, we train on or educate folks on a number of different job roles, for example, programmers or QA engineers or bank relationship managers or wealth managers across the two key market segments we service.

It's not that programming will go away, but how programming gets done will change dramatically. Programmers will be able to use AI to become significantly more efficient in their ability to build applications. And I think as we saw when digital transformation took place, they will be able to create applications that are not possible to be created today. And I think our endeavor would be to enable that.

And I think from the point of view of our customers, their endeavor would be to make sure that their talent does not get left behind, because if it gets left behind, they would not be relevant. So, I think our opportunity with respect to technology-related training and likewise, with respect to banking and other market segments that we service are to be able to reimagine the way a job is going to be done, and be able to educate our constituents on how to be able to do that job using AI, so that they are significantly more efficient, and they are able to imagine their product using AI in a way that's significantly better than what they could imagine in the past. And I think that's going to be a real key differentiator.

For example, if we are able to enable a programmer to imagine applications that they have never dreamt of before, applications that can change the way a corporation works or change the way it produces products or changes the way it automates business or changes the way it services its customers, that would enable the organization to become significantly more competitive. Same goes for banks. The same goes for automotive companies that we serve. Same goes for telecom companies that we serve.

So, our goal would be to enable talent so that they can reimagine how they can do their jobs.

They can make them more impactful to get them to imagine the world in a different way. That's really what we are trying to do. And I think we are making more progress than at least our competitors have. All right. Questions?

Page 10 of 16 Operator, are there any questions?

No, sir, we don't have anyone in the question queue at present. The first question is from the line of Ganesh Shetty, an individual investor. Please go ahead.

Good evening, sir. My question is regarding gNIIT, which you have launched in a renewed way.

And with the acquisition of iamneo, can we be able to cross-sell this product into universities?

And also, there is a lot of marketing expenditure which we have done to launch this gNIIT. So, can you please tell me the response of this both in the market and the road ahead for this particular course, sir?

Thank you. I think Pankaj will be happy to answer.

Thank you for the question. You are right. The acquisition of iamneo creates opportunities for gNIIT to be sold through another sales channel or go-to-market channel in partnership with iamneo, and that is something we are exploring. We are already seeing encouraging early signs of possibilities there. So, that synergy is definitely being created.

And overall, on the marketing side, you might have seen we recently launched some advertisements with the gNIIT program. We did this on YouTube and Instagram. And we are seeing very high engagement of these ads. So, significantly higher than average engagement on both the channels on YouTube as well as on Instagram. And we are seeing elevated traffic to our website. after we have launched these ads, right? So, definitely seeing a positive response. While the ads are focused on gNIIT, the response we are seeing is across the board, not just on gNIIT.

Customers who are visiting the website are looking at the entire portfolio, and engaging with the website accordingly.

So, on both fronts, the partnership with iamneo, very encouraging early signs. And I expect that to help us create more synergy and more opportunities there through their market channel. And on the marketing front, the campaigns that we have launched, they are showing good early signs of pickup, and we are seeing higher number of visits and registrations, both on account of the marketing efforts we have taken.

Vijay, anything you would like to add to that? No, no. There is some noise on the line.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to get some clarity on this order intake data, how one should read it in terms of what is the mix of this across vertical and also the tenure that typically this may take to get consumed. Any color, insight into it should be of great help.

Page 11 of 16 Okay. Thanks, Rahul. I think Pankaj and Kapil will together answer this. Pankaj and Sapnesh will together answer this data -- provide you with this data. But just to let you know, since you are familiar with the past of NIIT, in our other businesses, we also used to use a term called revenue visibility. In this case, these are fixed orders. That means a customer has committed that they would consume an amount of training, which could be in the form of whatever service that we are providing, defining the quantity, defining the rates, defining the period. And based on that, the order intake is considered.

Order intake can be over one quarter, two quarters, one year or many more years. what we do for order intake, and that's our internal norm. We have been using it for a long period of time.

Our internal norm is the word order intake is used to depict orders which will get consumed in the next 12 months, whenever the order comes. So, that is what is -- it may be a 3-year order, but we will only take that amount, which can be consumed over 3 years -- 1 year, sorry, or next 12 months. Typical duration of execution of an order will be something which Pankaj will share with you.

And the second issue, which I would like to say is that it's a data which we have been tracking for long period of time, but we thought instead of confusing everybody with multiple data elements, we had kept it simple to revenue. There was a request coming from many, many quarters, I think, including yourselves saying that we need more color and visibility on some of the lead indicators. And we thought order intake is a very good indicator of what kind of revenue can one expect in the future. So, Pankaj, over to you.

