Dear Shareholders,
As I reflect on FY24, it is a year where Tanla has displayed its resilience and
rebounded strongly after a challenging FY23. I will share my thoughts across three
dimensions:
A. Financial Performance
We delivered a strong revenue growth of 17% and all profitability metrics growing over
20%. I am a big believer in driving profitable growth I track profitability metrics more
than revenues. Therefore, it is a source of great satisfaction that we surpassed the
milestone of INR
1,000 Crores in gross profit and generated very strong free cash flows of over INR 400
Crores. Our gross margins improved by 194 basis points to 26.9%, while EBITDA improved by
111 basis points to 18.6%. Our EPS grew 23% YoY in the year.
Our financial performance also stands out in comparison with our global peers. Our
revenue growth, profitability metrics (EBITDA/PAT), and efficiency metrics
(GM to EBITDA conversion) are benchmarks for the industry. We trail only on gross
margin percentage with a leading global player, and we are addressing that through
increasing our digital platforms business.
The bedrock of our financial performance is our discipline towards capital allocation.
Out of the INR 590
Crores of operating cash flows generated in FY24, we invested INR 159 Crores towards
capital expenditure (around building new platforms and modernizing existing platforms),
INR 134 Crores as dividend payout, and INR 374 Crores towards strategic acquisitions.
We see a strong ROI on our investments our investments in platforms are
reflected in the new platforms we announced and deployed in FY24 like
Wisely ATP and Wisely MaaP. We closed our first commercial agreement with a bank on
Wisely ATP. We launched our MaaP platform for Google RCS and signed an MoU with Vodafone
Idea Business Services to deploy the MaaP platform in India.
Our track record of acquisitions continues to be stellar. When we announced the
ValueFirst acquisition from Twilio, we had said that it was a slam dunk acquisition. In
three quarters since the acquisition, I am happy that we integrated their India business
very quickly and have been able to drive double-digit EBITDA (from mid-single digits
pre-acquisition) resulting in an ROI of 20%+ on the acquisition payout based on exit run
rate.
This acquisition has been EPS accretive from the first quarter post-acquisition, once
again demonstrating our ability to create significant value through our strategic
acquisitions.
B. Business Performance
The digital interaction space is evolving in a very interesting way. On one hand,
enterprises are looking to enhance their quality of interactions with users, with a focus
on ROI. We are seeing the expansion of channels historically, it was only SMS but
now OTT channels like Meta WhatsApp, Google RCS, and Truecaller are also gaining strong
traction. On the other end of the spectrum, regulators are looking to protect users from
scams, and spam, and provide data privacy and data business, and innovation. security.
These are causing changing dynamics in the market. For example, we saw a significant shift
of ILD business from SMS to OTT channels during the year. performance with
We see higher conversions for promotional messaging through RCS and WhatsApp
this is driving enterprises to shift promotional messages (around 35-40% of the market) to
OTT channels, while SMS continues to be the preferred option for OTPs and transactional
messaging.
Tanla is very uniquely positioned to address the changing industry dynamics due to our
ability to work with the entire ecosystem customers, partners, and regulators.
While there is a lot of competition in the market, there is no competitor who addresses
the entire ecosystem.
Tanla serves over 2,000 customers with 323 customers giving us revenues of more than
INR 1 Crore a year. We have 21 customers who give us more than INR 50 Crores in revenue.
We work with industry leaders across all segments.
We also have the deepest partnerships with OTT players. We are the exclusive partner
for Truecaller. We are probably the largest partner of Google globally on RCS. On
WhatsApp, we have scaled our revenues 3.4X in FY24 compared to FY23. 33% of new customers
added during the year were on WhatsApp. In fact, we exited FY24 with OTT contributing 18%
of our consolidated revenues, a significant leap from 4% in FY23.
To me personally, what is most unique about Tanla is that we are the only company in
the CPaaS space that is focused on users. We have developed platforms to protect users
from spam and scam by working closely with regulators.
C. Innovation
Innovation is the core DNA of Tanla. We have built gigantic platforms, and our digital
platform business demonstrates all the characteristics of a SaaS business.
We operate the business at very high profitability levels (~70% EBIT), a very
predictable business (20%+ growth over the last four years), and monetizable at scale
(commercial model includes revenue share or subscription fee per user per month).
We have a track record of building gigantic platforms. We are embedding Wise Albert,
our Gen AI platform, in everything we do. For example, in Trubloq, our DLT platform, we
have reduced the time in the registration process by 90%+ with Gen AI. Our innovation is
reflected in the IP we create we have five granted patents for our flagship platform,
Wisely. We have also filed nine provisional patent applications for new products and
platforms, reflecting our dedication to advancing technology and setting industry
standards.
D. Way Forward
We are entering FY25 with clear strategic focus areas scaling our platform
business, attaining leadership in the OTT space, and expanding globally. I am personally
driving initiatives across these strategic focus areas, and I am very confident that we
will make significant progress here.
Why am I confident? We demonstrated our investments in these strategic areas to 30+
CXOs of enterprises from India and overseas as well as global partners like Google, Meta,
and Truecaller at our flagship event in Mobile World
Congress. We saw tremendous resonance with each of them. We have enterprises on our
side, and we have partners on our side with our innovation track record, we are
very optimistic about the opportunity ahead.
E. Recognition
FY24 was a year where we gained significant external validation.
We were named Visionary' in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for CPaaS. The only reason
why we were not leaders in the quadrant was due to our concentration in India. This is
something I am proud of we want to be leaders in the market that we operate in. As
we look at geographical expansion, we will be technology-led, and our aim will be to lead
in any market we enter.
We won the growth partner of the year' award from Meta for driving the WhatsApp
business. We were recognized as an Industry Mover' in the S&P Global's 2024
Sustainability Yearbook, highlighting our focus on ESG. Perhaps the icing on the cake was
London Business School's case study on Tanla's journey, a prestigious recognition that
motivates us to continually push boundaries and solidify our position as a global SaaS
leader.
I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all our stakeholders for
their unwavering support and contribution to our incredible journey. My team and I have
rolled up our sleeves and are working tirelessly towards a better tomorrow. Together, we
are shaping the future of digital communications and striving to make a lasting impact.
Thank you all for being part of this remarkable journey.