BlackBuck Limited (BLACKBUCK) Q3 FY2026 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Q3 FY '26 earnings conference call of BlackBuck Limited, hosted by Rathi Capital. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. Kindly also note that the audio of the earnings call is a corporate material of BlackBuck Limited and cannot be copied, rebroadcasted, or attributed in the PR media without specific and written consent of the company. Please note that anything said on this call that reflects the outlook towards the future, which can be construed as a forward-looking statement must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk that the company faces. A copy of the disclosure is available on the Investor Relations section of the website, as well as on the stock exchanges. To give you an in-depth understanding of the company and answer all your queries, we have from the management side today, Mr. Rajesh Kumar Naidu Yabaji, Chairman, Managing Director and CEO; and Mr. Satyakam G N, Chief Financial Officer. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Rajesh for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you so much for the introduction. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the third quarter earnings call of BlackBuck, the second last lap into the financial year, and more importantly, the second half of the year, which positively benefits the whole CV and the trucking industry. And we'll walk you through what has been the last quarter, and we can discuss there. Yes. So at a broad snapshot level, we did close to about INR 189 crores in total income in the Q3 of '26, which is a 53% growth on a year-on-year basis. EBITDA of about INR 45 crores, which is close to about 50% growth on a year-on-year basis, PAT of about INR 32 crores. Last year, because of exceptional items, there's no comparison. So broadly consistent with what we've been talking about in terms of our business model, in terms of our revenue line items, in terms of consistency in delivering the profitability, I think that's playing out. On the functional metric side, as we've discussed, transacting customers is one of our North Star metric in terms of how many customers transact with us, how many of these truck owners are using our services. That's growing at about 13% on a year-on-year basis. Users using greater than 2 services, which is typically our more loyal users, power users, that's close to half of the overall transacting users. That's growing at about 20.5% on a year-on-year basis. GTV Payments, payments forms a critical part of our revenue, so we keep reporting this. That's roughly growth of about 23.5% on a year-on-year basis. So headline being that as all of you are aware, we are investing very strongly in newer business verticals like Superloads and Vehicle Finance. Despite those investments, we've been able to keep up delivering consistent profitability and this story will continue to play out. Taking a step back, again, playing out our core strategy and core vision of what we are building, why we are building. As all of you are aware, BlackBuck is essentially trying to recast the whole trucking ecosystem, how it works today. And as we all know, fast forward 10 years, this would not be really operating the way it is today. The question of really whether it will change, is not there. The question is, really, when it will take in place, right? What we are solving today towards that particular vision, what we are solving today is the truck operators' life, truck operators' journey; because this is the infrastructure which supports trucking. And we believe that if we can solve this, it makes us like multiple steps closer to really recasting how trucking works in the country. So as all of you know, we've shown this slide in probably all our earnings calls thus far. We have like a very simplistic strategy, where we innovate and we create offerings for our truck operators. These offerings range from: enabling their operations to getting them go cashless to help them access to their own data easily to getting loads on the platform. Then we have our platform, our crown jewel, the BlackBuck app, where these customers transact. And for these customers, this is like as consumers, if we fire X or we use Safari as our browser as the platforms where we use -- where we put in maximum of a time during the day. For a trucker, it's basically the BlackBuck platform and our very unique distribution, right? So as you know, in offerings, we have like varied offerings, which we have enabled for our customer, right, from tolling to vehicle to fuel payments to fuel center to fleet docks, and many of these offerings. And we continue to research and continue to launch these. Our platform, most of these transacting customers that we talked about are spending close to 45 minutes daily. That's a powerful usage, which continues to compound. Distribution, a very unique, a very omnichannel-led distribution strategy where feet on street from a sales point of view, from a technician network perspective, from a channel partner network perspective to call center, right? So every kind of methodology, which is used to reach to the customers to be able to provide the service and the know-how of the product for him to really utilize. And we are essentially virtually present everywhere. So through this strategy is how our revenue gets delivered. This is the strategy in which our teams are broken out inside the company. This has been the same strategy for the last 5 years, and we continue executing on these fronts as we speak today. Now this strategy fructifying into execution is largely the key KPIs. Some of them I have already spoken in the headline slide. So if you can see monthly transaction truck operators growing on a year-on-year basis at about 13%. Largely, the 9-month numbers are synonymous to the quarterly growth numbers. I will highlight wherever there is specific call-outs there. Our gross transaction value of payments, as I mentioned, grew by about 23.5% on a year-on-year basis. Revenue from operations, 51%. And when you look at net revenues, which is basically below which literally the -- most of it flows into contribution margin with an efficiency of close to 93%. In that, the growth is roughly about 34%. And we will talk about the split between the new and the old as we keep moving forward. From a contribution margin basis, we've grown similar to the overall net revenue growth, which is 33%, and contribution margin percentages that I spoke, 94% are largely consistent, which has led to us delivering an adjusted EBITDA of INR 50 crores compared to the last year same quarter, that was INR 33 crores, which is a 51% growth. 