ECOS (India) Mobility & Hospitality (NSE:ECOSMOBLTY) Q1 2027 Earnings Call

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Ecos India Mobility and Hospitality Limited Q1 FY 'twenty seven Earnings Conference Call hosted by AdFactors PR. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Ashika Muthracia from iFactors PR. Thank you, and over to you. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. A warm welcome to you all, and thank you for joining us today for Ecos (India) Mobility and Hospitality Limited's quarter one financial year twenty twenty seven earnings conference call.

0:54 We truly appreciate your time and continued interest in the company. We are pleased to have with us the senior management team led by our chairman and managing director, mister Rajesh Lumba, who will share his perspective on the company's performance for the quarter and the key business development during the period. He is joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Him Upabhyay, who will take us through the financial highlights for the quarter. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call may be forward looking in nature. These statements are based on current expectations and are subjected to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied.

1:40 With that, I now hand over the call to mister Rajesh Shunga for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Yeah. Thank you so much. Good morning and a very warm welcome to all of you. Thank you for joining us today for Ecos India Mobility and Hospitality Limited's Q1 Financial Year twenty seven Earnings Conference Call. For those joining us for the first time, let me briefly introduce Ecos. We are India's leading organized corporate managed mobility solutions provider with a business anchored around two core segments, employee transportation services or ETS and shopper driven car rentals or CCR like we call it.

2:26 We serve a diversified set of enterprise customers, including Fortune 500, MBSE 500 companies, global capability centers, IT, ITS companies, consulting firms, manufacturing and pharma companies, as well as the growing base of Indian enterprises and SMEs. Q1 was a healthy quarter with operating growth for Ecos. Revenue grew 16.7%, Strip volumes increased 27% and we added 61 new clients. At the same time, EBITDA margins were softer, reflecting higher operating costs and business mix, which although Hem will discuss in greater detail, I will also like to address.

3:15 Now this has been because in addition to our higher business mix in favor of ETS, the dynamics of the market and the pricing pressure is more intense than we anticipated, especially in ETS. At the same time, we're taking all the steps to keep growing profitably with the highest quality of revenue and minimum credit risk. This we are doing while cutting down our costs and bringing in more efficiencies through technology going ahead this year. Against this backdrop, we also continue to expand our operating footprint. We ended Q1 with the presence across 151 cities in India, adding 20 new cities during the quarter. This takes our domestic footprint meaningfully beyond the 130 plus cities we had reached by the end of FY twenty twenty six.

4:06 Importantly, this expansion has been closely linked to the requirements of our customers, particularly as large enterprises and GCCs continue to expand their operations across locations. Our international network also now covers more than 100 countries, giving us the ability to address mobility requirements for customers across both domestic and international travel needs. This expansion in our footprint has also been accompanied by healthy underlying demand. We completed approximately 1,480,000 trips during the quarter, which is up 27% year on year and close to 7% sequentially. ETS contributed 59% of revenue, which was higher than the last quarter with CCR at 41%. ETS continued to benefit from stable demand from our IT, ITS customers and GCCs, while CCR saw a healthy recovery in corporate and travel related mobility demand, even though the inbound international travelers are still on the lesser side.

5:09 We had a healthy quarter on customer acquisition. We onboarded 61 new clients compared to 53 in Q1 twenty twenty six. Our active client base stood at 1,400 enterprise organizations during the quarter, representing a growth of almost 18% year on year. Now meaningful portion of these wins comprise large enterprise relationships with the evaluation and onboarding process can be detailed and it takes time. These wins reflect the confidence customers place in our service standards, compliance framework, and the ability to execute across locations. At the same time, while we continue to add new customers, the strength and longevity of our existing relationships remains equally very important to us.

