ps_docs_345423

NSE & BSE / 2024-25 / 179
October 27, 2024
The Manager The Manager

Corporate Services Corporate Services
National Stock Exchange of India Limited BSE Limited
Exchange Plaza, Bandra Kurla Complex, 14th Floor, P J Towers, Dalal Street,
Bandra (E), Mumbai 400 051 Mumbai 400 001
Ref: Symbol: PERSISTENT Ref: Scrip Code: 533179
Dear Sir/Madam,
Sub: Transcript of investor/analyst call held on Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Ref: Our earlier intimation with Ref. No. NSE & BSE / 2024-25 / 175 dated October 22,
2024, titled as ‘Submission of the Outcome and Audio Recording of the
investor/analyst call held on Tuesday, October 22, 2024’
In continuation to the above-referred intimation and Pursuant to Regulation 30 of the SEBI (Listing
Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, we hereby submit the transcript of the
investor/analyst call held on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, for the quarter and half year ended
September 30, 2024.
The transcript of the investor/analyst call is also made available on the Company’s website.
The link to access the same is as follows: Analyst-Call-Transcript-Q2-FY25.pdf
This is for your information and record.
Please acknowledge the receipt.
Thanking you,
Yours Sincerely,
For Persistent Systems Limited
Digitally signed by
Amit Amit Murari Atre
Murari Atre Date: 2024.10.27
23:38:44 +05'30'
Amit Atre
Company Secretary
ICSI Membership No.: A20507
Encl: As above
Persistent Systems Limited, Bhageerath, 402 Senapati Bapat Road, Pune 411 016, Maharashtra, India
CIN - L72300PN1990PLCO56696
Tel: +91 (20) 670 35555 | Fax - +91 (20) 6703 6003 | E-mail - [email protected] | Website - www.persistent.com
Persistent Systems Limited
“PERSISTENT SYSTEMS LIMITED - EARNINGS CONFERENCE

CALL, SECOND QUARTER, FY25, ENDED SEPTEMBER 30,
2024”
October 22, 2024, 7:00 PM IST
MANAGEMENT:
Dr. Anand Deshpande

Chairman and Managing Director
Mr. Sandeep Kalra

Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Vinit Teredesai

Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Saurabh Dwivedi

Head, Investor Relations
Page 1 of 31
Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Persistent Systems
Earnings Conference Call for the Second quarter of FY25 ended September
30, 2024. We have with us today on the call Dr. Anand Deshpande -
Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Sandeep Kalra - Executive Director
and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Vinit Teredesai - Chief Financial Officer and
Mr. Saurabh Dwivedi - Head of Investor Relations. Please note, all
participants’ lines will be in listen-only mode and there will be an
opportunity for you to ask questions after management’s opening
remarks. Should you need any assistance during the conference call, please
raise your hand from the ‘Participant’ tab on the screen. While asking
questions, request you to please identify yourself and your company
name. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I now hand over the
conference to Mr. Saurabh Dwivedi. Thank you and over to you, Sir.
Saurabh Dwivedi: Thank you, Vandit. Good Evening and Good Morning to everyone on this
call. We're grateful for your participation and for spending time with us
today. We hope you have had the opportunity to review the results that
we published a few hours ago. Let me quickly outline the agenda for
today's call. Sandeep will begin with an overview of our results and
commentary on business. Vinit will take you through the financial details
and some of the key operational metrics for this quarter. I will then provide
an overview of our key deal wins and awards and recognitions in the
second quarter of FY25. Post that, with Sandeep's closing comments and
summary of prepared remarks, we will open the conference for questions.
Let me also remind you that as part of our prepared remarks and during
Q&A, we may make certain statements which are forward looking and may
involve significant uncertainty. Persistent does not take any responsibility
to update such forward-looking statements and your discretion is
warranted while making any investment decisions. With this, let me hand
over to Sandeep for his prepared remarks.
Page 2 of 31
Sandeep Kalra: Thank you, Saurabh, and greetings to everyone joining us on the call today.
With this, let me now start with a quick financial summary:
We achieved a healthy revenue growth of 18.4% year-on-year and 5.3%

quarter-on-quarter to reach $345.5 million in Q2 of fiscal 2025. This marks
our 18th sequential quarter of quarter-on-quarter growth.
In rupee terms, the growth for the quarter came in at 20.1% year-on-year
and 5.8% quarter-on-quarter.
The EBIT margin for the quarter came in at 14%. In rupee terms, this
translates into an EBIT of INR 4,062.3 million, an increase of 22.8% year-
on-year.
The Profit After Tax for the quarter was at 11.2%. Vinit will provide detailed
color on the financials and margin movement later in this call.
Now, coming to the Order Book for the quarter:
The Total Contract Value for the quarter came in at $529 million with TCV
of new bookings being $389.8 million.
The Annual Contract Value component of this TCV is at $348.3 million of

which ACV from new bookings contributed $218.60.
As always, these TCV and ACV numbers include all bookings, renewals as
well as new bookings, across existing and new customers.
Please note that our revenue conversion on a quarterly basis is a function

of Annual Contract Value bookings done in previous quarters as well as
conversion from multi-year deals that we have booked in previous years,
which are included in our reported TCV bookings.
Now, moving to the client engagement size.
Page 3 of 31
Let me give you some color on our client movement across various
reported categories:
We witnessed healthy year-on-year growth among our client buckets with

our Top 5 customer revenue up by 31.5%, Top 10 up by 24.6%, Top 20 up
by 22.1% and Top 50 up by 20.9%. As you would notice, this is a secular
growth across all customer segments whether it is Top 1 or Top 50.
The contribution from Top 10 customers is at 41.5% in this quarter - an

increase from 39.5% same quarter last year.
In this quarter, we reported 184 customers with TTM revenues over $1

million compared to 178 in the same quarter last year.
All our top client buckets have shown good growth this quarter. On a year-
on-year basis, the number of customers in the $1- $5 million bucket
increased by 5, while those in the $10-$20 million bucket increased by 4.
This is a clear demonstration of our ability to scale customer relationships
significantly over a period of time.
Coming to the details on our geographic performance:
In terms of year-on-year growth in USD terms, North America grew by a

healthy 21.6%, India grew by 11.7%, while Europe revenue declined by
1.3% year-on-year. However, on a sequential quarter-on-quarter basis,
Europe grew by 6.6%. Rest of the world grew 19.2% year-on-year, albeit
on a very low base.
Now, let me give you this quarter’s performance from an industry

