Shriram Pistons & Rings Limited (SHRIPISTON.NS) Q1 FY2026 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Shriram Pistons & Rings Limited Q1 and FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. Today from the management, we have with us Mr. Krishnakumar Srinivasan, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Prem Rathi, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Pankaj Gupta, the Deputy Executive Director and the Head, Legal and Company Secretary. Before we begin, let me remind you that this discussion may contain forward-looking statements that may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. It may be viewed in conjunction with the business risks that could cause future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Krishnakumar Srinivasan for his opening remarks, post which we will open the floor for an interactive Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Shubham. I hope I am audible.

Yes, sir.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the Q1 FY '26 earnings call for Shriram Pistons & Rings Limited. It is really a pleasure to connect with all of you as we share our progress and achievements over the past quarter. I am pleased to report that the company has commenced the fiscal year 2026 with a very strong performance in the first quarter. Building on our performances over the last few years, the company has maintained a double-digit growth across all key financial metrics this quarter. I'm happy to state that the company has outgrown the end markets by a wide margin. As you are aware, the automotive industry is cyclical in nature and tends to be loaded in the quarter 2 and quarter 4 quarters, and is generally soft in the Q1 and Q3 quarters. Hence, normally in Q1, most of the OEMs have their planned maintenance block shutdowns for preventive maintenance and their production is normally on a lower side as compared to the previous quarter Q4 of last year. So normally, we compare year-on-year rather than comparing quarter-on-quarter. And I'm very happy to state that year-on-year, the company has maintained a very, very strong growth as compared to quarter 1 of last year. Under these circumstances, the consolidated total income grew by almost 14.9% year-on-year to INR 9,917 million, which is attributed to the company's resilient business model and its strategic focus and further supported by SPRL's leading position in the industry, along with the strong and long-lasting relationships with all its customers. These factors have also enabled us to continue to outperform the industry, which is going through a rather challenging time. We have been consistently speaking about our dedicated focus on efficiencies and operational improvements, which have enabled us to deliver a 16.5% year-on-year growth in consolidated EBITDA to INR 2,234 million as well as enabled us to expand our EBITDA margins to 22.5% in Q1 of FY '26. Our consolidated PAT grew by 15.1% year-on-year to INR 1,348 million, while PAT margins were maintained at 13.6% in the quarter. Apart from working on various operational improvements, automation and digitization, we have been focusing on increasing our reach to the end markets globally like newer market segments like the marine engines, the defense engines, the railway applications, lawnmower applications and many other unique areas. We have also been dedicatedly working on other fronts like streamlining of supply chain, productivity improvements and cost optimization across all our products. We are confident that these initiatives will continue to drive our profitability, but will also ensure that we uphold the superior product quality that SPRL is renowned for. The auto industry is going through a turbulent time, and this quarter presented challenges across all segments. While the passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and the three-wheeler segments reported a near-flat production volumes, the two-wheeler segment was the most affected, degrowing by almost 1% year-on-year from a production standpoint. While we recognize that the near-term outlook presents a cautious phase for the industry, we believe that with our diversified presence across various segments in automotive applications, across commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles, two-wheelers, tractors as well as nonautomotive applications like the railways, the defense, the industrial engines, off-highway engines, marine engines and snowmobile applications will enable us to continue growing and outperforming the industry as we have done in the past. Our presence across ICE components, EV motors and controllers, and high-precision injection-molded components further adds to our strength of the business model. A positive factor this quarter for the industry was growth in exports across all segments after a few quarters of pressure due to the geopolitical situation. With our strong presence across key global markets, we believe that this further adds to the resilience of our model. Even with the geopolitical tensions coming out of the tariff wars and supply situations, we feel that being present in over 45 countries helps us to mitigate risks in one region by better sales in the other. Going forward, our strategic focus remains on strengthening our core business while exploring the new avenues for growth. We are committed to enhancing our product offerings and expanding our market presence through innovation and technology. As a part of our commitment to innovation and sustainability, we are actively developing components for alternative fuel solutions like the CNG, the LNG applications, the PNG applications, the hybrid engines, flex engines, hydrogen engines, HCNG engines, which is hydrogen blended CNG engines and electric engines that complement the internal combustion engines. We firmly believe that all the powertrain solutions will continue to coexist for quite some time in the future, given the various challenges with regards to infrastructure and availability of mature technology solutions for only EV vehicles. While we work on all the technologies, we are happy to state that our progress on EV motors and controllers is very satisfactory and the onboarding of many new customers has been going on for quite some time. We have also been able to mitigate the nonavailability of rare earth magnets by alternate sourcing methodologies and maintaining our production run. The progress of commissioning of our new facility at Coimbatore for the EV motor and controller plant is progressing quite well, and we expect to start production there by end of September. Moreover, we continue to pursue the strategic partnerships and M&As that will bolster our capabilities, broaden our product portfolio and will be accretive to our business. Our focus on sustainability and environmental responsibility remains unwavering as we continue to implement various initiatives that reduce our carbon footprint and promote the use of renewable energy across all our operations. Before concluding, I would like to express my gratitude to our dedicated employees and all our other stakeholders for their unwavering support. Together, we will continue to grow our business profitably and also work on making SPR a multiproduct franchise. Thank you once again for each one of you for having joined this call today. I would now request the moderator to open the floor for questions and answers.