6:05 Around 51% of our revenue continues to come from customers who have been with Ecos for more than five years. For us, this is more than just a retention metric. It reflects the trust we have built with our customers and the consistency with which we have delivered for them over the years. As the business grows across customers and geographies and the right supply capacity in place becomes equally important. Our owned and vendor operated vehicle network together stood at approximately 19,500 vehicles as of 06/30/2026. Now this gives us the capacity to support the increasing requirements of our customers while retaining the flexibility of our asset light model.

6:57 The vast majority of this fleet continues to come from our vendor partners. Our approach has always been to build supply in line with the requirements of the business rather than build the capacity ahead of demand. The breadth of our vendor ecosystem allows us to do this while maintaining service reliability across the markets and geographies that we service. Now within this broader supply ecosystems, EVs are another area where we are gradually building the capacity. Our EV fleet on our network has increased to four sixty vehicles compared to three ninety at the end of Q4 twenty twenty six. We continue to take a measured approach to EV adoption.

7:43 There's clearly increasing customer interest, but we want to see the right combination of vehicle reliability, charging infra and economics before accelerating deployment materially. Alongside the expansion of our physical footprint, we are also making the ECO platform more accessible through technology. In Q4, we launched our direct web booking portal. And during this quarter, we completed a major upgrade of the company's proprietary technology platform designed to enhance scalability, operating efficiency and customer experience for our corporate clients. Our sixth partnership is progressing as planned, and we continue to build its distribution across both corporate and leisure customer channels.

8:38 Beyond this, we are also expecting to launch our B2C app this quarter to address the growing B2C demand for premium CCR services. We are also strengthening our leadership bandwidth in selected areas. These are deliberate investments ahead of the next phase of growth, while remaining mindful of our overall cost structure. As we look at the rest of FY 'twenty seven, our priorities remain clear: adding high quality enterprise relationships, increasing our share of wallet with existing customers, expanding into geographies where there is clear business case, strengthening our leadership bandwidth and using technology to improve efficiency and customer experience.

9:26 Alongside growth, our focus is firmly on improving the quality of that growth As volume scale and the investments we have made begin to mature, our objective is to translate the strength of the platform into a better operating leverage and improving the returns. Corporate mobility India remains highly fragmented, while large enterprises increasingly require mobility partners who can deliver reliably, compliance, technology and the consistent execution across locations. We believe this structural shift plays directly to Ecos Mobility's strengths. Thank you for this opportunity to interact with our investors.

10:13 We are pleased with the progress we have made in the quarter, and our teams remain fully energized and focused on the opportunities ahead. We look forward to building on this momentum, delivering sustainable growth and creating greater value for our shareholders in the quarters ahead. With that, I hand it over to our CFO, Hem Upadhyay, who will take you through our financial performance in the quarter. Thank you, and over to you, Hem. Thank you, Adi, sir, and good morning, everyone. Now let me take you through our financial performance for the quarter ended 06/30/2026 and provide some context around the key moments.

10:59 Revenue from operations for the quarter stood at INR 2,113,720,000, which is up by 16.7% year on year basis and approximately 2.2% over Q4 FY twenty twenty six. The quarter saw continued traction across our core business supported by deeper engagement with existing clients and the onboarding of new accounts. Coming to the EBITDA, EBITDA for the quarter was INR218.47 million compared with INR219.18 million in Q1 FY twenty twenty six and INR $2,415,530,000 in Q4 FY twenty twenty six. Our EBITDA margin for the quarter was 10.3% compared with 12.0% in Q1 FY twenty twenty six and 11.7% in Q4 FY twenty twenty six.

11:54 EBITDA margin for the quarter was below the 11% to 13% range which we had initially indicated for FY twenty twenty seven, which is primarily due to higher than anticipated operating costs and completed pressure on the pricing. Given the current business dynamic, we now expected that EBITDA margin for FY twenty twenty seven to be around 10%. We remain confident in the underlying strength of the business and expect margin to improve as volume scale and operating leverage begin to come through. On the employee cost front, employee benefit expenses for the quarter stood at INR237.63 million, up by 21.9% year on year.