segment perspective:
This quarter's growth was led by HLS and BFSI industry verticals, which
grew by 71.2% and 15.3% respectively on a year-on-year basis. Software,
Hi-tech and Emerging verticals marginally de-grew 0.5% year-on-year.
Page 4 of 31
Now, moving from operational metrics to certain strategic highlights for

the quarter.
Launching our T100 Program:
Recently, we got together 250 of our senior leaders and customer-facing

team members for a strategic offsite in New Jersey. During this event, we
launched the T100 Program - an initiative focused on our Top 100 clients.
This program is designed to drive, enhance customer value, deepen
customer intimacy and unlock the next wave of opportunities for both our
clients and for us.
The T100 Program is centered on four key pillars:
Talent amplification - herein we are developing a high caliber workforce

to deliver premium services and expand mindshare with our clients.
Value maximization - this focuses on leveraging our core strengths and we

are committed to enhance client ROI and foster long term strategic
partnerships.
Focusing on AI-driven innovation - wherein we deploy advanced AI and

platform-based solutions to create a differentiated, high impact services
based on the latest innovations in Gen AI and otherwise.
Ecosystem leadership - within this, we are positioning Persistent as a key

orchestrator of choice in the partner ecosystem to bring disruptive value
to our customers, not just based on our solutions but based on the power
of the entire partner ecosystem that we bring today. This program
underscores our ongoing commitment to innovation and customer value
creation and will lay the foundation for our 2 billion goal and beyond.
Moving on to our strategic investments and updates on AI:
Page 5 of 31
Our comprehensive AI strategy continues to be built on two key vectors -

AI for technology and AI for business. This dual approach has been driving
our innovation and growth and I would like to elaborate on how we have
advanced in the past quarter on each of these areas.
First, coming to AI for technology.
As most of you know, SASVA is our flagship AI-driven platform designed to

enhance software engineering services across the product development
lifecycle. With the launch of SASVA 2.0, we have made substantial progress
in our journey of platform-driven software engineering. You may have
seen the press release in this regard.
Let me now highlight some key impact areas of SASVA 2.0.
Starting from a comprehensive assessment wherein SASVA evaluates a

product engineering project or a product holistically providing insights on
the product, people, process maturity, security, posture and technology
debt.
Coming to the efficiency and value maximization - SASVA identifies high

impact areas for productivity gains, accelerated time-to-market and cost
reduction based on the current status and wherein AI could be applied in
this platform.
Intelligent backlog management and roadmap planning - SASVA

leverages historical data and market trends to create prioritized, context-
driven, near and long-term roadmaps and release plans aligned with
team’s strengths and capacity. This can be very effective not just for
Engineering but for Product Managers who are leading the entire product
lifecycles.
Context awareness release planning - herein SASVA prioritizes tasks,

estimates effort, recommends optimal frameworks and technology stacks
Page 6 of 31
aligning with the team’s strengths and capacity while intelligently

distributing tasks between human developers and AI agents. It also
supports integration of external development tools for seamless
experience.
SASVA also plays a critical role in customer support and professional

services activities complementing the engineering activities and product
development or application development, wherein SASVA provides real-
time and context-aware insights into projects, issue history, client specific
knowledge, best practices continuously synced with project management
tools, service tickets and knowledge bases.
Let me share two case studies that demonstrate the real-world impact of
these advancements.
Persistent was selected by a leading provider of full-stack observability

platform to partner with them on their product engineering as well as data
engineering for their core application performance monitoring and
observability platforms. Our advanced delivery frameworks leveraging
SASVA and other accelerators and the depth of our universities, learning
and development platform were key differentiators for us in winning this
engagement. The benefit to the customer includes accelerated roadmap
and the establishment of a core R&D team in India for them to continue
their leadership positioning in the observability domain.
Persistent was selected by a leading financial analytics firm based in North

America to accelerate the roadmap of its flagship products in the domain
of pricing and profitability management solutions. SASVA platform’s
identification of the accumulated technical debt with clear actionable
roadmap items was instrumental in Persistent winning this engagement.
The benefit to the customer here includes acceleration of the go-to-market
Page 7 of 31
for faster releases, upgradation of latest technology stack and optimized

delivery model powered by SASVA.
These case studies highlight how SASVA 2.0 is driving tangible

improvements in efficiency, cost effectiveness, time-to-market across
different industries and making us win more in competitive bids.
Now, let me talk about our AI for business vector.
We've seen rapid adoption and expansion of our GenAI Hub and iAURA
platforms across various industries. We have expanded our GenAI Hub
library of prebuilt AI models and use cases by over 50% since Q1 FY25. Also,
our iAURA platform has been upgraded with advanced data quality
assessment tools and automated data pipeline in generation tools.
The impact of these developments can be seen in key customer case

studies which I will highlight now.
We are helping one of the largest global pharma companies to accelerate

their drug discovery process by integrating complex biomedical databases
into our Gen AI-enabled knowledge graphs.
Our iAURA solution has reduced query response times, in this case by 60%,
for a global clinical research provider, a CRO, which makes tracking
patients’ health and status of trials extremely efficient.
For one of the leading construction companies out of Europe and Australia,
we are building a data lake ETL pipeline and Gen AI model to use historical
construction data including design, material, labor, site condition and
schedule to enable better decision making for their inflight and upcoming
projects.
Moving on to our acquisitions and partnerships:
Page 8 of 31
As you would have noticed, we recently announced our plan to acquire

Arrka, a Pune-based company focused on data privacy management.
Arrka’s solutions will enhance Persistent’s offerings by helping customers
manage data privacy risks and comply with various legal and regulatory
requirements globally. This acquisition will also significantly bolster our AI
governance and cybersecurity capabilities. Among other initiatives, we are
integrating Arrka’s expertise with our SASVA and iAURA platforms to
provide enhanced data privacy features in SASVA’s security assessments,
improved AI governance mechanisms in iAURA’s data management
processes and comprehensive cybersecurity measures across both
platforms, to give you a few examples. Arrka’s capabilities will complement
our existing AI offerings and platforms and in meeting the growing demand
for comprehensive digital solutions that are both trustworthy and ethical.
It aligns perfectly with our commitment to be responsible or to develop
responsible AI and positions us to better serve clients in an increasingly
complex regulatory environment.
Second, following our Q1 announcement, we have fully integrated Starfish.

