Laxmi Dental Limited (LAXMIDENTL) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Lakshmi Dental Q4 FY26 results conference call hosted by Motilal Oswal Financial Services. This conference may contain forward-looking statements about the company which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements do not guarantee the future performance of the company, and it may involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. 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. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Tushar Manudhani from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thanks, Alaric. Good morning, everyone. Myself, Tushar Manudhani on behalf of Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Welcome you all to Q4 and full year 26 earnings conference call of Laxmi Rental Limited. From the management side, we have with us today Mr. Rajesh Kakkar, Chairperson and Whole-Time Director, Mr. Samir Merchant, Managing Director and CEO, and Mr. Dharmesh Dattani, Chief Financial Officer. I now hand over the call to Mr. Rajesh Kakkar for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

Thank you so much, Tushar, for the introduction. Good morning, everybody. Warm welcome to all of you, and thanks for joining our earnings call. On this call, we are joined by our MD and CEO, Samir Merchant, CFO, Mr. Dharmir Dattani, and Strategic Growth Advisor, our Investor Relations Advisors. The results and the presentations are uploaded on the Stock Exchange and Company website. I hope everybody has had a chance to look at them. I am pleased to share that quarter 4 FY26. has panned out as per our expectations and we close the year with a strong exit quarter, delivering highest ever quarterly numbers across key metrics. Our annual performance is especially noteworthy as it was delivered amid a challenging global environment marked by U.S. tariffs volatility. Intensifying competitions in the domestic aligner segment, labour code transitions, and several other external headwinds during FY26. We remain vigilant in the evolving microeconomics and geopolitical landscape and continue to respond with agility and resilience. Revenue for Q4F526 stood at INR 74 crores, representing year-on-year growth of 22%, gross profit margin stood at 70.5%, which is a minor improvement sequentially, despite a relatively higher sales contribution from scanners, which usually comes at a lower margin. Excluding Scanner sales, our gross margin for cold dental business remains stable at around 76% in Q4 FY26. Scanner plays a strategic and important role in advancing our digital dentistry mission, which driving the growth of cold dental business in the long-term scenario. It is profitable position for the business towards digitalization and with a relatively lower margin profile. This represents a win-win situation for both Lakshmi Dental as well as dentist. EBITDA and PET margins for the quarter were recorded at a healthy level of 18.3% and 13.6% respectively. The improvement in the margin is despite a half-quarter impact of... U.S. tariff reaching on our EBITDA margin by around 74 bps. Currently, the tariff situation is better and we are paying about 10% tariff on our U.S. exports. In line with this, our international price, peace of business is growing at a healthy pace. And we expect a healthy momentum to continue throughout the year, given the operational environment remains stable going ahead. We are also continuously working on diversifying our international business across other geographies. Further on the West Asia conflict, we do not see any major impact during the quarter. from the region which do not have any material impact on the overall team of teams. Considering multiple unusual difficulties and micro-challenges throughout the year, along with a soft third quarter, we still close FY26 with a healthy growth of 16.2% year-on-year, while requiring a good set of margins. EBITDA margin stepped at 15.6% and PET recorded 10.4% for the year. FY26 has not been without challenges, but every challenge has made us a stronger, more resilient organization. Our decision to defend our scanner deployment strategy, invest in AI capabilities through AI DENT, and aggressively pursue export Certification reflects our continuous efforts towards long-term growth aspirations. These are the seeds of the next phase of growth. Now I will request Samir to give you some more color on our business performance during the quarter. Thank you.