[Operator Instructions] the first question comes from the line of Vaibhav Shah from DSP Mutual Fund.

Congratulations, sir, on -- for putting reporting good set of numbers for the quarter. I have a couple of questions. First question is on our revenue growth on a stand-alone basis. So if I look at the underlying industry volume because very tepid -- against that, we have done good double-digit revenue growth on a stand-alone basis.

Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Vaibhav. Can you speak a little loudly? We can't hear you.

Is this better?

Yes.

Yes, it's much better now.

Yes, sir. So my first question was on stand-alone revenue growth, which we have reported against the average industry volume growth that we have given in our presentation. So what led to this outperformance versus underlying industry growth? And what is your expectation for, say, FY '26 against our industry volume growth expectation? How should our revenue growth be on a stand-alone basis?

So thank you, Vaibhav -- and thanks for this question. First and foremost, I think our stand-alone revenue has grown by almost close to 10% -- 9.8% to be exact. And it has far outgrown the overall market volumes. Market has more or less from a production standpoint -- sales standpoint and production standpoint is slightly different. We track more of production standpoint because that's more relevant for us when we are selling the piston, rings and engine valves and our other products. So from a production standpoint, the growth has been just over around 1%, and we are tracking around say 9.8%. That's almost outgrowth, which is more than 9x. Now primarily, this has come out of the work that we started almost 4 or 5 years back with regards to getting into newer businesses, newer areas, newer segments of businesses like [ piston ] engines, the engines for defense, the defense applications, the railway engines, et cetera, et cetera. There are multiple areas on which we have focused on in the last many years now and that -- all the businesses that we have won in the past and all the actions that we have taken to grow the business in a manner where it is not dependent on one particular segment or one particular -- let's say, only the automotive field, we wanted to ensure that we derisk it with all the other businesses that we can get and where pistons are used -- piston rings and valves are used. So we have been able to win that, and that's really helped us to do this.

Understood, sir. Would you also call we have gained some market share in the pistons business in this quarter or so over last 1 year?

Yes, yes. We have been continuously working on our market share, and we have -- I'm happy to state that some of the new businesses that we have won with the customers and the launch of those new programs that the customers have done has really helped us to actually improve our market share in the country as well as improve the market share abroad outside the country also. We supply to many customers outside India also.

Understood, sir. My second question is on our exports business. So, as I understand, roughly 10% of our exports also goes to North America as a region. So I just want to understand, one, is there any duty impact on our exports today to any particular geography? What was that impact in the quarter which has gone by? And what is your expectation for the export business overall in terms of growth for the coming year?