12:48 For FY twenty twenty six, we expected employee cost to grow by around 30% reflecting the continued strengthening of our talent and leadership capabilities. The other expenses for the quarter were INR70.32 million compared to INR81.54 million in Q1 FY twenty twenty six. The reduction was largely because the one time provision for doubtful debts recorded in the previous year did not recur in this quarter. Cost of service increased 20.7% year on year basis, a factor leading to lesser EBITDA. Moving below EBITDA profit growth times for the quarter stood INR191.64 million compared with INR 186,680,000 in Q1 FY twenty twenty six.

13:37 Profit after tax come in at INR 145,500,000 comparing with INR 132,870,000 in Q1 FY twenty twenty six. From a balance sheet perspective, we continue to remain in a strong financial position with a healthy cash flow, low leverage and disciplined capital allocation. As of 06/30/2026, our cash and investment stood INR $1,558,000,000 providing us with sufficient flexibility to support our growth initiatives while maintaining a prudent financial position. As a part of our capital allocation approach, the Board has also recommended a final dividend of INR2.38 per equity share for FY 2026, subject to the approval by the shareholder at the upcoming Annual General Meeting.

14:30 Overall, Q1 has been a steady start of the year and our focus for the coming quarter will be on improving operating efficiency and delivering a better operating leverage as a business group. Thank you and I will now open the floor for the questions. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assemble.

15:16 The first question is from the line of Jigarjani from NUMA PCG Research. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. Am I audible? Yes, Jacob. Yeah. Hi, sir. So, sir, let's enter the elephant in the room, which is the margin. So, essentially, what changed drastically from, say, q four and or q one? Because we were fairly confident of 11 to 13% kind of margins. We have the kind of dropped below the bottom end range also. And now I believe I have heard here, it's a saying that we are looking at 10% EBITDA margin, which essentially means no growth again this year on the bottom line even if we go at 18% or 17% on the top line. So two questions. What changed drastically and what is driving this pricing pressure? Because the mix, essentially, if I compare it to q one of last year, mix was sixty forty for ETS.

16:30 Again, this year, it is fairly similar, fifty nine forty one. So in fact, it has likely included in favor of CCR. So what is driving this pricing pressure and and what EBITDA we would start ignoring business that we won't do business below this margin because this has been a consistent problem since the last couple of years. Yes. Thanks, Jigal. It's a great question. And I think everybody would want to know that. And definitely, last quarter, we were always seeing these signs and the results of a lot of competition in the market and I had did flag it.

17:15 However, the decline in the margins or the competitive pressure was higher than what we anticipated. And that is what the market dynamics are and that is what the ground reality is today, especially in EPS. So at the same time, so we had to revisit a lot of our pricing strategies. And keeping in mind the quality of the business that we are pitching for and the credibility of the names that we're on boarding as our clients, we decided to revise our threshold. And now I think we have and internally we have decided on a certain threshold below which we will not be doing the business.

18:07 Going ahead, given that and given that we are looking at various ways to cut our costs and increase efficiency, the operating efficiencies right from automating processes to improving productivity. We are hopeful of maintaining these margins going ahead this year. At some point in time in the future, definitely the operating leverage will also kick in. So what is that margin level at below which you would... It could share below which you wouldn't do incremental business or you would sacrifice growth? So it it it depends... Yeah. It depends... Yeah. That depends on market to market, client to client, and these are internal thresholds that we have set.

18:59 As a company as a whole, when you look at it, which is a mix of the CCR and ETS, we hope to maintain the same margins now. Okay. Okay. And, sir, on this new event management thing that you have reported in your press release that you intend to go into event management, What are the details on this? What kind of investments you are looking at? What are the margins that you are looking at? How to deal in this scale? If you could share some more details on that. No. This is not very material. We will... Because we have been getting a lot of requirements sometimes. Not a lot of requirements. Sometimes we've been getting the requirements back.