Thank you, Rajesh Bhai. As mentioned in the previous quarter, we had undertaken few corrective measures and implemented innovative strategies. Marking fourth quarter as a recovery quarter, just like we anticipated. I am pleased to share that the company delivered a strong and a broad-based performance across all business segments during the quarter. This performance reflects the consistent efforts and disciplined execution of our sales and operations team. During the quarter, we focused on increasing our digital penetration via scanner sales, Expanded our geographic reach through promotional activities, and improved our operational efficiencies with innovative processes and systems. And lastly, launched a new AI-connected remote dental platform known as iScope 360. Dentistry is evolving drastically and has reached a stage where presence is not limited to a dental chair. The product iScope 360 offers a remote scanning, real-time monitoring, oral health tracking, and virtual consultation without a physical clinic visit. This not only improves the efficiency of a dentist, but also helps to save patients' time and offers flexibility and convenience. This can be an additional offering that we are providing to our dentist network. Now, I will take you through the segmental performance for the quarter. Our dental lab business recorded its highest ever quarterly revenue of 45.9 crore with a growth of 27% year-on-year. This growth was driven by a strong recovery in the domestic business coupled with the highest ever revenue from our international operations. Our international lab business delivered a robust growth of 40.9% YOY. In USA, we continued to absorb higher tariff costs in the first half of the quarter, which was normalized in the latter half. However, due to uncertain environments, the scale-up in the U.S. business happened gradually in a cautious manner. In addition to USA, we remain focused in expanding our product reach with deeper penetration into other countries and also working towards adding new markets. Overall, momentum remains positive for the international business while maintaining a healthy profitability. Speaking of domestic business, it delivered a solid growth of 16.3% year-on-year. We were able to sail through near-term headwinds in this business and delivered revenues of 23.7 crores. We remain committed towards scaling this business meaningfully on the back of industry consolidation, rising awareness, AI-enabled technology innovations, brand play, and stricter regulatory norms. The Align the Solution business also delivered a stable performance for the quarter. Bizdent, our clear aligner business in India, witnessed a meaningful recovery from the previous quarter and recorded a healthy growth of 10.9% on YOY basis. Vidya, our aligner raw metal business, remained stable sequentially and reported a revenue of 7.3 crore. As this business has large international presence, some delaying orders were observed due to the higher freight cost in the month of March, led by the global uncertainties. The business evolved into an important growth driver for the company and will remain confident in its healthy growth prospects going forward. Speaking of our pediatric dental business, Kizzi Dental, the revenue stood for the quarter at 5.4 crores. Now, our digital penetration in the domestic lab business stands at around 80% and we are targeting over 90% digital penetration over the medium term. Each scanner placed is a long-term revenue driver for our laboratory and aligners. I want to reaffirm our conviction in the long-term opportunity before us. India's dental market is structurally underpenetrated, and the shift towards digital dentistry is accelerating the business. And Lakshmi Dental as India's only fully integrated dental product company is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation. Thank you, and I now hand over it to Mr. CFO Dharmij Dattani to take it forward.

Thank you so much. Allow me to walk you through our financial performance. Let me give you a glance at our consolidated financial performance during Q4 F526. We achieved our highest ever revenue from operations at Rs. 74 crore, reflecting a healthy YOY growth of 31.9% compared to 60.7 crore last year. Gross profit for the quarter increased by 9.1% YOY to 52.1 crore with gross margins coming in at 70.5%. Employee cost for the quarter stood at 26.8 crore remains stable sequentially and registering a YOY increase of 9.6%. Other expenses for the quarter stood at Rs. 11.9 crore as compared to 13.8 crore in the corresponding period last year. It includes an ECL credit of 91 lakhs in Q4 FY26. The company reported EBITDA of Rs. 13.5 crore for the quarter, up 41.8% YOY, while EBITDA margins expanded to 18.3% compared to 15.7% in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA, which includes recorded EBITDA, 60% of Kipsy Dental PET, 49% of IDBG-AIDIN PET and ISOF expenses, this stood at Rs. 7.1 crore. For better understanding of our performance, one can look at the profit before tax and exceptional items, which has almost doubled from Q4 FY25 and stood at Rs. 11.1 crore. Finance cost for the quarter stood at 0.3 crores compared to 1.3 crore last year. The company remains debt-free. Recorded tax benefit of INR 1.3 crore in Q4 F526 related to the one-time exceptional item on virtual expense recognized in Q3 F526 pursuant to changes in the labor code. We reported a profit after tax of Rs. 10.1 crore for the quarter compared to Rs. 4.3 crore in Q4 F525. Coming to our F526 performance. Revenue from operations stood at Rs. 277.9 crore, registering a growth of 16.2% over 239.1 crore in the previous year. EBITDA for the period stood at Rs. 43.4 crore, while adjusted EBITDA came in at Rs. 51.1 crore. Profit before tax and exceptional items stood at Rs. 34.7 crore with 40% YOY growth. The company reported a profit-after-tax of Rs. 28.9 crores with a margin of 10.4%. We have done a capex of around 18.4 crores in FY26. Our cash and bank balance including investments stood at around Rs. 99 crores. With this, we conclude our opening remarks and open the floor for Q&A. Thank you.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touchtone 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 assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Ajay with Nivashay. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on the performance. Sir, my question is on the aligner business. So, sir, first of all, if you can maybe break the export and domestic mix in the aligner business for both visitant and media. And sir, business side question on business. Sir, when I see the business revenue for FY25 versus FY26, it has more or less remained flat. And I mean, the Indian domestic aligner business market is clearly growing at a very rapid pace. And in Q4, we have gained some momentum on this side of business. So can you please break down the business performance in terms of volume growth or the pricing or what percentage of Q4 recovery was pricing normalization or was it like any genuine volume recovery?