We are enhancing our contact center portfolio with AI-enabled
administration and call flow assistance and we expect to report by the end
of next quarter some early deal wins from this portfolio. We have had
strong collaboration with all hyperscalers and are jointly developing
solutions with their teams. This includes development of connectors and
integrations for Gen AI offerings of hyperscalers as well as taking their
solutions into different horizontal use cases such as contact center AI and
document processing and so on.
As a part of these initiatives, we recently co-hosted the Google Gemini

Summit in Pune, featuring top leadership from Google platform and
Persistent. Throughout Gemini week, our teams engaged in
comprehensive training initiatives, emphasizing certifications and hands-
Page 9 of 31
on experiences to harness the full power of Gemini. As a premier Google

Cloud partner, we are uniquely positioned to help businesses across
industries innovate, scale and achieve their digital transformation goals.
As we move forward, AI remains integral to both Persistent’s operations

and our clients digital transformation journeys. Our platform led services
approach exemplified by SASVA, GenAI Hub and iAURA position us to
enhance productivity and fuel our growth capturing a decent market share
in these initiatives at our customers’ side.
In summary, we are pleased with our performance in Q2 FY25. I would now

like to invite Vinit to give a detailed color on the financials and related
matters after which Saurabh will provide an overview of our key deal wins
and awards and recognitions. I will come back after Saurabh’s comments
to summarize our prepared remarks before opening the call for Q &A. Over
to you Vinit.
Vinit Teredesai: Thank you, Sandeep. Good evening and good day to all. Thank you for
taking time out to join us today. Let me now take you through the financial
highlights for the quarter gone by. Q2 FY25 revenue stood at 345.5 million
US dollars registering a year-on-year growth of 18.4%. In rupee terms, it
translates to 28,971.5 million, growth of 20.1% year on year. This quarter,
effective July 2024, we awarded regular pay hikes to all eligible employees.
I am glad to announce that despite this, we have delivered an EBIT margin
of 14%, a 30 basis point improvement year on year. In rupee terms, EBIT
for this quarter was 4,062.3 million rupees, translating to a growth of
22.8% year on year.
Now let me provide some commentary on the quarter-on-quarter margin

walk. Let me first start with the headwinds.
Page 10 of 31
Wage hikes this quarter have impacted our margins by 210 basis points. As
I had called out in the previous quarter, we had taken some policy
rationalization initiatives, the benefit of which was visible last quarter. In
the current quarter, the absence of that benefit has impacted our margins
by 130 basis points. There was a fresh issuance of ESOPs in the latter half
of Q1. The impact of which was only partly visible last quarter. In the
current quarter, there was an incremental impact of 60 basis points. This
quarter, we also had a lower earnout credit as compared to the previous
quarter. This has resulted in a headwind of 60 basis points.
Coming to tailwinds for the quarter.
Last quarter, I spoke about our revenue growth and cost optimization
programs that are in action for the fiscal year 2025 and beyond. Am happy
to share that the benefit of these programs are reflecting in the current
quarter and we expect them to continue in the subsequent quarters. While
our revenue has grown by 5.3% quarter-on-quarter, it is important to note
that this has come on the back of reduced head count of 282. This has led
to an improvement in utilization from 82.1% in Q1 to 84.8% in Q2 which
has helped our margins by 120 basis points. Additionally, reduction in sub-
contract cost resulted in the benefit of 70 basis points, lower re-sale
business helped by 50 basis points and balance 130 basis points benefit
came on account of combination of factors like pricing and right-shoring.
Favorable currency movement has helped our margins by 30 basis points
this quarter. An absence of H1B visa cost this quarter has given an
additional tailwind of 60 basis points. In a nutshell, all the tailwinds stated
above have helped nullify the effect of headwinds enabling us to maintain
our EBIT margin at 14%.
With the growth and cost programs that we are running at Persistent, we
are well placed to continue our journey of margin improvement in the
Page 11 of 31
subsequent quarters. Please note that going forward, in our investor

presentation, we will be merging the CSR spends with general and
administration expenses and doubtful debt provisions with the sales and
marketing expenses. Other income stood at 176.9 million rupees as against
172.5 million last quarter. We had a one-time gain of 80 million rupees on
account of pre-closure of some of our leased premises in Pune and Indore
which were under-utilized and have additionally invested in newer
facilities in Chennai and Hyderabad. Overall treasury income was lower
than last quarter, owing to payouts for acquisition and payment of final
dividend for FY24 during this quarter. There was a foreign exchange gain
of 106 million rupees against a loss of 7.3mn rupees in Q1. Effective tax
rate for the quarter came in at 25.2% compared to 23.5% in Q1. This
increase is due to higher profits in high-tax geographies. We expect our
overall ETR for the year to remain in the range of 23.5% to 24.5%. Profit
after tax was 3,250 million rupees, a growth of 23.4% year on year. This
translates into a margin of 11.2%
Earnings per share stood at Rs.21.20 per share compared to Rs.17.90 per
share, same quarter last fiscal, a growth of 18.3% year on year. Return on
capital employed for the quarter came in at 38.1% versus 37% in Q2 of last
year. Total cash and investment stood at 17,916.2 million rupees as on 30 th
September 2024. Forward contracts outstanding as on 30 th September
were 270 million US Dollars at an average rate of Rs. 84.80 per dollar.
Operating cash flow to PAT for Q2 FY25 stood at 108.3% compared to
49.3% in the previous quarter. Our overall DSO has remained flat this
quarter with billed DSO at 68 days and unbilled DSO at 24 days.
Now let me give you key operational updates.
At the end of Q2, our total headcounts stood at 23,237, an increase of 395
from Q2 of previous fiscal year and a decline of 282 quarter-over-quarter.
Page 12 of 31
As highlighted earlier, the blended utilization has improved from 80.6% in

Q2 of FY24 to 84.8% this quarter. In the foreseeable future, our endeavor
is to maintain this in the band of 83%-85%. Trailing 12 months’ attrition
this quarter came in at 12% compared to 13.5% in Q2 of last fiscal.
Coming to ESG updates for the quarter.
We are delighted to announce that we have achieved carbon neutrality for

Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions ahead of schedule. This significant
milestone reflects our unwavering dedication to sustainability. Our
renewable energy consumption which includes our extensive rooftop solar
installations and windmills now accounts for an impressive 39% of our total
energy usage across our global operations. We are also proactively
working towards achieving net zero carbon emissions well ahead of the
science-based target initiative goal of 2050. In terms of our ESG
performance, we are thrilled to report that our S&P Dow Jones
sustainability Index ESG rating has risen to 85, up from 61 while our SES
ESG rating has improved to 77 from 72. Additionally, we have made
commendable progress in our MSCI ESG Rating advancing from double B
to triple B. We are also proud to be recognized amongst India’s top 50
Most Sustainable Companies for 2024 by BW Business World, a leading
business publication in the country.
On the social front, we are excited to highlight the launch of our Women
Leadership Program – Aspire 3.0. This initiative underscores our
commitment to fostering diversity and empowering women within our
organization.
Let me now hand over to Saurabh for commentary on key deal wins and
awards and recognitions that we have received during this quarter.
Page 13 of 31
Saurabh Dwivedi: Thank you, Vinit. I will now talk about key deal wins for Q2 by industry
segments.
Let me begin with software hi tech in emerging industries, our largest

vertical.
Persistent was selected by a leading US-based cyber security company to

set up a global technology centre for product engineering, customer
support, professional services and FedRamp support services. Persistent
was selected on account of its product engineering expertise in the cyber
–security domain. The benefit to the customer includes accelerated
product roadmap and productivity enhancements across customer
support and professional services.
Persistent was selected by a global leader in food services and facilities

management based out of Europe to build a data lake on the Azure
platform and build an integration layer for exchange of data across
different enterprise applications. Persistent’s strength in data engineering
and automation of key tasks using Persistent’s iAURA platform were
critical in us winning this engagement. The benefit to the customer
includes standardization of data handling across the organization leading
to enhanced employee utilization, improved stock prediction and
reduction in food wastage.
Coming to banking, financial services and insurance, Persistent was

selected by one of the largest US-based fintech companies to modernize
the user experience of its Cloud based accounting software platform and
its report generation capabilities. The benefit to the customer includes
improved user experience and enhanced business efficiency leading to
increased revenues.
Page 14 of 31
Persistent was selected by a large financial institution with presence in

Japan, APAC, Americas and EMEA for modernization of its front office and
regulatory technology to bring them under a common technology
framework. The benefit to the customer includes technical debt reduction,
efficiency enhancement and end user experience improvement.
And finally, within our healthcare and life sciences vertical, Persistent was
selected by a leading life sciences and scientific instrumentation company
for establishing an AI enabled software engineering capability hub and a
scalable and modern Cloud infrastructure. Persistent’s capabilities and
experience in the scientific instrumentation and medical devices domain
and the compelling value proposition in the private equity carve-out space
were instrumental in us wining this engagement. The benefit to the
customer includes standardized product management and engineering
across all its product lines and setting up of its modern IT infrastructure to
exit the current transition services arrangement with its erstwhile parent
company.
Persistent was selected by a leading US-based Precision Medicine and

Omix Analytics Provider for transition of their core R&D center to India.
Persistent’s 30+ years of product engineering heritage combined with our
strategic focus on clinical diagnostics, bio-informatics and life sciences
research along with the centre of excellence, we have built around user
experience, Cloud and Gen AI have been instrumental in us winning this
engagement. The benefit to the customer includes accelerated, risk-free
and cost-effective transition of their R&D center to India with no adverse
impact on customer deliverable and revenues.
Persistent was selected by a leading UK-based medical device

manufacturer that specializes in organ preservation and transplantation
devices. The engagement involves development of core applications for
Page 15 of 31
customer on-boarding, device management and monitoring, report

management and CRM integration. The benefit to the customer includes
systematic on-boarding of customers, centralized monitoring of all devices
for regulatory compliance and potential for penetration into new
geographical markets.
Moving on to the awards and recognitions for the quarter from leading
analyst firms.
This quarter saw us get continued recognition from industry-leading

analyst firms and associations. To cite a few, Sandeep Kalra was named
The Best CEO in the IT Services Emerging Companies’ Category by Fortune
India. Sandeep’s leadership in driving industry leading growth and
shareholder value creation was critical in winning this award.
Persistent upgraded to version 3 of CMMI Maturity Level 5 Certification

that places us among the elite group in the industry. This top tier level of
maturity signifies Persistent’s commitment to setting new benchmarks in
quality and efficiency and being a pioneer in the adoption of advanced
technologies.
Persistent was recognized as a challenger for the 2 nd year in a row in

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud IT Transformation Services 2024.
This recognition highlights our strategic use of AI and automation stacks in
key business and domain expertise, our ability to provide personalized
client experiences.
Persistent was named a leader in Everest Group’s, BFSI specific software

product engineering services, PEAK Matrix Assessment 2024. Persistent’s
robust BFSI-specific intellectual property suite including underwriting,
digital banking, payment automation and claims processing was
instrumental in winning this recognition.
Page 16 of 31
Persistent was named a leader for the 2nd consecutive year in ISG Provider
Lens for Google Cloud Ecosystem Partner 2024 Report. Persistent was
recognized for its robust services portfolio and our expertise in
implementing the Google Cloud Ecosystem.
Persistent has been included in Constellation Shortlist 2024 for

demonstrating expertise in services relating to public cloud transformation
services, AI services, custom software development services, and
customer experience operation services.
Persistent was cited as the fastest growing Indian IT services brand by

Brand Finance with 327% growth in brand value since 2020. Persistent's
people-centric culture, excellent service delivery, and alignment with
client needs, and its adaptability to dynamic market needs are key factors
that helped win this recognition.
This completes the section on key wins and awards and recognitions.
With this, let me hand it back to Sandeep for his closing remarks.
Sandeep Kalra: Thank you, Saurabh. In summary, we are happy with our performance in
this quarter. Before I conclude and open the conference for questions, I
would like to share a professional milestone. Tomorrow, October 23rd,
marks my fourth anniversary as the CEO of Persistent. It has been an
incredibly satisfying journey and I sincerely thank all our employees,
customers, partners, investors, and our board for their unwavering
support over these years. Leading our esteemed company with its world-
class capabilities and a motivated team has been a privilege, and I'm
excited about the future as we continue to strive for an industry-leading
performance.
Page 17 of 31
With this, I would like to conclude the prepared comments and would like
to request the operator to open the conference for questions. Operator,
over to you.
Moderator: Thank you so much. We will now open the call for the Q&A session. We
will wait for a few minutes until the queue assembles. We request
participants to restrict themselves to two questions and then return to the
queue for more questions. Please raise your hand from the Participant tab
on the screen to ask the question.
The first question is from Mehta Bhavik.
Mehta Bhavik: Thank you. So, a couple of questions. Firstly, Sandeep, you know, obviously
we have seen very strong growth over the last couple of quarters, but
going into the second half, which is typically a seasonally weak period as
such due to furloughs and lower working days, how should we think about
the growth trajectory from a sequential perspective over the next couple
of quarters? And also, if you can highlight how the demand environment
has changed versus, let's say, three months ago.
The second question is to Vinit. You know, incrementally from here on, we
are targeting to expand margins in the 2nd half. Incrementally, what levers
do we have which can, you know, help drive margin expansion over the
next couple of quarters? Thank you.
Sandeep Kalra: So, Bhavik, as far as the seasonality, etc., is concerned, 2nd half is
concerned, so those are events as regular. And if you look at it from our
perspective, October, November, December, we see some furloughs in
financial services in some other customers, and a couple of customers in
the high-tech sector. That has traditionally been the things. And this is
something that we always plan for. If you look at our order book, order
book has been pretty healthy for the last several quarters. We have a
Page 18 of 31
decent pipeline. Obviously, as the quarter goes through, we'll convert