19:45 We'll be playing transport. They also want us to do the event. So since we do have in house capabilities with managing the event itself also, we decided to make this addition in our articles. And sir, lastly, any update on any inorganic acquisitions because now we are close to 150 crores on our balance sheet in cash and investment. What is the thought process here? Because as shareholders, we haven't seen a lot of return. Would it be fair to assume that we'll see some acquisitions done pretty soon, or are there any chances provide back or some sort of reward to the shareholder or from this cash?

20:32 Yes. We will be looking at certain opportunities. Only last month, we have onboarded senior professional in strategic finance who would be looking into these opportunities. And given the attractiveness, we would in the coming quarters be able to give you a better picture of that. Sure. And just lastly, just bookkeeping, I think Emsar mentioned 30% or 13 employee expenses, I couldn't give the number. Growth in employee expenses? The growth in 20%. Around 20%. Around Okay. 20 Thank you. Thank you for answering my questions.

21:18 I'll jump back in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The question is from the line of Pulkit Sengal from Dylnus Capital Management. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity. I think first is more of a suggestion for the management as well. You know, in the previous call, you had come at May end with where you already had two months of data to know how the quarter is probably growing and what kind of competition intensity is there. We probably expect a bit more transparency around your guidance. And so that sudden changes are not provided in this basis one month of data. So just a suggestion to the management to please, you know, give us these guidances with lot more clarity and transparency going ahead because just changing them in one quarter does not help.

22:11 I think the question really is how do you, you know, operate the business going ahead? Your costs have been going up. You've been investing in the business. How do you change your strategy going ahead? Can you provide a bit more details as to what kind of cost cutting measures are you taking or productivity measures are you taking? Yes. So for example, in CCR this quarter, we have rolled out our new technology, which automates a lot of the stuff that was happening manually. This technology was under development last almost two years. And this right now we are in that transition phase. And once it's settled, which we hope so within this quarter, this will start delivering results in terms of the productivity.

23:01 Beyond that, yes, for margin expansion, we would we are having strategies to negotiate harder with our vendors to expand our margins down the line. So these are the two basic strategies, which I can publicly reveal that we would be doing to look at expanding our margins or maintaining the margins going ahead. Can we elaborate? Yes. Yes. At the same time, definitely the decisions to pitch more competitive prices depends also on the market dynamics and which do keep changing time to time.

23:55 A lot of times, it's hard to predict the way your competition is going to behave or the way the markets are going to behave at micro levels. So I can understand your angst or frustration that we should have been able to better guide. But you can be assured that we operate with the maximum transparency with our shareholders that we can. Can you elaborate on that automation part that you're talking about as to what kind of aspects are you automating and what kind of cost savings can come from that? Yes. So they would come at almost all the departments, let's say, within the CCR, right, from our contact center with a more efficient reservation capturing mechanism and our online booking tools for our customers and the apps for the customers.

25:01 It would come in at the operating level at dispatch with more efficient dispatching, it would come at billing, it would come in at every step of the entire life cycle of the service that we give to a customer. Sure. Can you quantify the savings, please? Like, it comes in the other expense line, the savings or employee expense? No. Yeah. It would typically come in the employee expense, and it should lead to lessening of our operating cost with better utilization of our own vehicles and our vendors' vehicles. Okay. Okay. So utilization as well. Okay. Yes.

25:46 Yes. Of course. Yeah. Lastly, at 10% margins, given that the kind of investments we've already made so far in employees as well, what kind of revenue growth should we assume? Because right now, despite the investment, it was 17% growth. So I'm just trying to get that sense. Yes. Our guidance remains between 15% to 18%. Okay. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you, Pulsi. Thank you. The next question is from the line of from Counter Cyclical PMS. Please go ahead.

26:37 So so, mister, my questions are also in line with the previous participants. I'm just wondering that in this industry where there are no entry barriers, where the cost of operations is the same for everybody more or less, The salaries of drivers or the fuel is the same. And on the other hand, the realizations are also very competitive. Basically, nobody is going to pay us anything extra, especially in the ETS segment. So, basically, I'm trying to understand then in such an industry with no entry barriers, ultimately, the return on capital will come somewhere around the cost of capital.