Thank you. I think coming to your two questions, now between BizDent and Vidya, in terms of aligner, BizDent is purely domestic, and Vidya is a raw metal business where minor percentage is India, but majority of the percentage is international. Now, coming to a question of business, yes, I think in last couple of quarters, we explained about the situation regarding the pricing pressure. But we wanted on our side as management to preserve the margins. And I think we have done that. That is what it shows. And like you said, we have seen recovery back in Q4. And we are confident that as we move forward, we will keep evaluating whether in terms of putting pressure on the pricing versus margins and growing. So that's the balanced approach that we will always keep evaluating internally, and based on that, we will keep taking action in the future. Coming back to your question of aligners growing, yes, it's growing, but we as management, we always see if the growth is coming at the cost of the margins, then we always have a balanced approach. But moving forward, we are confident that we have done a few new things, and one of the things that we spoke about in the presentation is iScope 360 that also helps to monitor aligner, which as an Indian company we have launched. In India, a remote aligner monitoring service. So this value add should give us some headwinds towards the aligner business in the future.

Understood, sir. Sir, you said that VDR is majorly for export market. So, sir, I wanted to understand, like, I mean, then basically external customers for whom we are selling in the export market. Are able to scale up faster than our present part? I mean, does that suggest like competition are gaining share at our extent? Like we are supplying the components which make those aligners. So maybe if you can help us understand on that side, or maybe is it something to do with approvals which we are yet remaining with?

So I think the material business is sold through a distributor in different parts of the world. So if you are selling, say, in 30, 40, 50 countries, we have distributors who are selling it to either orthodontists in their respective country or aligner companies. So technically, there is no competition because, you know, as illusion aligners, you know, we are not in Germany, we are not in Spain, we are not in, you know, in other countries where we are actively competing with them to get the aligner business. So this is the material business that we are selling. So irrespective of us selling, you know, they are currently buying, say, from two or three different companies which are present in their country. So we are one of them and we are trying to also expand our material business since we have worked hard a lot in the past in creating this material business. For our company, you know, it's been almost six, seven years that we have done this, and we have started penetrating in multiple countries very recently. Some of them are older, some of them are very newer, based on registrations. So we are confident that this business, we should be able to expand it in multiple countries, and we should see some good results over the next two to three years.

I'm interested. Sir, my next question is on the scanner business. Sir, I guess we took a, I mean, strategic decision of deploying scanner at a rapid pace. Maybe that will help us gain the laboratory business. So, sir, wanted to ask, like, we have, again, aggressive plan on the scanner deployment. So, post the last two, three quarters, the strategic decision, what percentage of scanners? Our scanner equipped dentists are now maybe sending us our digital lab orders or how has that percentage increased? And from those laboratory orders, how is the translation to maybe the aligner business? And are we seeing any average order value increase from a scanner dentist versus maybe a non-scanner dentist who doesn't use R? That will help us understand the business or how this strategy is spanning out.