those as well. Overall, we are looking at a healthy growth. And quarter-on-
quarter, there may be a little bit fluctuation here or there, but we are
relatively confident of continuing the healthy growth that we've had.
As far as the demand environment is concerned, I think this is a moot

question by now, because there are many things happening in the world
which are not in our control. But what we have done is we have mastered
the art of figuring out the patterns. Within these markets, which are tough,
there are always revenue pools and profit pools available, and we have
been pivoting as per the market demands. And that has been reflected in
our 18 sequential quarters of growth. So we are relatively confident,
whatever the market conditions may be, we'll pivot as a team and we'll
deliver a healthy growth.
With that, I'll hand over to Vinit. Vinit, if you can answer the second
question.
Vinit Teredesai: Yeah. Bhavik, see, a couple of things that are still working in our favour. As
I mentioned in my comments, we will continue to maintain our utilization
in the 83% to 85% band. At this point of time, the labour market is soft and
we do not see any urgency at this point of time to go and build up a bench
or hire ahead of time.
Secondly, if you look at our SG&A as a percentage of our overall spend, we

have made significant amount of investments in the last couple of
quarters. Now we think, going forward, the pace of investments into SG&A
will not be the same, and we'll be able to basically reap the benefits that
we have made out of the investments in the last couple of quarters. Again,
right-shoring, pricing, and obviously the growth momentum that we are
seeing at this point of time and the foreseeability that we have at this point
Page 19 of 31
of time of the growth, will continue to help us in terms of maintaining and

improving our margins going forward.
Mehta Bhavik: Okay, thank you.
Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Nitin Padmanabhan.
Nitin Padmanabhan: A couple of questions. One is a little philosophical one. So I think yesterday,
Microsoft spoke about how scaling laws are sort of doubling computing
power every six months versus two years under Moore's. So your thoughts
on shouldn't this ideally lead to higher business velocity, right? So that's
one.
Second is from a utilization perspective, you may mention 80% to 84%. I

remember pre-COVID, you had sort of went into massive hiring, had a good
view on when the model will pick up and so on and so forth. Looks like at
this point in time, you're not seeing that. So just wanted your thoughts. Is
this a very near-term sort of view or is it a slightly longer view?
Third thing is you had a view that margins sort of expand by 200 to 300
basis points over the next two years. Do you still stick to that or do you
think that sort of takes some more time?
I have a lot more, but I'll just push in one more. Let's say the technology
vertical, what's your view there? Do you think that's sort of bottoming out
or that sort of continues to be a pain point?
Sandeep Kalra: Perfect. So Nitin, good questions. I’ll take those. And from here on, our
request to people asking questions is to please limit them to two because
we want to take questions from everyone. And then we can always circle
back. So quickly, as far as the scaling is concerned, look, if you look at it in
the last several quarters, we have been saying that we want to be a
platform-driven services company. So we are using AI to develop
platforms. And that also links to your second question about utilization,
Page 20 of 31
hiring, and so on. So our endeavor is, as we become a platform-driven

services company, our revenue per employee goes up because we bring
something which is very differentiated. We are using AI platforms to
deliver more value to the customers and also partaking part of that. So our
revenue per customer, profit per customer over a period of time, as we
deliver disproportionate value compared to the industry, that should help
us. And that should also mean that we need to hire lesser people to deliver
higher revenue. So keep that in mind when you do any hypothesis
philosophically.
Now, as far as the tech vertical is concerned, we do think it is bottoming

out. Based on the pipeline, based on the deal wins, we do think coming in
the next one to two quarters, because some of these programs will take
time to ramp up… these are complex programs which we have won based
on the platform-driven approach that we have taken, we are relatively
confident all of our verticals will kick in. All of the verticals will have secular
growth, including the tech vertical. And please keep in mind, there may be
cyclical things. There was a time when tech vertical was leading the
growth, there's a time when healthcare is leading the growth. But overall,
as a company, we are confident all three will kick in. All three will be
growth enablers. And we are fairly confident of expanding the margins
over the next two to three years based on whatever Vinit said, and our
approach of using platform, driving higher revenue, higher profitability per
employee.
Nitin Padmanabhan: Thanks a ton. I’ll jump back in the queue you. Thank you.
Moderator: The next question is from Ravi Menon. Hi, Ravi. Requesting you to unmute
and ask the question.
Ravi Menon: Oh, sorry about that. So now we have 3 75 million+ customers. Is it fair to
say there is one from each vertical now?
Page 21 of 31
Sandeep Kalra: Yes, it is absolutely fair to say.
Ravi Menon: And do you still see headroom for growth even from here with at least
some of these customers? Or should we think that this is where it kind of
tops out, or we are fairly close to topping out with some of these top
customers at least?
Sandeep Kalra: There's enough headroom in these customers for us to grow. There are
many of our competitors who are there. So, I'm pretty sure there is
headroom. It's upon us to deliver more value and grow. And this also
demonstrates, philosophically, if we look at our earnings call over the last
several years, there has been a debate whether Persistent can have more
than $100 million customers, more than $75 million customers. So if you
look at our trajectory, we have proven we are worthy of our customers
giving us more at scale compared to some of our tier 1 competitors / peers.
So there is enough and more headroom.
Ravi Menon: Thanks so much. Best of luck. I'll come back in the queue.
Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Chirag Kachhadiya.
Chirag Kachhadiya: Congratulations for the solid numbers. I have one question that, in H2,
from margin per se, what headwinds are we looking at? And second, the
target to reach to the $2 billion kind of top line, do you think that we will
achieve that ahead of the time than our stated guidance?
Sandeep Kalra: As far as the $2 billion top line is concerned, Chirag, we do believe we are
on a decent trajectory and we'll let the time pan out. Because there are
things in our control which we are performing, but let's have the time go
about.
As far as the margins is concerned, Vinit, do you want to comment on the