27:24 So, I mean, what are we doing to basically... Which gives us an edge over the competition? So while I understand your point that there are no entry barriers and anybody can, you know, buy 10 cars and say I'm in the car rental business, We look at our business and our right to win in three parts, if I can say that. One is the quality of the on the one side is the quality of the clients that we have and these relationships, the deep relationships that we enjoy with them over decades literally. On the other side, we have built up this huge supply base ever available and ever reliable.

28:16 Again, up over decades and built up a great reputation over that so that we don't really need to be depending on our own capital to sustain that supply and sustain the growth. And in the middle comes our various processes and people where we are constantly evolving those to bring in more and more efficiencies and maintain a strong and positive culture over there. So this entire combination that we look at is what makes our company versus the others. This is the entry barrier to having an organization which can achieve scale and deliver more importantly, deliver that same predictable and consistent quality of service on trip after trip, doing more than 5,000,000 trips in a year with this kind of consistent quality of service is what gives us the right to win and organize this fragmented market, which is where the majority of the opportunity lies.

29:31 Let's not forget, it is still a fragmented industry with only 15% to 20% of it organized. And the rest 80% is where the opportunity lies in the future. And that is what we are gunning for and aiming for. I hope I was able to somewhere give you our perspective. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Srushar Jain from E and S Wealth. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Am I audible, sir? Yes, please. Okay. So my question also on the margins, but I want to understand on the gross margins. Our gross margins have also declined.

30:24 So if you could help me understand the reason why the gross margins have declined. You know? Typically, in the... In a very high competitive environment, if we have to give a lower rate to our clients to win the business, in that case, our gross margins do go down because we have to absorb some part of that lower rate that we've given out of the margins that we have vis a vis from our vendors. So is it because of competition pressure that we had to reduce our prices? Yes, you can say that. Okay.

31:10 Okay. So has the gross margin both in ETS and CCR declined for us? This is more evident in ETS. So that is where it's a bulk business, it's a mass business. At the same time, we have to look at it case to case, wherein the kind of quality of the revenue that you're getting, if it is the minimum risk in terms of the credit risk and we are dealing with Fortune 500 companies or very, very large enterprises, be it Indian or foreign, you are able to take that risk because it comes also without deployment of too much of capital.

31:55 Okay. So as the competition intensifies with big names coming into the industry, sir, my concern is how much lower can these gross margins go up to and with what level of gross margins we are comfortable with? Yes. That's a million dollar question. And at the same time, internally, we have certain set certain thresholds below which we would not go. Our objective is to grow but also to grow profitably because that is in our DNA and that is the way we have grown and managed over the last thirty years. And we have been through various cycles. And we have seen also such cycles in the past.

32:44 But yes, it's a little more intense. And definitely, this also is an opportunity for lot of organizations to get into the business and which is both good and bad because it helps speed up and catalyze the transition from unorganized to organized also. So in a way, we do welcome that competition. But it's when new competition gets in, they typically do reduce prices. And we have to be cognizant of that and be able to adjust ourselves as per the realities of the market dynamics. Okay. Okay. So my another question was, you did mention about the clients that we have added. So just wanted to understand, are there any clients that we lost in this quarter?

33:38 Did we lose any client to competition or for any other reason? Not majorly. No. Not majorly. Not majorly. It's not losing and lose much clients to competition. There would be the one or two, you know, renewals which would not happen or or you take part in RFP, then you have a certain success rate. But it's not as if we have really lost anyone. We have grown our revenues by 18%. That's only. Okay. And sir, I believe the clients that we have added, were they more on the ETS side or on the CCR side? I mean, would be more on the ETS side is what I understand. Right? Both. In terms of revenues, in terms of numbers, more on the CCR side and in terms of revenues, more on the ETS side.