I will give you some answers. I can't give you all the answers because there are a lot of IP of how we do the scanner business. But on a general sense, a scanner dentist will always have higher growth than a non-scanner dentist. So if you speak to any of the dentists that you go to, if they have a scanner, this can be validated by any dentist. If I deploy a scanner in my practice, I am bound to grow by some percentage faster than the dentist who is non-digital. So, in terms of our revenues, yes, I can say that any scanner dentist will always have slightly more revenue in terms of percentage, and they will keep growing in the future as compared to a non-digital dentist. And even if you see our today's percentage of physical versus digital, we are already 80% digital. So, 80% of the impressions coming in for crown bridges, aligners, and all of that amalgamated. You know, on the aligner side is almost very, very high because we started the business very recently, three or four years back, and the combined ratio is about 80%. So the goal is to reach a threshold of 90%.

Understood, sir. And, sir, like, I mean, just on the, like, increasing prescription from, are we seeing positivity on that front? If you can comment anything on that?

Definitely, you know, you see, that's why, you know, the numbers in Q4 are speaking for itself, that we have seen positive intent. But moving forward, you know, see, we always want to separate our core business from the scanner business. Scanner business is for us an enabler. So as we keep moving forward in the scanner business, you know, we have to see that as we keep maintaining our profitability on the scanner business, we keep moving ahead. I think in the future, there will be a time where scanner will become more of a commodity business. So the goal right now is to deploy as many as possible before it becomes that and try and leverage the network that we are building of the scanner doctors in terms of growth for our aligner and dental business both.

I would request you to rejoin the queue. Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and want to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Kaushal Shah with Tanki Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, congratulations, sir. Great set of numbers for Q4. Sir, just some detailing on the aligner business. You spoke about Vidya and Bizdent both, but if you can just maybe throw some more color on the challenges we are facing both in Vidya. Bizdent, of course, has seen some recovery in Q4 versus Q3, but Vidya business, I mean, despite, you know, I would presume the INR would have depreciated by maybe 5% Q4 versus Q3. But despite that, our numbers are lower compared to Q3. So if you, I mean, are these kind of structural challenges or we see them reversing in this year?

So, I don't think, in fact, you know, on Q4, we mentioned that there were some shipments which we could not send because of the higher freight costs for the current situation, because the freight cost was almost double or some, in scenarios, almost 3x. But on a Y-Y side, if you see here on here, Vidya has done good growth, and even in the future, expect that it will grow nice. So, this was only short term, I would say, you know. March being a quarter-end, if the shipments can't be sent in March, if it's sent in April, then the revenue cannot be recorded. But on a YOY basis, it has done well, and we don't see any uncertainty in this business.

On the business side, sir, how do you see the prospects?

Even on business, you know, Q4, like it showed, that it's going up, we feel that we are putting in a lot of efforts. And like I said, you know, maintaining margins is one of our important criteria, but at the same time, I think it will also grow.

Okay. So, next up, the lab division, we are at, I mean, Q4 numbers are obviously much better than what we have done in the last three, four quarters. In terms of trajectory, how do we see this both domestic as well as international panning out? You know, we are at roughly, let's say, 40-45 crores quarterly run rate. Let's say over the next two years or so, where do we see that run rate going to? Maybe, you know, quarterly there can be too many variations, but on a yearly basis if you can also comment.

So I think even if you see, you know, dental lab business for both domestic and international, international has done better. But on both sides, we are confident on the next two to three years that this will continue growing. Now to give you a pinpoint number today, as on today may not be possible. But if you see in the most challenging year, post our first IPO first year, you know, we have had so many challenges from labor courts to tariffs to a lot of other situations, you know, we have still done well. So, that tells you the resilience that I have as an organization. And, you know, if the situation persists, what it is right now, you know, in terms of microdynamics, you know, we are still doing well, and if situation becomes favorable, you know, I am sure we will do better.