H2 margin headwinds?
Page 22 of 31
Vinit Teredesai: Yeah, no, I think so, as you know that typically there are seasonal furloughs
that come up in the 2nd half. That only is probably the… at this point of
time, we do not anticipate them to be anything different than what we
have seen in the last year. So that's the only probable potential headwind
that we have at this point of time.
Chirag Kachhadiya: Okay, thank you.
Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Sandeep Shah.
Sandeep Shah: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to understand, Sandeep, in
this quarter, if we look at new business to total TCV, it is close to 74%, one
of the highest in any quarter. Is it fair to say the client decision-making on
our discretionary projects have picked up? That's question number one.
Question number two is if I look at the 1 st half reversal of earnout, that has
been close to 190 bps. And if I'm not wrong, we called out, it may continue
in the 2nd half as well. So Vinit, are you worried in the next year absence of
this, with wage inflation, it could be a big headwind to maintain margin in
FY26? Thanks.
Sandeep Kalra: I'll take the first question and I'll have Vinit answer the second part. So as
far as the new business is concerned, look, we have explained on many
earnings calls, when people look at Persistent and say we are discretionary
spend-based or dependent on that, I don't think we agree to that. Many of
the deal wins that we have had are with various sectors, whether it is the
healthcare life sciences or the tech segment and BFSI, where we are
working on platforms which are revenue-bearing. Whether it is like setting
up large teams for some of these where we are even transitioning works
from some of the incumbents, whether they be our bigger peers or it is
new work being outsourced to us which is revenue-bearing and so on and
so forth. So, the bulk of the work that we do is critical to these companies
Page 23 of 31
and it's not necessarily discretionary. I wouldn't basically correlate our

order books being healthy to discretionary spending coming back and so
on and so forth. I would say it is basically our ability to deliver more value
with respect to our competitors, and even mine our customers more
effectively. So that's where I would do it and Vinit, earnout out reversals
and headwinds.
Vinit Teredesai: Now see, if you look at the cost optimization program that we are running
within the organization, we are making structural changes to our cost base.
And some of the expenses that we are today incurring in order to support
that cost optimization program, will not be there in the next year. So we
have a couple of tail winds also that will be coming into our help when we
enter FY26. And as a result of that, we are pretty confident that our margin
improvement trajectory that we have talked about, will continue to
happen.
Sandeep Shah: Thanks and all the best.
Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Kireet Atluri.
Kireet Atluri: Hi team, thanks for taking my question. I had a couple of questions, please.
So the first one is on ACV. Can you maybe help us understand how this will
trend going forward and how much of this ACV is AI driven? That was my
first question.
And then the second one is you spoke about SASVA and iAURA helping you
win deals. Could you maybe talk about what the attach rate of those is in
the deal wins and what is the ideal target?
And just as a follow on for that, is the profitability of these deals, i.e. the
margin profile of SASVA and iAURA higher her than the base business?
Thanks for the question.
Page 24 of 31
Sandeep Kalra: So let me take that question. As far as the ACV is concerned, so ACV… look,
we don't give forward-looking guidance in terms of revenue or order
books. So I would say, look at our historic journey. ACVs have been pretty
healthy. And this quarter for us, the October, November, December
quarter for us, given the fact that 80% of our revenues come from the US,
is a quarter where we have seasonally, if you look at last several years, a
higher order book for renewables. Couple that with the newer wins.
Typically, this is a quarter where we'll see a little higher ACV, but we'll let
it pan out.
The second part of it, you talked about how much of the ACV is AI driven?
How much of the attach rates can we basically attribute to SASVA, iAURA,
and so on? Look, we don't want to get into the business of defining how
much is our AI revenue. We are trying to infuse AI into everything that we
do and we do believe AI will become table sticks in terms of getting
infused, how well you use it is where the differentiation will be. So, that is
as far as the attach rate question is concerned. In terms of profitability,
yes, the profitability of these deals going ahead will be higher and that's
where to my earlier comment, the revenue per employee, the profit per
employee over the next several years, that is where we are trying to
disproportionately move and that will also help us in our goals of overall
improvement in the coming months. Hopefully this answers your
question.
Kireet Atluri: Yeah, got it. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Vibhor Singhal.
Sandeep Karla: Vibhor, we can't hear you.

Vibhor Singhal: Okay, can you hear me now?
Sandeep Karla: Yes please.
Page 25 of 31
Vibhor Singhal: Yeah, sorry for that. Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions and
Congrats on solid execution once again. Sandeep, just I mean most
questions I think have already been answered, just quick take on basically
post the interest rate cut that we have seen in US, is there any change in
conversation specifically in the BFSI segment or let's say in more of
leverage segments in which clients might be talking about maybe higher
tech spends if not today, tomorrow day after tomorrow, anything on that,
that has changed and leading to that any early conversations regarding
how the furloughs would be this year as compared to last year, and of
course, how the tech budgets for next year could be? I know it's too early
for that, but I guess if any color on that would also be helpful, then I just
one follow up question for you.
Sandeep Karla: Sure. So as far as the furloughs are concerned, as Vinit articulated, we are
expecting them to be in the same range as the last year for us. So, we are
not expecting it to be anything different based on what we see today, but
you know typically these decisions get crystallized towards November and
December, December-mid. That is the time when these things finally come
together and there's always a discussion between us and the customer on
how to tackle it. So, that is as far as that's concerned. Now, interest rates
and you know and things around that I think it's too early to say about
interest rates impact right now because there's other dynamics like the
elections etc. that are there in the US, so I think it is too early to call one
way or the other. So, we'll let it pan out and that will also impact the third
part of your question, which is the technology budgets and so on, but look,
having said all of this, today as a company we are in a position where we
have performed in good times or bad, whether it was COVID, whether it
was post-COVID, whether it is, you know, whatever happened over the last
several months, so our endeavor would be even in a difficult time, we will
try to be in the best performing quartile for that. So, that's where I leave
it. Any follow-on questions Vinit will take.
Vibhor Singhal: Got it, Sandeep. Thanks a lot. Vinit, one quick clarification. The earn out
reversal has contributed to almost, if I get my math right we were on 230
basis points in the last quarter, around 150 basis points in this quarter,
what more of this reversal is left to be captured and will it be captured only
in FY25 or will it spill over into FY26 also?
Vinit Teredesai: So, what whatever is pertaining to the acquisitions that we have done in
the last couple of years, we can anticipate the balance reversals to happen
in this current financial year itself. The recent acquisitions that we have
done, obviously they are in the very early stages. So, if there is anything
Page 26 of 31
pertaining to that, that will be coming up only in the next year and we'll
see at that point of time.
Sandeep Karla: Just to answer your question slightly differently, in addition to what Vinit
has said, look and this is to others as well who you know wonder about
these, earnout reversals. Why is the earnout not paid? An earn out is not
paid because the hypothesis of the revenue growth or the profitability for
acquisition did not pan out in line with whatever it was supposed to be.
We have done 7 acquisitions or more in the last five years in the time that
I have been here and within that, some have panned out very, very well.
So, there are smaller acquisitions which have now been fourfold, and we
have paid them even an upside. When an acquisition does not deliver to
the performance, doesn't mean that Persistent does not deliver to the
performance. Persistent, as a team, invests in sales and marketing, invests
in additional efforts still delivers the industry leading growth and that
comes at a cost and that cost is offset by the reversals that we do. So,
please look at both sides of the coin. If we are delivering industry-leading
growth, last four years, we've delivered 24% CAGR and this is a 16%
relative outperformance to the sector if you compare the Indian IT services
sector. If you've delivered that outperformance and we have done these
puts and takes knowing fairly well if something is not going to perform, we
have stepped up, invested, still delivered the performance. So, to be fair,
you should have the puts and takes like a debit and credit and look at the
holistic picture. That's my request to you and the other analysts and
investors on this call.
Vibhor Singhal: Got it, Sandeep. Thanks a lot for taking my questions and that detailed
explanation. Wish you all the best.
Sandeep Karla: Thank you.
Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Varun Gandhi.
Varun Gandhi: Hi, Sandeep, many congratulations on your professional milestone. Just a
disclaimer, I'm not a techie, so please correct me if my understanding is
wrong. My view is that right now the value is in building models, analytical
models like SASVA, but later on, in near future when the value shifts from
building to inferencing what kind of value can we unlock, can Persistent
unlock from clients?
Sandeep Karla: Sounds good. First of all, thank you. Now, if you look at it, SASVA is not a
model. SASVA is actually a platform that leverages multiple models
underneath. So, it leverages the combination of large language models
Page 27 of 31
which are open-source customized by us in a secure manner, and