34:26 Okay. Okay. And sir, just one more question. If you could give us the EBITDA margin separately for the ETS and the CCR, would it be possible for this quarter? No, we do not declare that because to a certain point, the costs are common of the organization, be it at the operating level, be it management level. So it's very hard to give an accurate division of creditors. Okay. Okay. And, sir, can I just squeeze in one more question if if you allow me? Sure, ma'am. Okay. So just wanted to understand, we had some tie up with fixed. Right?

35:14 So so just wanted to understand what does this tie up and, you know, how do we strategically make our commissions or, you know, what is the tie up with fixed here with us? Just wanted to understand that. We are the exclusive GSA general selling agents in India for their entire line of products globally for self drive. And we offer these services sometimes as a bundle, sometimes separately to our corporate leisure and travel agent clients in India for which, yes, we have certain commercial arrangements with Sixt. So so do we get, like, per trip what Sixt gives us, or how do we make our revenue there, sir?

36:06 It's a combination, you know, on retention per trip and so on. There are various parameters around that. The next question is from the line of Sameer Shah from Nuvama Wealth Research. Sir, my question is about the margin itself. So you mentioned already that the competitive intensity was high, and you already mentioned that some sort of enhancement in margins will be coming in soon with operational efficiencies and improved wallet share. So how...

36:52 With... When and by how how much could we expect these these margins to enhance? If you could give us some on that. So our guidance is that we would be maintaining this. And because we are not sure of the longevity of this intensity of competition, how long it's going to last. And at the same time, it is our anyway, our duty to keep looking at the cost structure and making it more efficient and keep reducing the cost. So in the long run, of course, this operating leverage I've mentioned before also, it will start kicking in at some point of time, which we feel at a point something over INR1000 crores only of revenues.

37:45 And some part of that efficiencies that we bring in may be passed on to customers also to accelerate the growth and some may result in a higher gross margin that we have. All right. So that's helpful. And just one data point question here. I see in the previous quarter's presentation, we've said we have over seventeen fifty clients. And this quarter, we've added 61 clients. But client... Total client base is mentioned at 1,400. So am I missing anything here?. So so we have a large number of clients almost more than... Perhaps more than. These are the active clients in a given quarter. So these are the clients that have given us business in that quarter.

38:33 Okay. Unique clients have given us business in that quarter. Yes. All right. Got it. That's all from my side. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prisha Shah from Shah Family Office. Please go ahead. Hello, sir. Good morning. So I have couple of questions. So starting with the... Something about your fleet capacity, which, you know, has expanded significantly ahead of the revenue growth. So regarding that, could you please share the current level of fleet utilization and indicate how much of the additional capacity here can be absorbed before there's a need to add further fleet.

39:19 So if you could help us on that. So the fleet capacity is actually the vehicles that we have on our network, out of which on a daily basis, let's say, we say 19,000, we end up using between 10,000 to 11,000 vehicles every day. And the rest are what we use on our spikes or which have been onboarded onto our system by our regular vendors. Now in terms of the capacity increase also, it is in tandem with the increase in our number of trips. If you see number of trips in this quarter, it has increased by almost 27%, right. Obviously, revenues have increased only by 17% because there has been that element of price reduction that has happened. But our number of trips has actually gone up by 27% and so has our fleet that we keep to ready to serve any kind of spikes that may be there in demand from our customers.

40:26 Okay, sir. Understood. So my other question would be on the macro environment and how are we handling the competitive unit. So basically, I just want to understand how the competitive industry in the ETS business specifically has evolved comparing to what it was in FY twenty six. And regarding that, only are you seeing any kind of moderation in the pricing pressure from this quarter onwards? And particularly during the new client acquisition and the contract renewals, if you could provide some color on that? Nishanth, it's very hard to predict the actions of your competitors. So I would not like to comment if we would see a moderation in that or not.