Yes. So our -- see, our exports has classically been around 20% of our sales. But our sales have also grown. And obviously, on a larger base, it's wavering between 18% to 20%. And it will continue to be growing continuously. And even in exports, we have won new businesses, as I already told you in the previous call also, even this quarter also, we have won some new businesses. So this will continue. And I don't think there is any one specific region where we are selling around 10% of our products into that region. I don't think we have given that number anywhere. But I can tell you for sure that, yes, tariffs are there. It's a reality, and we are hopeful that the tariffs will change in the near future. But even otherwise, our tariffs today as it compares to the -- relatively to the other countries that are there, which are in -- let's say, in the reckoning with regards to the supply of those products, we feel that we are still better off than the other countries. As a result, we still stand to gain, and we don't see any major reduction in volumes or anything from our customers as yet. So we don't foresee any major issue as such.

Okay, sir. Understood. I referred to the FY '25 exports mix that is given on presentation, Slide 16, where North America is roughly 10% of our export mix. That was the number I was referring to. But understood. We continue to remain...

But again, it's a mix of all the countries. It's America plus all the other countries. So we have not anyway specified that is only America.

Understood, sir. Understood. My next question is on our subsidiaries that we have now announced. It is very good to see the ramp-up in our -- all the three subsidiaries that we have. Can you highlight in terms of utilizations or absolute revenue size for these subsidiaries, where are we today as of Q1? And in the EV motors business, I understand we had a facility which was supposed to start from this current financial year. So where are we in terms of our capacity ramp-up plans for that EV motors business as well?

Yes. So basically, we don't normally give any breakups of our capacities, primarily because capacity is constantly changing because we are putting in a lot of CapEx in almost all the businesses. On an average, even in our legacy business, we continue to put CapEx and also in all the new areas, all the new customer -- new companies that we have taken over, we have ensured that we are continuously putting money to increase -- putting in CapEx to increase the output of those companies. So it is constantly changing. So that CapEx figure will not be very relevant at this stage. But I can tell you that we are focusing on keeping the capacity utilization well at a good level, ensuring that we are able to build capacities ahead of the market because we see the market is also growing quite well. So as a result, across all the companies that we are operating on today, we are continuing to put in a lot of CapEx, number one. Number two, as far as AMFI is concerned, we -- as I said during my -- in the talk that I gave just now, our plant -- we are operating from one facility at this stage, which is already -- which is supplying to all the customers. We have put in a new facility, which if you remember, we had started sometime in March of this year. And already, we are -- in September, we are thinking of starting the plant, and we should be in a position to start operations out of that new plant by first week of October. So that's already in the offing, and we are really growing the volumes there. So we think that, that is the right way that we should complement the existing volumes. And it's a state-of-the-art plant for both the motors and controllers. We'll make all kinds of motors, including the mid-drive and the hub motors, and we'll make motors right from 250 watts right up to 350 kilowatts.

The next question comes from the line of [ Rushabh Shah ] [indiscernible] PMS.

Sir, in the plastic business, what is the potential for aftermarket?

Thanks for coming into the call and thanks for the question. Yes, we are -- there are aftermarket businesses for our plastic injection molded parts also. Mostly, as you would realize that the plastic injection molded parts are precision plastic injection molded parts, which goes primarily as into assemblies and subassemblies. There are also some subassemblies which we deliver directly to the customers. There are also some OEM requirements which we supply directly. So many of the OEM requirements that we supply directly is also -- or does have also aftermarket requirement, which is networked through our existing SPRL aftermarket, which is really very complementary to the business that we have in all the other subsidiaries. So we have a combination of both direct supplies to OEM as well as the aftermarket requirements.

So how -- like going ahead, how big could this aftermarket business be?

Well, the initial -- all the initial requirements that we have seen is quite demanding, and that is a good requirement. So we think that it will certainly grow, this segment of the business. But keep in mind that these are only the precision injection molded parts. These are not the normal big plastic parts that are growing. So it's -- for example, the steering gears that we make, it goes only into steering applications. So there's a very specific requirement in the aftermarket for steering gears as and when steering breaks down or there is an accident or things like that. And that requirement is already fed by the aftermarket teams that we have. That's how it operates.

The next question comes from the line of Viraj from SiMPL.