9-month number is very stark because roughly about the same time line last year is when we started compounding on our profitability. So that's a INR 140 crores on a 9-month number compared to the previous year 9-month number was INR 64 crores, which is roughly 118%, 2.2x kind of a growth on the adjusted EBITDA on a year-on-year 9-month basis. Giving a narrative on really what's happening behind these numbers, as I spoke, revenue grew by 53%. Within that, the core businesses had a growth of -- a very healthy growth of 31.5% on a year-on-year basis. And as I was mentioning at the starting of the call that H2 is the positive season for the CV industry. That's 11.5% growth on a sequential quarter basis. So the whole momentum of H2 has essentially picked up. And underneath the core business, which is growth of 31.5%, tolling business, which is basically one of the core revenue levers, that's grown obviously more than 24%, but the GTV growth is 24%, which also is an important determinant how the revenue in the tolling business essentially grows versus the industry grew at about 15%, which continues to call out that our market share is compounding, and we are able to grow healthily and continue to accelerate there. Other business vertical of telematics, which is the second business vertical under the core businesses, again, had a very strong quarter this particular Q3, where the run rate of sales -- and don't confuse this as sales revenue. The incremental sales we have done in the last quarter are like almost highest ever in all the product categories, which was a very good milestone for us. From a growth business perspective, which is again largely led by Superloads and Vehicle Finance, we had a growth of roughly 271% on a year-on-year basis. Sequential quarter, roughly close to 25% growth, which is largely led by Superloads. Now giving a color on Superloads. As we've always maintained, Superloads is in the phase of a very strong playbook building phase, where obviously orders are scaling, and we continue to launch newer cities. As we speak, last time when we were speaking, we were live in 4 cities. Now we are live in totally 9 cities. And so that's on Superloads. Vehicle Finance, again, aided by industry tailwinds, we were able to sequentially grow by 35% on the disbursals for our partners on the platform, and that business continues on a healthy growth path. So that's broad commentary on revenue. Getting into adjusted EBITDA, despite continuing to step up investments in newer businesses, as we have spoken, we are aggressively pursuing expansion in Superloads, which is Superloads and Vehicle Finance are unprofitable categories for us today. So despite investing in these businesses, we are still able to deliver a very strong EBITDA growth of 51% on a year-on-year basis, and we have delivered roughly about close to 20% of EBITDA growth on a sequential quarter basis. Largely contributed by the operating leverage and the compounding of the core businesses, which basically are of supremely high quality, very differentiated product, aided by a very low cost and low-cost distribution and servicing network is what is aiding that, which is giving us the firepower to also continue to incrementally invest in our new businesses and which will be the businesses which will help us really realize our vision as quickly as possible. So that's the commentary on these numbers. These numbers reflecting in the accounting P&L. As you can see, income number, which we spoke about 53% growth on a year-on-year basis. Revenue from ops, roughly excluding interest income, is growing at about 51%. Core businesses, as I gave a voice over, have grown by 31%. Growth businesses roughly growing at about 4x -- 3.7x to 4x on a year-on-year basis. On a net revenue basis, all these indexing in, roughly growing at about 34%. Direct costs grew a bit strongly because of the telematics business, about 56%. And then broadly similar waterfall as regular P&L of our quarters. Adjusted EBITDA, INR 50 crores compared to INR 33 crores on a year-on-year basis, growth at 51% and that flowing down to PAT at INR 32 crores, which has an exceptional hit of roughly about INR 3.5 crores to INR 4 crores on the wages -- labor code sort of regulations changing. So that's the -- and obviously, highlighting the 9-month adjusted EBITDA here, again, INR 64 crores last year versus this year, INR 140 crores and EBITDA of INR 53 crores versus INR 122 crores. So that's a strong growth in EBITDA continuing to compound. So that's on the P&L perspective. Summarizing all this from a profitability angle, this is like a zoomed out view of the last 2.5-3 years. So if you can see this quarter, we've delivered our highest ever adjusted EBITDA despite a very strong expansion in new businesses and also investing back in core businesses because we've grown, we've scaled our distribution network further by 10 percentage points over the last quarter, which means higher investment in distribution network as well. At the same time, expansion into multiple cities and Superloads. Having said all of that done, still we have delivered an adjusted EBITDA highest ever of INR 50 crores. And if you reflect that on a 9-month basis, which is INR 140 crores FY '25, we did close to INR 100 crores. This number far supersedes that to INR 140 crores. And obviously, like the last quarter, we still have to get through. So that will be a good end to the financial year as well. So again, summarizing again, what I spoke in the overall narrative is that this consistent profitability continues largely based on the core businesses which are compounding and delivering and anchoring these results, where the operating leverage continues to hold and continues to sort of help us deliver the profitability. Summarizing, similar slide, which I used last quarter, thinking ahead, largely remains the same. I think it would not be -- it would be fair to say that roughly most of the presentation is same, largely the numbers are different because this strategy for us has really not changed in the last 5 years, and we continue to execute on that strategy. So simply thinking ahead, core businesses, which is payments and telematics businesses and a lot of adjacencies which we continue to building, right? We are essentially doubling down, continuing to invest in our distribution network, continue to gain share from a market share perspective, continue to align ourselves to the market tailwinds and really delivering predictable and consistent and profitable growth. While that growth delivers strong profits, leveraging that and reinvesting in growth businesses, which delivers superior 10x value to our customers by loads, which helps them enhance revenues and multiple other new experiments under the hood. So there, I don't think as a company after going public, we've really pulled back. We've actually gone much -- once we were public, we were probably testing the waters a couple of quarters. And once we knew how to navigate the public markets, we've been actually as aggressive as we were in the private markets from really building new businesses, delivering incremental value for our customers. I think that's continuing to work. So yes, I think I would leave you guys with these thoughts that core businesses continue to compound on profitability, continue to deliver on the operating leverage we've always spoken about, and that's giving us firepower to continue to step up investments in the new businesses. And this strategy, we will keep executing as we keep going forward. That's all from my side. I think we will open the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Mr. Sachin Dixit.