Sure. Thanks, Vijay. You have explained what order intake is. And just to complete out what you talked about when it gets consumed. So, it varies by business divisions. So, the OEM training that we do, that kind of order typically gets consumed within a few days or a couple of weeks, because that's the duration of training. But some of the other transformation kind of trainings we do, that order goes over weeks and months, because that's a different kind of engagement we have with customers and a different kind of training program we do.

On the Consumer side, programs like gNIIT are multiyear programs. And there are others like full stack software engineer, which is a 6-month program or digital marketing, which is 3 months. So, the consumption of the order intake is accordingly over that period of time.

So, Rahul, just to answer your question, I will repeat the order intake I mentioned earlier, and I will add a little bit more information there, so that gives you the color that you are asking for.

So, order intake in Q1 was INR 1,065 million as compared to INR 778 million last year.

I will break this up into Enterprise and Consumer. So, the order intake for the Enterprise business was up 35% at INR 789 million, and order intake for Consumer business was up 41% at INR 275 million, right? So, we saw a robust uptick on both these counts for order intake.

Page 12 of 16 You may just want to clarify that the order intake includes iamneo.

Yes, both of these numbers include iamneo, since iamneo came on board on 17 April. So, this quarter number includes iamneo. But I mean, even if I keep iamneo aside, we saw a robust uptick in order intake for -- especially for the Enterprise business in Quarter 1. I hope that helps, Rahul.

Yes, that is clear. Just a clarity further into it is that if I look at -- you said around INR 70-odd crores of this is the Enterprise business and our overall Enterprise business is 2/3, give or take.

So, the run rate from a 12-month executable point of view is barely for 4-month run rate. So, are we trying to say bulk of the Enterprise business is also on a short duration book?

Sorry, your question requires refining. Let me demonstrate my understanding. What you are saying is that the Enterprise order intake does -- do the orders get consumed in a shorter cycle? Is that what you were referring to? I think that's what he was referring.

Yes. So, what I am trying to say that give or take our business on the Enterprise side is INR 200 crores on run rate, our order intake is INR 70 crores. This is 12-month executable as you defined it. So, I am saying we have visibility of only 4, 5 months in terms of the Enterprise business. So, that means that deal signings are pretty short tenure.

This is right. This is right. Most of the deals would be of short tenures between 1 to 3 months.

Yes. Most of the orders would be. Deals are longer. Yes.

So, when we work with the customer, we work over a longer duration. But for order intake, we will take a specific number order that a customer gives us. So, the execution of that will be short term, but the engagement with customers is long term. So, if we are, say, skilling someone about 2,000 people on Oracle, then the order intake will be by batch and month, but the program is for the 2,000 people program over a longer duration.

So, in this example, you would take the number of people who could be done from a 12-month forward basis into your order intake?

So, it will depend on the work -- on the specific work order for execution, right? So, while the engagement with the organization would be on the larger program, but the specific work order that they give us is what we count as order intake. And that will be executed on a shorter duration.

Understood. So, although it is a 12-month book, executable book, but the total also would not be a significantly larger number than this because the tenure itself is smaller.

Page 13 of 16 Yes, to an extent. And the nature of our business is also that we will keep getting orders every quarter. So, it's not -- it's not very different from what you mentioned. And we will build an order book, but we will also be getting new orders every quarter, which we will execute within the quarter also.

Right. And in the enrollment data, if you could give data ex of the iamneo part, what could be the enrollment number for the quarter?

It's about 200,000 people who went through. See, why I feel the order intake is a better measure enrollment was a very good measure when the average ticket price, if I may say, was in and around a particular number. Right now, with the kind of work that we are doing, the ticket price varies at an individual level over a very long, large range. And we thought therefore, order intake is a better measure.

Okay. That I can understand. I am saying what is the enrollment number, because I heard you saying 200,000. So, I was asking INR 200,000 is the iamneo part. Is that what we are trying to say? No. Yes. 200,000. Is the iamneo part.

Is the iamneo part. He's asking for the other one. Total is 270. 270. 270. 270,000.

So, if I have to go by that, I understand, as you rightly said, the range for the enrollment would be significantly different. But the base number for our organic business was 52,000. So, are we saying on the core business, we have seen enrollment done from 52,000 to 70,000 plus Y-o-Y?

Yes. Actually, we have the data. We can share that with you very easily. But we decided we will focus on this. So, we have the data. We will share the data.

Fair enough, that's it from my side. Thank you.