Just a couple of questions. First is on the EV product offering. If you can just give some more historical perspective, how we've kind of gone about acquiring the technology, both in terms of motors and controllers, so that is one. And just to extend that, traditionally, we've been present more in hub motors kind of offering, but I think we are also in the process of launching mid-drive motors as well. So can you just give some more perspective how we've gone about acquiring the tech? And just to add to that, what is the kind of presence we have currently in terms of -- any color you can give in terms of end-segment application and CV, LCV, PV or two-wheelers and similarly in terms of the customer concentration or profile? And third is, if you look at the space, right, we've seen a very high rate of change in technology, especially in motors, right? So then, how are we going about competing in the marketplace when the end offering itself is seeing a lot of changes in terms of tech?

Yes. So Mr. Viraj, thanks for coming. First and foremost, as far as the EV motors are concerned, we -- you are right that initially, when we started, we started with the hub motors, which was the model of most of the motor companies. But then subsequently, we have gone into all the kinds of motors, including the mid-drive motors and also various profiling of the motors. It could be a switched reluctance motor or synchronous motors. There are also some motors that we make without the magnets also. So those combinations are also there. So there are multiple areas on which we are working. And we'll continue to work in all the areas because ultimately, we want to ensure that we are able to cater to the industry requirements as per our customer needs. So most of that is dictated by our customers and the end product that it is going in. So you will observe that we have been continuously growing. And as I said, our real growth has started in full swing, and that's why we are putting up a new plant also in Coimbatore. And that plant will also be operational from this -- from September end -- coming September end. So that's just around 1, 1.5 months away. So with that, we'll scale up in all the motors that we are manufacturing today. From a technology standpoint, we have always believed in getting the right technologies. There are a couple of important points here that I should mention. First is we are the -- probably one of the very few motor manufacturers who combine the motors and controllers together. We size it together in our -- this thing. We test it along with the controller, we test it on our test bench. Our -- 100% of the final test happens only along with our controller, and that is then supplied to the customer so that the customer does not have any problem with regards to sizing the motor and the controller together. That's one of the major change that we do with regards to the others. Second, most of our technologies have been with the help of -- as far as controller is concerned, we have a collaboration with Lingbo, as you know, and with -- as far as the mid-drive motors are concerned, we do it with Greatland Electrics. So we have the technology movement coming there. They are all up to date with regards to all the newer technologies that are coming in, including helping bending and everything. All that technologies are available with us, and we are almost in line with all the newer requirements of the customers.

Just 2 questions. Can you give some more deeper perspective given the kind of spread we would have in terms of different tech -- different product offerings in motor and motor controllers, what is the kind of similarity or differences you see in terms of manufacturing setup? Why I'm asking this is typically, say, if I look at core products of piston -- piston rings or other engine valves, we have a very defined benchmarks in terms of what kind of a minimum threshold we would want to see either in terms of returns or margins before adding any capacity. But here, given there is so much variability and the rate of change is high, how -- what is the kind of similarity or difference you see in terms of manufacturing setup between different offerings? So that is one. And second is, again, if you can give some more deeper perspective in terms of the mix in terms of end segments, whether it be LCV, PV or two-wheeler and similarly in terms of customer offering.

We generally don't give any breakup of these customers, but we are present in all -- that's why I said that we ranged our motors right from 250 watts right up to 350 kilowatts. 350 kilowatts are the ones which goes into big buses and other things -- other applications, including -- for truck applications, including mining. So there are a number of applications. Volumes are, of course, low, as you all know, that it is all -- we have to be present in all this. We have to size it. We have to ensure that those motors are in for various testings and other things that are going on. And multiple levels of validations are going on across various customers. I can only say that we are now amongst the top three motor and controller manufacturers. We are the only ones who are giving motor and controller [ sized ] together. There are a couple of others who are smaller players. But in terms of recognized big players, we are the only ones. And secondly, we are amongst the top three as far as motor manufacturing is concerned. So I think we are on a very good way to establish our position as a major motor and controller supplier in the country.

And in terms of customer concentration, say, top 5, top 10 customers, how would that be...

This is a very growing field, and it's very important to realize that many players are trying to enter -- many of these customers. And it's not ideal at this stage to give any of the customer names because even the customers are keeping it very confidential, and they don't want us to disclose any of their names. So unfortunately, I'll not be in a position to disclose any names at this stage.