Congrats, Rajesh, on great set of results. I had a couple of questions. The first one was basically on payments GTV. So we have seen this number growing at roughly 35% Y-o-Y in fiscal year '25. And gradually now we are in roughly in the mid to early 20s range in terms of this number. What do you think is, let's say, 2 years out, like where do we position on this piece, right? Because there is some market share gain happening on tolling, but it's also happening in an industry which is growing only 10%. So any views on how do you think this payment GTV should shape out?

Yes. I mean, Sachin, as you're aware, I again repeat that we typically would not give a forward understanding of really how we look at it. But I think what you're saying is absolutely right that because as you know that our market share are -- like market shares are pretty much closer to that 50% level range, late 40s, right, as we speak today. As you rightly said, the market right now is growing at probably between 9% to 10%. And definitely, we will compound much stronger on top of that. But this number, which you just quoted that the market is growing at 10%, if you look at the last -- like probably 2 years of data at every quarter level, sometimes this number has grown between 15% to 20%, sometimes the number has grown at like 9%, 10%. So I think definitely, we are indexed a bit to that. But we continue to gain market share in broadly the similar method as probably a few quarters back. I think that's continuing to happen. The second point, which I always mentioned that our acquisition market share is actually much larger than our current market share, which means that we will still continue to compound at a much faster pace than this. So I think that's what I would like to sort of articulate other than that. But yes, but whatever points you -- facts you outlined are right. Yes.

Just to clarify that, right? So -- and I know I've asked this question in your -- I think, probably the first earnings call as well. So do you think market shares for you can reach more than, let's say, a 65% odd range or somewhere below that they will start to plateau out?

Basically...

I mean at a high level, obviously, not as a guidance. At a very high level.

Yes. I mean like that -- whatever number you just quoted is possible because we've been gaining market share continuously. So -- but the point is the pace to reach there is hard to determine. It will all depend on basically how the whole industry sort of models out. And when our acquisition market share, like, let's say, assuming that -- assuming that whatever number you said, if our acquisition market share is that number, then we can see this number reaching the market share number, reaching that number maybe in a 2-3 years' time line. So that's how I think it will work. So we will first have to make our acquisition market share go to that number, then the actual market share starts reaching that number over a period of time.