Sure. And, finally, sir, on the scanner sales, if you can share the volume that we have done for the current quarter?

For the current quarter? Yeah, let me just check. Yeah, so 211 on a yearly basis is 1009.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Deepak Poddar with Safaya Capital. Please go ahead.

Hello, sir. I'm audible. Thank you very much, sir, for this opportunity. So, just wanted to understand now this quarter we have seen a very good margin improvement, right? I mean, I believe that is largely because of operating leverage, because your revenue has improved with maintaining your gross margin, but your cost side, it has remained largely flattish. So, how should one look at margins going forward? I mean, do you expect this margin to continue or? Oh, yeah, yeah. And do you think on that front would be very helpful?

Sure. So, you know, our nature of business is such that as the revenue is improved, you know, our cogs are pretty much stable. Our people cost is pretty much stable in lines. And, you know, cogs may go proportionately to the sales, but people cost will be disproportionate to the sales. That's the plan moving forward because we're investing in a lot of automation. We're investing in a lot of digital dentistry. So based on those parameters, it should definitely be in this range. Our goal internally is to improve this, and we feel it will improve. But how and when will pan out as we move towards year one, year two? But in terms of fundamental of business, as we keep growing the business, our cost structure, especially in terms of people, will have that impact. And we will definitely get the operational leverage as we move forward.

Okay. So, FY27, we maintain such kind of margins for next year, FY27?

I wish I could guide you at this point in time, but you know how the situation is. But on our side, internally, if you ask us, you know, we definitely want to do better than what we have done over the next two to three years.

Okay. And how should one look at your growth for next two to three years?

I would say similar to what we have done in the past. If you see what we have done in the last couple of years, I would say over the last year we did, last to last year was 24%, this year was 16%, even in the situation which was very tough. So we don't see a challenge that over the next 2-3 years we should grow at a similar trajectory.

So a 20% CAGR is a fair point.

No, no, I am not commenting on that number, but like I said, we have done 16 in probably the toughest year possible, so based on that, I think we will do fine over the next 2-3 years.

Okay, I understand. And any KPIX plans for FY27?

Yes, so we have the IPO proceeds still with us in terms of CAPEX. We have done, like Dharmij Bhai said, about 80 crores last year. So we plan to deploy CAPEX based on the operational capabilities. So we see the revenues growing and based on that, we will keep balancing out the CAPEX.

Okay, and just one last thing. What's our export revenue share?

Export revenue is about 33-34%.

33, 33. And you expect to increase? And how should one look at this trajectory?

I think, you know, both sides have tremendous potential, whether it's export or domestic. So, again, if you ask us, we are not more focused always on what's the percentage, you know, for us, what's the opportunity. If the opportunity on the export side is faster, better, you know, the energies are put that way, if the opportunities on India side is better, we will do that. And if both sides are looking, you know, in terms of macro dynamics, very potential, then we will push on those sides as well.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's very helpful, sir. I mean, I wish you all the best. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and want to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Tushar Manudhane with Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Just from the iScope 360, if you can, you know, while the launch has been recent, but seems a pretty interesting product, maybe initial pillar, and is there any competition for such product, you know, if you can, you know, throw some light on this. That's my first question.