Okay. Just one last question on this, and I have a few questions on other parts of the business. One trend also you're seeing is OEs going for more integrated offerings, sort of be it 3-in-1 or 5-in-1 kind of offering where you just don't have a motor or MCU, but you have other drive part value chains also embedded in one system. From your interaction, is that a limitation for us? Or if I have to look at...

No, no, we are already making a 3-in-1 also, 2-in-1 also. Depending on the customer requirements, we make everything. We can make along integrated with the controller with the gearbox. We can control -- we can give without, we can give with motor and gearbox together. So multiple combinations are there. It depends on the customer's requirement and his -- the way he has designed his vehicle. So it all changes with the configuration of the vehicle. So we are completely geared up for all kinds of supplies.

Okay. Just a few more questions on the Precision Engineered products -- business. Can you give some perspective, how is the -- where is the product more concentrated in terms of application? Is it more -- if I look at the business profile of two subsidiaries, is it more towards fuel injection or the engine applications? Or is it more towards the transmission or the driveline? Any color you can give in that sense, it will help understand the...

Well, it is spread all over the place, yes. We are supplying for steering applications. We are supplying for gearing applications. We are supplying for braking applications. We are supplying for seatbelt applications. We are supplying for trimming applications in the vehicle. We have -- multiple applications are there. There are not one concentration of any particular business. These are all precision plastic injection molded. They are agnostic to the kind of vehicles that are made, powertrains. And we do have some components which goes into -- specifically into injection-related components, which are very small in nature.

Okay. So to put it differently and if I look at product applications, where do you see most complexity? And how are we positioned in that space?

No, it is quite complex. Some of the components that we make for steering gear applications, some of them which we make for headlamp adjustment applications, et cetera, are very complex in terms of its accuracies in this. And we are well placed, and we are already supplying to many of the Tier 1 manufacturers.

Okay, just last question and I'll come back in queue. If I look at the subsidiaries side, can you explain what drives the high margins? Because if you look at other players like Kingfa and others, they make mid-teens kind of margins, even though they are being global players. So just trying to understand the margin drivers for the subsidiary.

Yes. So Viraj, you want me to give away such secrets in an open call. So we are into niche segment. See, what is very important for you to understand is, our products are going into very niche applications. It requires very high accuracies and precision. We put the CapEx ahead of time. We put CapEx which are very, very specific and very, let me say, high accuracy output kind of an equipment. And that requires high precision. That's why we call high-precision components. These components are finished to finished dimensions in one stroke. And so it requires a very, very high amount of accuracy. So those kind of components, not many people in the country make it, and that is the reason why we call it precision -- precision components. And we have a fairly -- the mix of business and the mix of customers actually helps us to maintain our margins. It's not that one particular set of customers is giving us the margin. It's not like that. It is a mix of customers. We also supply to music industry. We supply to many other industry, which is different than automotive industry also. And those products also are being supplied by our injection molding facilities.

So would it be right to say that the non-auto business...

Sorry to interrupt Mr. Viraj, may we request that you do return to the question queue for the follow-up questions. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Pradyumna Choudhary from JM Financial Family Office.

Congratulations on a good set of numbers. I just had 2, 3 questions. First one, sorry, I missed -- I got disconnected at the time of -- when you spoke about tariffs. So can you just tell how much of our revenue is coming from U.S. and what would be the impact of the tariffs on our business? That's one. Second is, how do we -- like, of course, we've been outperforming the industry growth due to the factors you mentioned. Is there some sense on how we expect this growth to continue going forward? Like can we sustain such outperformance and what could be the drivers for the same? And lastly, as some of our other acquired entities scale up in business, do we expect our consol profitability to come down a bit from our current levels, these three.