That's very detailed. Secondly, on the incremental EBITDA margin that we have been getting, right? So obviously, we have seen very good incremental EBITDA margins. This quarter, while you have invested, as you have highlighted in Superloads, you have already reached 9 cities. Our incremental EBITDA margin was not brilliant, but still healthy at 44-odd percent Q-o-Q, if I look at it.

Yes.

So on this number, considering you're already in 9 cities. Should we expect this to be the worst probably incremental EBITDA margin you are going to get, and we should expect slightly better as we proceed ahead? Or how should we look at this number, right? Obviously, we have seen 80% numbers for you as well?

Of course. See, basically, blended incremental EBITDA margin, I don't think is the right way to look at this business. We need to basically split this after allocating the HQ cost into what is the core business EBITDA margin and what is the new business EBITDA margin. Because the -- at the business line vertical level, there is literally no connection in terms of both these businesses. The costs are pretty independent, right? So incremental EBITDA margins of the core businesses continue the same story as we've always delivered, point number one. This is essentially an independent business, which has basically its losses, right? So the overall incremental EBITDA margin is actually a composite metric of these 2 factors playing out. More if we see signs of very like, let's say, a breakout signs in our Superloads business and we really want to out invest, right? then you'll definitely see depression in the overall EBITDA. And like the -- then the incremental EBITDA margin loses its concept itself, right? Because it's basically 2 different businesses, right? So what I'm trying to help you understand is that very hard for me to comment on really whether this is the worst or what it is going to be, point number one. Point number two, the core business has the same flavor of operating leverage in terms of incremental EBITDA margins, right? Third, the investment into new businesses are very independent decisions, basis the signals we get in the market and basis how that independent business performs.

So just a follow-up question on that. Are you seeing that breakout sort of phase in Superloads yet, or you're still figuring it out?

I think we're still figuring out. We're building a lot of like products inside. And yes, doing a lot of experimentation, doing a lot of like, I think I would say, groundwork at this moment and like, yes.

The next question is from the line of [ Vishal Agarwal ].

I want to ask two questions. First is, do you have any competition in the market listed or unlisted space who could be competing with you? Like in platform businesses you have Swiggy and then you have Zomato, you have Paytm, you have PhonePe. So if you want to compare with BlackBuck, who will be next to you?

Yes. So as you've highlighted, right, BlackBuck basically vision is unique and hence, the whole execution is pretty unique. And the whole avatar of BlackBuck, which you see today essentially is nothing but iterative version of trying to get to the vision, and we've gotten here, which really looks like a payments company internal the telematics company with a loads company with a loan origination company. It's very -- it looks very different. But when played on a platform and then understood the story, we all know that it's all originating on the same platform. So because of that, literally at broad scale, there is literally no competition from an overall end-to-end perspective. But if you look at segment-wise, if you look at, let's say, assuming payments, right? There are a lot of banks which do this because they have customers and they do this business for retail. So they also extend this towards commercial vehicles, right? So definitely, there are banks in the tolling business. In telematics business, there is a company -- there is a private company with which we compete with; like, they do decently well the telematics business. That's one competition segmentally, right? Now from a classifieds load perspective, the loads business perspective, there is basically not much any formidable competition. I think from a market share perspective, like classifieds, we drive like a large number of loads on the platform, right, let's say, where there is literally not much kind of profitable competition, right? So if you look at it from this lens, each of these verticals may have some competition. In the recent past, there is one public company which wants to try replicating something what we are doing, but I think we've still not seen much execution yet going on. And there is -- I think there's one more public company which is smaller. They are also trying to replicate something. But then still literally from a meaningful perspective, having something in the 2%, 3% kind of a share also is not there yet.

So just to clarify, the public company would be delivery?

Yes. I mean, no comments, but yes. No comment on that point, I said. I didn't say yes.

Second question is what's your target for Superloads in terms of the coverage area, number of cities like -- you now to 9 cities. So take it to 30, 100, what's the potential? How many cities can you cover?

Yes. See, last earnings call, we've given a visibility. We were live in 4. We decided to open 10, which will make it to 14, and we gave a visibility that by end of -- by second half -- by probably June 2026 is when we will be in 14. That's the visibility we gave in the last call. Broadly, that visibility stays. And largely, it will be predicated on how well the business is performing and in terms of ability to really scalably build this business with the right economics, I think that's going to predicate the growth of this business, which we today, like, let's say, don't have much visibility on.

The next question is from the line of [ Anil Savin ]. Anil? We'll take the next question from the line of Parikshit Kabra.