combined with some small language models etc. etc. So, SASVA work is
not a model-building exercise. We are too small to build newer models
which are large language models and invest in all of them. All we're trying
to do is leverage the technology that's being available, made available by
these larger companies. Some of it is open sourced, some of it is like open
AI through Microsoft and so on and so forth, and we are doing engineering,
inferencing in your loosely held terms based on that and taking actions.
So, we are on the second step of it and that's where the value is.
Varun Gandhi: Right, right. I see. Thank you for explaining it simply.
Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Abhishek Kumar.

Abhishek Kumar: Yeah. Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Two questions.
One, I heard in couple of the deals that we have won this quarter, there
was an element of us setting up centers for our clients. So, is this
phenomenon relatively new where we are helping them set up a GCC or
something of that kind and are these kind of slightly longer in tenure, and
therefore it impacts ACV versus TCV kind of calculation that is my first
question, then I will follow up.
Sandeep Karla: Yeah. So, when we talk of setting up centers, these are offshore
development centers people make call it, global technology centers and so
on. These are basically things where we are scaling teams in our parlance,
even managing the end-deliverables out of that in conjunction it's a co-
engineering that we do on behalf of our customers. We are an extended
team and that's where it is. The GCC definition can vary. The GCC can be
where you are doing it for someone else in their premises, etc. We
participate in that as well, but most of our deals that we're talking about
are offshore development centers, extended engineering or IT arms to our
customers, longer term relationships and that's where the ACV to TCV
ratios are different. These are three to five year engagements, which are
you can simply put, look at them as capacity, which is a hardcore
engineering capacity that delivers value on an ongoing basis in a planned
manner for our customers. So, that's where it is.
Abhishek Kumar: My second question is, you know, the onsite effort share has gone up,
looks like some of the deals, large deals that we won last year were
ramping up. Now, as we talk right-shoring that can have a deflationary
Page 28 of 31
impact on the revenues. So, how does that pan out in the second half on
top of furloughs and other headwinds that we have?
Sandeep Karla: Yeah. So, to your point, look we have won over the last five years, at least
35 plus large deals and large deals are all relative terms, you know what
ACV TCV depending on the size. We are seeing multiple cycles where we
are winning newer deals, which have more onsite centric because we may
be doing multi transition, initially even taking over the third-party vendors
related you know people and then offshore it. So, these are cycles. So, as
we are winning newer deals, we are offshoring, so that deflationary impact
of that is already being addressed by the newer deals that we win. So, that
is not a concern and we have been managing this for the last five years and
layering our revenues based on the larger deals, longer term deals that
we've been winning over a period of time, I won't be worried about it.
Vinit Teredesai: I'll just add to this. I did mention it is right shoring and not offshoring. The
right shoring means not necessarily everything coming to offshore. It also
means something from offshore also going and becoming onshore.
Abhishek Kumar: Great, very clear. Thank you so much.

Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Abhishek Bhandari.
Abhishek Bhandari: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the chance. Sandeep, you know, if I look
at your sales and BD headcount, you know it has dropped by around 18
people or call it 4% quarter-on-quarter and this is the first drop since the
last 12 quarters. If you could explain, what is happening on your sales and
BD team - is the downsizing more happening on the sales part and is also
a reflection that the sales report are normalizing because I remember you
saying consistently for last few quarters, the sales efforts are trailing
almost 2X of normal times?
Sandeep Karla: Yeah. So, if you look at it Abhishek, FY23, we ended with 414 people in
sales and business development. In FY24, we moved from 414 at the end
of FY23 to 484 at the end of FY24, and in the last quarter we were at 510
and as we have been saying all through, we have over-invested in sales and
business development because we need it. We are comfortable at this
point in time with where the numbers are and there's no downsizing that
is happening. You do performance management, if something is not
yielding results, you take money out of there and deploy wherever you
need to, where you have better ROI as a company. So, I won't be worried
and as Vinit said, look, this should actually give us a leverage. Even with
this investment and a little bit more, the percentage for SG&A should
Page 29 of 31
decrease over a period of time as we grow the revenues and win more
deals. So, from our perspective, we are very comfortable and confident
this is the right trajectory. We'll keep adding as we need.
Abhishek Bhandari: Got it. Thanks, Sandeep. My last question is you know some of your very
recent senior hires like your Chief Strategy Officer, you know they have
quit very quickly. So, you know is it a broad-based trend amongst your
recent hires that their attrition numbers have been higher or is it one off
and I don't want to know the reason behind one candidate but is it like a
more widespread thing what you see?
Sandeep Karla: Yeah. So, as you rightly said, one candidate does not make it trend. So,
that's where I will leave it. Look, people join and they also have
aspirations. They also have their own path and we also have expectations
and I won't say that it was any case of anything going wrong. People have
choices to make as to where they want to take their own career and their
own personal conditions in life, which I don't want to elaborate. So, overall
I don't think it reflects on the candidate, it reflects on Persistent, both are
good and we have a company to run. We'll keep hiring more people with
the right aspirations and we'll keep scaling.
Abhishek Bhandari: Thanks, Sandeep and wish you Happy Diwali.