All right. Q1 FY '25 it was 48,827. And Q1 is 71,000 minus 16,000 is 55,000. it was 48,827, which has now become 55,000 as far as Enterprise is concerned. And as far as Consumer is concerned, it was -- 98 is including iamneo, so we have to remove.

Page 14 of 16 Take out those numbers.

We can share that with you. It's not as different as you said it is. We will give you the exact numbers while we address the other questions. Umesh, just take note.

Thank you very much. Next follow-up question is from the line of Ganesh Shetty, individual investor. Please go ahead.

Sir, we are organizing several additions of digital architecture conclaves, whether this is helping us to acquire new business in GCC Enterprise segment, sir? Or how is the response there?

Yes. Thank you for asking that question. I think Pankaj will be happy to answer.

Yes. So, this year was the third addition of the Digital Architect Conclave. And we have more than 150 participants representing number of companies. And most of them represented GSIs and some of them represented GCCs, right? These are practicing digital architects who attend the conflict. So, the way we have positioned the event, it is a community that we have created of digital architects who come together and share ideas with each other. And they spend the day there learning about what's the newest thing happening in their space from each other and from speakers who attend the day.

And in preparation for that, a lot of them actually spend a lot of time to participate in some of the activities we do there. There is a postal competition where digital architects come and share their innovative solutions and how they have solved problems for their customers and a panel selects from that. So, as a program, it has been very successful.

And in terms of downstream business, we have seen we have actually seen opportunities coming out of last year's digital conclave for us, which resulted in direct business as well. And of course, it results in our engagement with the digital architect community, right? It gives us access to knowledge, information and access to mentors in this space and helps us create that sense of community and belonging amongst digital architects across the industry.

So, it's -- we have built a very premium position for ourselves in this space, and it is serving us very well. Even this year, I expect greater engagement with some of the customers who attended the conclave and resulting in future business from them.

My next question is regarding in your opening remarks, you have mentioned about building the organization and making it fit for the future. And this quarter, we had some high-level recruitment also. So, whether this investment phase is going to reduce, I mean, there will be lesser amount of investment in the future, which can increase our EBITDA margins in the present business. Can you throw some light on this, sir? Or the investment will continue in the same speed? Please, require some clarification on this.

Page 15 of 16 Sure, Ganesh. So, we are investing in building the retail side of the business. And investments in that space will continue for at least the next 4 to 8 quarters, right? Because that kind of a business needs the flywheel to go faster before it kind of generates its own momentum. So, we will need to put that effort to build the retail side of the business, and of course, rebuild the organization overall as well.

So, some of the investments will come down very soon, but some investments will have to continue. Investments, especially in building content, building course material and building the Retail business. Those things will continue for some time. But yes, as a company, we will see some of the changes happening over the next few quarters.

Thank you sir, that's all from me. All the best.

Rahul, while there is a pause. Let me give you the data that you were asking for. In Q1 FY '25, we had 52,630. In Q1 FY '26, we have had 56,883, and both these numbers are without iamneo.

Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Balakrishna Mundra from Mundra Investments. Please go ahead.

This question is for Mr. Pankaj Jathar. So, basically, you have given a revised guidance of 15% to 20%. So, I want to know what will be the organic and the inorganic guidance for that? Because I think that guidance also includes the iamneo one. So, I want to understand what is the core organic growth guidance and what is the iamneo guidance, if you can specify that, please?

So, the guidance we have given, like you pointed out, does include the inorganic as well, which is now consolidated into our numbers overall. But if I was to tease it out, then the organic guidance would be between 5% to 10% for us, and added on top of that would be the inorganic. Okay. Thank you.

And the 25% guidance was also including iamneo, even at that time. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. As there are no further questions, I will now hand the conference to the Management for closing comments.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining the call and for your questions. As usual, your questions do open new windows in our own mind and help us sharpen our strategy as we go forward.

We did acknowledge that the results fell short of our own expectations, but we are confident of -- with our very strong order book intake as well as additions in the family like iamneo that we would be on this growth path. It's like what we were expecting to see from last quarter would

Page 16 of 16 now start seeing -- we will start seeing from the next quarter. And we have -- Pankaj has given a guidance. Of course, that assumes that the environment remains the way it is, and hopefully improves a little bit and does not give us any more unpleasant surprises.

But thank you very much for your continued interest as well as guidance, and we look forward to interacting with you in person. Having mentioned that, we are in Mumbai on Monday morning, Monday, we are spending time with those of you whom we can meet, and we will be very happy to organize one-on-one or group meetings to answer any further questions.

Thank you for your continued interest. All the best. Operator.

Thank you very much. On behalf of NIIT Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.