Congratulations on another set of good numbers. I think I'm going to get into the other expenses. And I think a lot of this conversation happened in the last call as well, last quarter. But I just wanted to dig into it a little bit more. When I adjust for the expenses, your cost of goods for your Superloads business and then look at your other expenses, even then they're increasing rapidly. Now I know we are investing in Superloads, setting up offices and teams, et cetera, et cetera. But when I look at it from a year-on-year perspective, it's almost INR 18 crores to INR 19 crore expense, which is higher on a quarterly basis. Can you help us understand where all of this extra expenses is coming from?

See, broadly, if you look at it, there are two areas where this is coming from other than, like you said, cost of Superloads. One would be manpower. The second would be in terms of, let's say, SIM cost for GPS, et cetera, right? So SIM cost of GPS, et cetera, you can broadly track from the direct costs that we report. From a manpower point of view, the expansion is across. Even in the last quarter, we gave you a flavor around how we are expanding teams on the core business side as well. And obviously, we are expanding teams on Superloads. So there are no other significant increases other than manpower, the GPS-related direct costs, and the Superloads direct costs.

So the manpower that we are increasing, we are not putting on the employee cost. We're putting the incremental manpower under the other expenses. Is that right?

There are different models that we operate in. The employees who are on our payroll are reflected in the employee cost. The other models that we operate in might be off-road, might be other models. All of those are reflected in the manpower cost and the other expenses.

So majority of the INR 19 crores compared to last year, would majority of it be just the manpower cost, sir?

Yes, majority would be manpower costs, except for what is reflected in the increase in direct costs.

Correct. So then let me move on to the next part of my question is that we have invested -- we were in Bangalore, and we were already doing pretty well. From there, we went to 4 cities. From there, we have gone to 9 cities. And if I recall, last quarter, we said from 50 employees, we're going to 250 employees -- correct me if I'm wrong. So it seems like we are investing. And of course, the team takes time to ramp up. But I'm just trying to understand that the growth from Superloads from previous quarter to this quarter probably is of maybe INR 4 crores, INR 5 crores additional. Are we struggling to ramp up in the other cities? Is it breaking down from what we saw in Bangalore? Is there a problem in the scaling up of how we are deploying resources versus how the impact is actually happening?

Yes. See, broadly, I mean, your point is that there's like sequential something -- like a 25% kind of a growth, right? Broadly, that's what you're trying to say, which is a INR 4 crore, INR 5 crore kind of a growth number, right? So obviously, the question is that can it be faster? The answer is yes. But the question also is that something which really builds out very fast also comes down that fast. So the type of growth is something which I think we are very clearly indexed on in terms of high-quality growth. Broadly, at this point in time, what we can share about Superloads is that the operating model, the crux of the operating model continues to deliver and work well. The cities which basically have been launched later continue on the similar path as the first city, which is Bangalore. And probably day after day, we are able to discover newer insights, which are in the same direction as we speak today. So most of the operating metrics continue to improve, continue to compound well even in the Superloads business. This is the visibility which we can provide at this point in time.

Just a quick follow-up and maybe you can and maybe we cannot. How is Bangalore doing? Is that also growing in line, or has that plateaued to some extent?

No, it's also growing in line.

The next question is from the line of Rishi Jhunjhunwala.

Rajesh, so just following up on the previous question, right? So Bangalore is where we started first. Can you give us some sense in terms of where we are in Bangalore in terms of scaling up either in the form of number of leads that we are converting on a daily basis or the overall revenues we are generating? How far we are from an ideal scale and an optimal scale? I mean, optimal the full potential of the TAM there, but ideally is somewhere where you would -- like you have in the past talked about, say, 5% or 10% market share, so somewhere around that. If you can give some color around that, both on revenue side as well as on investment side to just understand how much time it takes to ramp up where we are in that? Is it enough success that we have gotten there, which could be then replicated to other cities?