Moderator: Thank you. The next question is from Sumeet Jain.
Sumeet Jain: Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?

Sandeep Karla: Yeah.
Sumeet Jain: Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So, just Sandeep, first want to
understand, you mentioned that you don't have very high discretionary
demand exposure and there's a general consensus that next year with the
US Fed rate cuts, the discretionary demand will revive. So, will it actually
help your business and if yes, then which key verticals?
Sandeep Karla: So, Sumeet from our perspective, if you look at it this way, when the
discretionary demand is not that high or the discretionary spend is not that
high, we have delivered good revenue growth. In our segments,
healthcare life sciences, I would tend to believe, is much more, you know
non-related to the discretionary spend, whatever needs to be done in
healthcare. Yeah, there are some pockets which are related, but usually
you will see that is a more resilient sector. BFSI in the middle. Tech suffers
when discretionary spend does not happen because ultimately, when your
Page 30 of 31
projects are not happening and people are conserving their cost, they're
spending lesser on their technology procurement in terms of software
licenses etc. and that impacts. So, we are hoping that with the things
easing out, that will also have an impact on some of these things, but that
is not what we are banking on. We're banking on our effort to see the
trends, to see where the revenue pools, profit pools are available, go
structurally after that, use technology like our AI driven and the platform
driven strategies that we have, and our 18 quarters of sequential growth
should give you enough confidence. So, not worried. If it opens up, it will
be only good for us.
Sumeet Jain: Right. No, that's helpful and secondly, since you're involved with
hyperscalers on building their Gen AI platforms and connectors, once the
Gen AI opportunities scales up for the industry with you know, wider
system integration projects, will it actually help you more than your peers?
Sandeep Karla: It should and you know, we'll let the things pan out. We're not giving any
forwarding looking guidance. We are at it. We have delivered industry-
leading growth and as I said, we have delivered disproportionately with
respect to the industry and we expect that our efforts should continue in
that direction.
Sumeet Jain: And lastly, for the $2 billion target, have you given any sort of timelines or
is it like a long-term outlook?
Sandeep Karla: Yeah, we have said by FY27 end, which basically is March 2027 end is what
we've said is our aspiration, balance we'll let that time pan out. With that,
I think we should stop the call. We were sharp at 8 o’ clock. Moderator.
Moderator: Thank you. Thank you very much to Persistent’s Management team.
Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Persistent Systems Limited that
concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now
disconnect your lines and exit the webinar. Thank you.
************************************************************
Please note that this transcript has been edited for readability.
Page 31 of 31

ps_docs_345423

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

ps_docs_345423

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

ps_docs_345423

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

NSE & BSE / 2024-25 / 179

October 27, 2024

The Manager The Manager

Ref: Symbol: PERSISTENT Ref: Scrip Code: 533179

Sub: Transcript of investor/analyst call held on Tuesday, October 22, 2024

The link to access the same is as follows: Analyst-Call-Transcript-Q2-FY25.pdf

This is for your information and record.

Please acknowledge the receipt.

“PERSISTENT SYSTEMS LIMITED - EARNINGS CONFERENCE

October 22, 2024, 7:00 PM IST

Dr. Anand Deshpande

Mr. Sandeep Kalra

Mr. Vinit Teredesai

Mr. Saurabh Dwivedi

With this, let me now start with a quick financial summary:

We achieved a healthy revenue growth of 18.4% year-on-year and 5.3%

Now, coming to the Order Book for the quarter:

The Annual Contract Value component of this TCV is at $348.3 million of

Please note that our revenue conversion on a quarterly basis is a function

Now, moving to the client engagement size.

We witnessed healthy year-on-year growth among our client buckets with

The contribution from Top 10 customers is at 41.5% in this quarter - an

In this quarter, we reported 184 customers with TTM revenues over $1

Coming to the details on our geographic performance:

In terms of year-on-year growth in USD terms, North America grew by a

Now, let me give you this quarter’s performance from an industry

Now, moving from operational metrics to certain strategic highlights for

Launching our T100 Program:

Recently, we got together 250 of our senior leaders and customer-facing

The T100 Program is centered on four key pillars:

Talent amplification - herein we are developing a high caliber workforce

Value maximization - this focuses on leveraging our core strengths and we

Focusing on AI-driven innovation - wherein we deploy advanced AI and

Ecosystem leadership - within this, we are positioning Persistent as a key

Moving on to our strategic investments and updates on AI:

Our comprehensive AI strategy continues to be built on two key vectors -

First, coming to AI for technology.

As most of you know, SASVA is our flagship AI-driven platform designed to

Let me now highlight some key impact areas of SASVA 2.0.

Starting from a comprehensive assessment wherein SASVA evaluates a

Coming to the efficiency and value maximization - SASVA identifies high

Intelligent backlog management and roadmap planning - SASVA

Context awareness release planning - herein SASVA prioritizes tasks,

aligning with the team’s strengths and capacity while intelligently

SASVA also plays a critical role in customer support and professional

Persistent was selected by a leading provider of full-stack observability

Persistent was selected by a leading financial analytics firm based in North

for faster releases, upgradation of latest technology stack and optimized

These case studies highlight how SASVA 2.0 is driving tangible

Now, let me talk about our AI for business vector.

The impact of these developments can be seen in key customer case

We are helping one of the largest global pharma companies to accelerate

Moving on to our acquisitions and partnerships:

As you would have noticed, we recently announced our plan to acquire

Second, following our Q1 announcement, we have fully integrated Starfish.

As a part of these initiatives, we recently co-hosted the Google Gemini

on experiences to harness the full power of Gemini. As a premier Google

As we move forward, AI remains integral to both Persistent’s operations

In summary, we are pleased with our performance in Q2 FY25. I would now

Now let me provide some commentary on the quarter-on-quarter margin