Yes, consol profitability has grown, yes. It has not come down. There's no reason why it should come down, number one. Number two is as far as our mix of customers in the export is concerned, as it's just given already in our slide, you'll see that -- Slide #16 gives that. But at the same time, it's important for me to state there that it is not concentrated, it's very well spread across the globe. And that really helps us to derisk our business model because we can -- any one region, if it is getting affected, we can always complement it by supplying to the other region. And we have a fairly good presence across OEMs as well as aftermarkets across the world. And we -- another big advantage is, even within North America also you'll see that it is -- we supply to not only the American region, but also to countries like Mexico, Brazil and others, which is in quite a big manner. So there is no reason why we should get worried at all by the tariff situation, number one. Number two, as it is also within the tariff situation, we don't see any major big impact coming to us, relative to our other competition. So that's the most important point. And that really helps us to maintain our customers and all our customers have reposed total faith in us in terms of our supplies.

Understood. And how do we expect the growth going forward? Can we continue the kind of outperformance we've been doing?

We are hoping to, and we are taking all the necessary steps to ensure that we are able to do that. So you can see the performance over the last 5 years. Every quarter, we have delivered to the numbers that we have -- to at least better than the market. Our aim is to ensure that we are able to outgrow the end markets.

The next question comes from the line of Abhishek Kumar Jain from Alpha Capital.

Congrats for strong set of numbers. Sir, my question on the cash and the balance sheet -- company was looking for some acquisition as well. So if you can throw some more light on these parts?

Thank you, Abhishek, for the call. And yes, we do have -- as you see, our balance sheet is quite strong. And it's still -- we want to ensure that we are [indiscernible] quite well. We are working on a number of areas to improve our leverage on the balance sheet. And I can tell you that we'll continue our drive towards making SPRL more multiproduct franchise. And we are -- I think we are on a good way to -- so our drive towards M&A will continue, and we are looking at more opportunities.

So you are looking at the opportunity in the auto or the non-auto side, sir?

Well, it's like this. We are looking for automotive -- auto side. We'll get a partner who is also having portion of his business [indiscernible].

Okay. And what would be the size, sir?

What would be the?

What would be the size of that particular acquisition?

I can't crystal gaze that at this stage. We are looking at all the options. You can see how -- what kind of leverage we have from the balance sheet, and we will certainly see to it that we are able to leverage it quite well.

Okay. And in AMFI side, so do you supply motors in CV only or will you enter into the two-wheeler and four-wheeler space as well? And how much is that current capacity? And what would be the incremental earnings once these -- new plant will start from the September onwards?

Yes, we supply to all the applications. There's nothing stopping us from any of the applications. The kind of machineries we have put is -- the CapEx that we have put in the new plant is primarily to cater to all segments of the market. Because we can't stay only with one segment of the market, we have to ensure that we are able to supply to all segments of the market. There are many customers of ours who are wanting the product to be sold in -- within their product portfolio to ensure that we are supplying to all their -- all segments of the market that they attack the market. So we want to be present in all of them. So that is how we have built the new plant.

So once this plant -- will it start from September onwards? So what would be the peak revenue if the plant started at 100% capacity utilization?

Yes. So we don't -- we are not giving out these figures at this stage. But at the relevant time, we will certainly be divulging those numbers.

The next question comes from the line of Nandan Pradhan from Emkay Global Financial Services.

Congratulations on the great set of numbers, just one small clarification from my end. So I think during our Q4 call, we had mentioned that the Coimbatore plant should start by end of Q4, and now I think it was slightly pushed back to October. So if you could shed some light on what has caused the delay and...

Sorry to interrupt Mr. Nandan Pradha, can you be a little louder?

Yes. Is this better?

Yes.

So we had initially called out that the plant would start by end of Q4 and now it has been pushed to October. So one is why has this delay been caused? And the second is, once the plant ramp-ups, how long do you think it would take for it to reach its full capacity or optimal utilization?

No. Earlier, we had stated this, where we had said that we will start the -- our operations in the new plant by end of July. And now we have decided to combine the -- our existing facility also into one -- into the new plant because we think that there will be synergies with regards to having our entire management bandwidth and everything. So we are combining everything into a new plant as a result of which we ensure that we are able to build up the required area and bring both the existing plant and the new plant together in one location. That is the reason why it has got pushed to end of September. But I think we are on a good way in terms of the -- existing facility is still operational, and we'll be ensuring that we shift at the right time. Once the second -- the multiple lines that we are putting up in the new facility are operational and up to speed, duly validated by the customers. So it's important to state here that we are probably amongst the top few to have got the ICAT approval and the PME drive approval. So it's important that all these work is done with all the due approvals so that customers are able to use the product very seamlessly and be able to get all the benefits that they are aiming to get for their end customers.