Yes. So I think assuming that if we believe that we have really built out the playbook, the distance to that is, let's say, 100, right? I believe in the city of Bangalore, we are somewhere in the zone of 50 to 60, right? And this number probably, let's say, a quarter back would have been at 40, 45. This number, another quarter back would have been at 30, 35. So there is a continuous, consistent progress in even the first city because we continue to deepen, our costs continue to improve, more customers continue to open up, more customer segments continue to open up. Repeat rates continue to get better, ability to -- like liquidity of the marketplace continues to improve. Availability, which is very important, which is a network effect-driven phenomena, where, as marketplaces scale, like it's very hard to beat them on availability, right? Because there are more trucks, there are more shippers wanting to use it, like if there are more shippers, then more trucks will come in. If there are more trucks, then more shippers will come in, right? This whole virtuous cycle of the network effects, I think in that dimension, it's continuing to compound well. So -- and then similarly, as we mentioned, Hyderabad probably was a market which probably was launched like a year or 6, 9 months later, is again on the similar path as Bangalore, like probably it would be like 6 months always away from Bangalore. So that has a much stronger takeoff in the beginning, right? So I would say that the playbook, if it is 100, where we can believe that we have significant scale in a market, which is called as a very good significant business, not the ideal, but the optimal stage where we can assume that the business is really working, thumping the table. I think we are at 55%, 60% level at building that playbook, and we are consistently improving and newer markets are following through the path which the first market followed. And we are also getting multiple newer avenues to really accelerate this marketplace, which I think leveraging technology, leveraging AI, we are able to do that. I think -- yes, so I think there's a lot of momentum there.

On the cost or the investment phase side, are we like kind of done -- largely done the amount of investment we had to, which are largely fixed in nature, at least in the Bangalore side?

Yes. See, the large fixed costs probably are done in terms of the top line, right? That's the top levels of people and resources, right? But then the whole context is that like because there is -- as you rightly said, right, there's an optimal scale also, which you need to hit, right? So for that, you need to keep investing. If we, let's say -- assuming -- pause investing in Bangalore, for example, right? We would break even in like a few months. But then that's not the objective. The objective is to create a working capacity for that particular number, so that incremental profits can be way higher, right? So from an investment perspective, I would say a good part is done, but not all.

Just one question on the tolling FASTag business. On the take rate that we get on that -- I'm not talking about the gold programs. But on the take rate, has there been an improvement there?

As an overall take rate from an India perspective, you're talking about?

Yes...

Blended -- yes. See, blended because blended mix between partners because one partner is at a higher take rate, which we get; one partner, we get a lower take rate. The mix definitely has changed. So you may have seen some 1 bp or 2 bps kind of a change, which is not a material change, but yes, you may have seen that.

Okay. But there's no major improvement there?

No standard change, no major improvement; largely same.

Maybe one question for Satya. Sorry, so on the tax rate side, I mean, how should we model that going forward as well? And just want to understand, has there been any change given that we had carryforward losses, but of course, I think we are recognizing deferred taxes as well.

Yes. So broadly, the current tax, you should always model on as 25% of other income, right? Broadly, that should hold true. And the deferred tax, you should model it as broadly about 25% of the EBITDA, excluding the other income. That's broadly how -- what should hold to.

So going forward, just if we have to build ETR, it still would remain around the 25% for the consol overall entity?

That's correct.

The next question is from Moez Chandani. Moez? The next question is from Gaurav Rateria.

Congrats on great execution. Rajesh, my first question is on your comment that you made on if the playbook is 100 and we are 50, was it more to talk about the optimal stage of business where you can say that, yes, the business has reached a particular scale? Or was it to say that you have reached a potential of 50 versus the total 100 is optimal size of the business in some of the cities?

Sorry, both sound similar, whatever you said. Can you repeat again, and help us understand?

Yes. So one is a bare minimum size where you start calling out that your business has reached a particular scale at which you can start calling it out as a different segment individually in the cities. And the second comment was more to say that, okay, the maximum potential in this city is 100 and I have already reached 50, means that headroom to grow is to just double the size from here on.

No, no, no. It's actually neither of these definitions. It's more like if we reach and hit that scale of 100, we know how to build this business fully. And like after that, it's only replication and expansion. So that's what I meant. And at that 100, we will be under 5% of the market -- sorry, under 5% of -- under 2.5% of the overall market and of the TAM under 5%. So it would be like big headroom to grow still after that.

Secondly, are we still targeting mostly the transporters? Or there will be a stage at which we will be directly possibly contracting with the shippers as well and the scope of the business will expand substantially?

As we have articulated like our marketplace strategy, right? The end shippers are 2. One is SMEs and other is basically corporates, right? Corporates are not equipped to work on a platform, a spot kind of a platform like where they can decide on a daily basis the rates. They will never ever come to a spot platform. And that also involves working capital and involves the whole relationship management, which is a little bit sticky and unscalable, right? So we don't believe in that business. SMBs, we have already started working, as we've always articulated. There are various markets in which we are probably doing a good share of the business from SMBs. So SMBs, we are directly working, which is largely spot and cash and carry. And we will continue to work with transporters through which the enterprise demand will essentially get channelized. So that's how we will be working. And we will never go to the end shippers because that's not a market we would want to directly interact with.