41:15 But definitely internally, have set certain internal thresholds below which we would not be going. And, accordingly, because these are long term contracts, and we don't want to be in a situation where where we end up losing money in any contract. Okay, sir. Understood. That's from my side. All the best. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saloni Shah, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. So you have indicated that the employee costs are, you know, expected to go up from here. So could you, you know, elaborate on the key areas where we are investing this incremental cost and what capabilities you are looking to build? And secondly, just wanted to also understand about the trajectory of customer acquisition cost as well going forward.

42:21 Yes. So in terms of employee cost, this year, we expect it to be up by around 20%, what Ehren had mentioned. Number two, we are looking at the hello? Am I audible? Yes, sir. You're audible. Okay. In terms of the capability building, we are building a leadership bandwidth, hiring more people at leadership positions to sustain our growth going forward. So those are investments into the future that we're making now. Thirdly, the cost also, of course, with the growth in number of the operations and the scale and the number of trips, you need people to manage that growth also and which is more binary. And so you need x number of people whenever minimum x number of people whenever the business goes up by a certain number.

43:27 At the same time, we are improving productivity by bringing in more and more technology, automation, AI in a lot of the processes that we're doing. That this the growth in the employee cost is also tempered with the growth in productivity. As far as acquisition costs of the new for the new acquisitions is concerned, we are well within our budgets in terms of the new acquisition. Also, we are looking to improve our conversion and our further improve these costs by investing actually more in our marketing and our brand building.

44:17 So that is where also the focus is going to be rest of this year. Got it, sir. That's it from my side. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dia Jain from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Through the b two c app launch that is going to happen in this quarter, what sort of expectations do we have from this? We're looking to address the growing premium market for car rentals in India with the B2C app. We for this year, we do not have this year would be like the start of the year, and we do not have much of a high target for that. But from next year onwards, we will be able to schedule a guidance.

45:13 Okay, sir. And with the increase in oil prices, has the vendors been reluctant? Or how how how has the effect of that win? I'm just trying to understand. I'm sorry. I did not get that. Can you repeat? Can you can you repeat the question? I didn't... I could not understand the question properly. Miss, can you hear me? Yes. That's better. Miss Dia? Due to no response from the participant, we move on to the next question.

46:05 The next question is from the line of from E and S Wealth. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. Sorry. I just had two more follow ups. One was, sir, I wanted to understand, you know, in this quarter, what percentage of booking has come online, you know, through our platforms or apps that we have? 14%. 14% has current in that. Okay. 1%. What was... Okay. And what was this last quarter? What was it? Around same. Yeah. 15 to seven. It's around around the same only, what he tells me. It's all the same. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And, sir, what was the current active client base that we have in this quarter?

46:55 Around 1,400 clients. Okay. So they are the active client base. Right? 1,400? This quarter. Yeah. So we have a long tail of clients. Some of them may be not be giving us business for a few months, and then they'll restart again. Yeah. But the clients are there. Yeah. So so when... How do we categorize an active client? I mean, the sense, like Any any client who's given us even as long as we have a signed contract with him. Okay. Typically, an organ... An organization who we have a signed contract with and who gives us a booking at least once in a quarter, so he's active. Okay. So even one booking a quarter that happens is an active client? Yes. Of course. Because they are using us. Right. Right. Right. Okay. And, sir, on the, like, on the on the number of clients that you added, you said you had more clients in terms of revenue on the ETS side. So if you could just help me understand how many clients we've added in this quarter on the ETS side.

47:59 We added 15 clients, one-five clients in the ETS side, which is one of the highest actually we've added in ETS in any quarter. And the rest, 46 clients from CCR. Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. That's appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. We take that as the last question of the day. I would now like to hand the conference over to mister Rajesh Lomba, Ecos (India) Mobility and Hospitality Limited for closing comments. Thank you very much for listening to us and for this opportunity given. We are hopeful of keeping the momentum going.

48:47 And we look forward to building on this moment, in fact, delivering a sustainable growth and creating greater value for our shareholders in the quarters ahead. So thank you once again. On behalf of AdFactors PR, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.