And just a small follow-up. Do you expect any one-off during this transition where you halt operations at the old plant and everything gets shifted to the new Coimbatore plant?

No, no, no. Absolutely not. That's what I explained that -- that is why we are -- we have had to do it in such a way that it is able to complement each other.

The next question comes from the line of Divyansh Gupta from Latent PMS.

Sir, a couple of questions. So you had mentioned that [indiscernible].

Divyansh, we are not able to hear you.

Can you hear me?

Your line is breaking sir.

Can't hear at all.

The next question comes from the line of [indiscernible] an individual investor. As there is no response from this current participant, we will move towards the next question. The next question comes from the line of [ Manik Bansal ] an individual investor.

So I just have a single question. Can you please share the trend of the piston prices over the past 2 to 3 years? And how do you expect the piston prices to move in the near future? And -- yes, just this one, I'll ask the other one later.

So piston -- see, what happens is piston prices are all linked to the overall prices of aluminum and metal prices, the way it moves and mostly linked via the LME model. And what happens is we get compensation from our customers as the material moves up or down, or we have to increase or decrease the prices based on that. So it's all back-ended by that, and there is no, this thing. Only thing is we recover our -- what is important to see is, are we able to recover our margins? Yes, we are able to recover our margins, and we are able to ensure that we are able to maintain our margins. That's what is the most important here. So I think it's -- I hope I could at least give you some idea about this.

Yes, yes, yes. But is there any product or segment where passing on -- is that more of a challenge?

No, there is nothing, nothing like that. Because most of the contracts are all back ended.

Okay. And just last question, like if you can just give some light or color on the industrial growth that you are expecting on a segment basis, like EV and CV mainly.

No. See, there again, most of the -- if you really see, the end markets have grown only by around 1% in this quarter, right? And we have been able to grow by around 9%, 10% -- 9.8% to be exact. And this comes from ensuring that we are able to get into newer markets, newer segments of the business that I talked about in my speech that I gave earlier. And we have been able to enter into those segments and be able to supply to those. So that is what has really brought in the growth.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Harsh, an individual investor.

I just wanted a clarification on the working capital. So we employ roughly INR 1,000-odd crores in working capital. So how much of that goes to aftermarket, particularly in terms of our receivables? And my second question is, you listed marine, railways and defense as sort of your automotive verticals. So if you could just throw some light on what kind of opportunities are we seeing in these verticals?

Yes. So first and foremost, I don't know where you got the figure of INR 1,000 crores as a working capital. You're talking about including cash and bank?

No, no. So roughly [ INR 900 or INR 1,000-odd ] crores of inventories and receivables, right, combined?

No, you have to reduce the payables also.

Okay, okay. Yes, I was just talking about the asset side. If you could just tell -- particularly in terms of receivables, how much of those are originating from aftermarket?

Well, we don't give those kind of figures, but it is as per our norms. We have very clear norms in terms of our working capital, including finished goods and the kind of credit terms that we give to our customers. And it's all completely within norms. So there is -- we don't see any major issue there. You can see it over the years, it has moved in the right -- in the same band.

Yes, it's being largely in the line of revenues. And on the marine and railways and defense, what sort of opportunities are you seeing on those?

These are newer entry points for us, and those are areas where it has multiple applications, and we ensure that we are able to supply to the customers accordingly.

As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Krishnakumar Srinivasan for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Okay. Once again, thank you to everybody. Thanks a lot for joining and actively participating in the call today. We have had very interesting questions today, and we have -- I think -- I hope that we have been able to answer most of the questions. In case you have any further queries, please do reach -- please do feel free to reach out to us. You can get in touch with our Investor Relations partners at Ernst & Young. On behalf of the company, we again deeply appreciate your time and engagement. Thank you once again. Please take care, and goodbye. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. On behalf of Shriram Pistons & Rings Limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining with us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.