Last question for Satya. If you look at your investments in the growth businesses, is it fair to say that a substantial scale-up has happened in FY '26 so far and not so much in FY '25? And therefore, the incremental EBITDA margin that you see whatever margin has come down compared to last year is largely due to the investments in growth. And if you were to exclude that, incremental margins would probably would not have changed compared to what you already delivered in FY '25?

Yes. So the scale up on the growth businesses significantly has happened in the current quarter. So as Rajesh has articulated consistently, the operating leverage in the core business continues to be extremely high, right? So I mean, whatever we used to deliver in the past. So that continues to be the case. So whatever dampening has happened on the EBITDA side from an operating leverage point of view is primarily or mostly driven by the investments in the growth businesses.

The next question is from [ Ankush Agarwal ]. Ankush? The next question is from [ Anil Salim ].

So Rajesh, first of all, very good performance. I'm still not sure about the Superloads business. What I see is a kind of a 21% Q-o-Q growth, which includes Vehicle Finance also. So is this the trend that one can sort of forecast for the coming quarters? I mean, is this the pace that you are comfortable operating at? That is one part of my question. Second is that what is the fixed cost currently? And assuming a kind of a certain rollout, what is the EBITDA margin potential? Suppose you are able to reach your ideal situation where you said the playbook is 100. Suppose you are able to roll out all 100 products and offerings, what is the steady-state EBITDA margin potential of the Superloads business?

Yes. See, the first question in terms of -- like, first of all, like the growth businesses are very dynamic in nature. So ability to really give a guidance on what kind of a growth we can expect sequentially as we keep moving forward is a little hard. But as you rightly asked, it's a blend of both. And again, reemphasizing Vehicle Finance like we only like, let's say, incorporate the commission revenue, which we get from our partners. The loans are on partners' books. So it's largely a commission-driven business for us. And these businesses are in the nature where we would want to take -- if we want to take hard calls in some quarter to really do the right things for the long term, we will do that. So hence, they are in nature a bit dynamic. So I would -- like we would -- when these businesses are at a stage where we would be able to give some forward visibility, you guys will hear it from us. At this point in time, I would only articulate that these are new businesses and they are very dynamic in nature, and it's very hard to project them out. Question number two is, I think in terms of the businesses we've built and even what we're building, most of them operate at a very high contribution profit businesses. Even the Superloads business from the net revenue downwards typically has a very high contribution margin because the direct cost to the business are pretty low. And at a very -- and at the productivity levels, which, let's say, so assuming we also operate this business with like agents and people in our teams. So as the business matures, if you take the mature cohorts today, right? They typically breakeven in like 3 to 4 months of addition in our company as well already, right, number one. Number two, the cohorts which are like 6, 9 months old, they would already be delivering an EBITDA of like 30%, 40%. So this business can easily be modeled at the same EBITDA as our core businesses. And we believe the nature of the business, nature of the revenue at a net revenue level of the overall company by the addition of Superloads is largely going to be similar as we project out in the very, very long term. And that long term, you articulated that rolling out multiple products. Actually, there are no multiple products. It's only very simple service of getting a load from us. If the truck is in the city and we're able to find him a load, we -- he picks the load from us and we earn a commission. And that commission is our net revenue. And then it's -- we will probably -- we'll probably be able to demonstrate that maybe 50% to 60% of that net revenue can flow into EBITDA on a long-term basis when the stability sort of comes in. So that's broadly the color of...

I just had a small follow-up. See, in the classified side, you make like, let's say, INR 25 plus INR 12 -- roughly INR 37 per load that you find on the classified side. However, if one sort of benchmarks against what the unorganized brokers get per load, assuming a INR 50,000 kind of a trip and these people make around 10% of that. This is my understanding from hearing your calls in the past. So they make roughly, let's say, INR 5,000. Even if you go in at a little bit of a discount and you say, I make INR 3,000, that's a very, very different kind of a revenue against a similar kind of a cost structure. So two questions I'm asking basically. If you were to reach -- I mean, firstly, is this INR 3,000, INR 4,000 per trip figure anywhere close to reality? That is one. And second, if it is close to reality, then your EBITDA margin should be much, much higher than what you've indicated?

Yes. So you're absolutely right in constructing the whole equation, right? I'll just articulate the difference in both the businesses. In classifieds business, people figure out each other. We manage the communication through only -- like, let's say, we record the communication. But we don't have control on what price they are doing, what all -- how will they execute, the whole in transit, the whole payment flow through. And we are not accountable for even the trucker receiving the money effectively, right? So that's classified, which is low touch, and we get a subscription revenue. It's not a per load revenue. So it's -- whatever you mentioned is more implied revenue. So let's say, if a shipper is posting loads, we sell them a subscription package for a period of 6 months for INR 2,500, INR 3,000, and he gets access to probably posting 200 loads or something like that, right? So that's the model in which the revenue gets accrued to us, point number one. And similar concept on the truck side as well. When you flip this into Superloads, right, think of it as when you are basically browsing and trying to buy products on Amazon, and there are like products which are basically fulfilled by Amazon versus basically third-party sellers, right? So on which there's a -- Fulfilled By Amazon -- tick, we typically have that trust of converting that, hey, Amazon is doing all of this, my returns will be easier, everything will be easier. So think of it as on the classified styles only, there is a BlackBuck Superloads style, which the trucker knows that payments, end-to-end execution, everything be done by BlackBuck, right? Now to be able to execute this, we typically have built out the whole value prop, which offline broker does into various teams. A broker in the market, which you rightly said earns INR 4,000 to INR 5,000 a transaction, does his own supply development. In our case, that comes from our platform. Second, he himself goes to the market, does his demand development. We have our own demand team in the market, right? He himself does the whole payments flow, payments, collections and everything. For that, we have our own payments and execution team, which sort of does that. Internal to BlackBuck, we typically have an agent who basically essentially coordinates the whole matchmaking process and is essentially a key account manager for both the shipper and for the trucker, for the whole end-to-end transaction. So these are incremental and additional costs to the classifieds model, which we incur. And that is the reason why the steady-state EBITDA number will not be 90%, 95%, but then essentially it will be in the range of that 50% number because there is a cost to executing all of these aspects.

Only one part you left out, Rajesh. Is a INR 3,000 per trip fair ask?

Yes. So in the longer lanes, so whatever you quoted 50,000 is actually national average pan-India. That would be between 40,000 and 50,000. Today, we operate largely regional lanes where the ARPUs are much smaller. Basically, we largely do the South-based lanes, where we originate probably in Bangalore and in Hyderabad and in Chennai and in Mumbai and in Kerala and within Karnataka. I think assuming this is the kind of network we have. So obviously, the lead distances are very small, right, today. And hence, the revenue which you are projecting INR 3,000 of a number from a pan-India basis is very highly likely possible.

In terms of going national, considering your sphere of influence is essentially southern areas, as you said, intrastate and intra-Southern states. What is the likelihood of success in areas where you naturally do not dominate, let's say, Northern India and Eastern India, Central India?

Yes. I think your question also has certain assumptions. Your assumptions are that we are predominantly a southern-driven company. I think that's not true because our supply, our platform, the supply on the platform is pretty much secular all across the country. In fact, like states like Rajasthan, we enjoy like something like a 70% kind of a market share, right? So -- and like states like Andhra, which are still not like fully load by us, they enjoy 50%, 55%, 60% kind of a market share. So our market shares are anywhere in the range of 15%, 20%, to as high as 70% from a long-haul big capacity trucks. So the platform is really widely secular because the fleet management business is present everywhere across the country, like 85%, 90% of the pin codes, right? So our ability to execute is fundamentally designed by the platform we have built. That platform is present everywhere, and we have very high market shares in multiple other cities. It's about unlocking this business, creating this whole -- whatever I talked about, right? A particular hub is a composition of all these capabilities which we need to build in that hub. We go there, we activate that market, build all these capabilities. We unlock that business. That's how the entire replication will happen.

So as you roll out pan-India hubs and spokes and everything, wouldn't the lead distance also increase and wouldn't the average...

Of course, it will increase. Yes. It will increase.

The next question is from -- we'll take the last question for the day from Moez Chandani. That was the last question for the day. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Rajesh for his closing comments. Thank you, and over to you.

Yes, I think that's all from my side. I'll just rearticulate that I think we're just consistently doing what we're doing from last 2 years, 3 years and nothing is changing. And we continue to be excited quarter after quarter, because last quarter, actually, we had a lot of good revelations in terms of what we could do and how could we really recraft the journey ahead. And yes, and continue to build. Thank you so much for attending the call, and look forward towards speaking to you guys next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you once again for your time and participation. On behalf of BlackBuck Limited, this concludes today's conference. For any questions, please feel free to write to us on the e-mail IDs mentioned on the invite. We appreciate your engagement, and you may now disconnect your lines.