Thank you, Dushar. I think that product is interesting. It took some time for us to get it because we believe the future of dentistry is not just a clinic visit. There has to be tools which can enable the patient and the dentist to do remote dentistry. Medical, and a lot of situations already have this feature, where you don't need to visit a doctor. You can consult a doctor online. You know, you can get your blood test in your own city, and the doctor could be in any city, but you can still consult, because every information can be shared digitally. In dentistry, that's one of the challenges, where the intraoral situation of the patient is very hard for the dentist to gauge, apart from the x-ray. So this is where this makes it very active. You know, for aligner patients, they don't need to visit often the dentist. They can just send their pictures and the dentist can know how the treatment is going. So it improves the efficacy of the treatment. It improves the compliance of the patient. In terms of oral health, you know, it's quite surprising that majority of patients in India have an oral health situation, but they don't know about it. So if you use this, you know, in about two minutes, you use your regular phone. Now, iScope 360 can be connected to any phone that you have. So you can use your normal phone, connect it, scan within a minute, and you will be able to see if there are any issues, whether it's plaque, whether it's tartar, whether it's cavities, whether it's gum lacerations, all of that can be viewed instantly. And the third part, which is again very interesting, is the dentist can connect over a video call using this scope, checking your intraoral mouth situation. So, we are very, I would say, You know, excited about the whole prospect. Like you said, it's just a very recent launch. It may take, you know, a little bit of time in adoption and understanding, but this is the future. It has been done in US and Europe, not to the three extent that we have launched. They are only doing currently aligner monitoring. We have launched the three bouquets of whole product, which is the monitoring, the health, and the video call. So while we are excited, you know, we'll keep evaluating how they move in India and across the world.

So this would be like complimentary to the scanners or this is like a, you know, sort of a dentist that will have to have a different sort of an agreement for this and this is specifically only sort of, what do I say, kind of a razor blade only for Lakshmi Dental product users or the doctors who are onboarded only on the Lakshmi Dental platform, if you can elaborate on that.

So currently, it is on Lakshmi Dental Platform doctors in India. So at the same time, we are evaluating the export options as well, because this product can be used by, you know, basically any dentist in any territory of the world, since it's a digital product. And this is more of a B2B to see where, you know, as a patient now, you know, we have a child at home, say we have our parents at home, we have our NRI friends, we have a foreign tourist, how do they connect to a dentist? What is the way the dentist can evaluate the intraoral situation of a patient without the patient visiting in clinic? This is a tool which helps that. So there are a lot of videos that we have posted on YouTube and Instagram for people to see of how this can be done. And like I said, we are genuinely excited that this does not compete with the scanner. In fact, it's complementary to the scanner. Now, scanner is when the patient comes to the clinic. But if the patient is at home or in any other city, how do you evaluate interval? You know, a lot of times, and I'll tell you my personal experience, I was traveling in Europe and, you know, eating those European breads, I got some gum lacerations. So I didn't know what to do, you know, what medicine to take. So I contacted my dentist because it was the back of the teeth. The photos couldn't be taken. Fortunately, I had the scope. You scan the dentist, saw it live and said, you know what, Samir, looks okay. Just go to any pharmacy shop in Germany, ask for this medicine, not the brand name, but this medicine. I took it, applied for two days and it's done. Otherwise, as a patient, you wouldn't know what's going on.

So, how are you going to charge this to patients? Because it is like, of course, you are reducing the communication gap for sure. But then as a user or as a, let's say, a doctor, is there any subscription charge to this? Or what is the mode of revenue?

So, the revenue is first to sell the scope. So, the scope is currently retailed at about Rs. 2000. So, that dentist can sell to the patient at a retail price and we will give it to the dentist. So, it is dentist-driven. So, basically, there is a lot of loyalty factor that we have built. So, if a dentist gives you a scope, you cannot use the app and the scope unless you connect to a dentist. As an independent patient, you can't because you don't know where to send. So, dentist gives you the scope, he connects you over a QR code or sending you an invitation on your email address. That's how you get connected to the dentist. After that, once they start using the scope, there are subscription points that the dentist have to buy, you know, a point for every oral health situation, a point for every VC call, a point for every time he wants to evaluate you, so that the dentist buys those points, and then it's between the dentist and the patient of how he wants to offer the service. Does he want to offer you a paid service? You have already done aligners worth, say, 1 lakh from him. He wants to offer you complimentary. You have had an implant done from him or a crown done from him, and he wants to offer this complimentary to you, or he wants to charge you. That's at the discretion of the dentist. But our business is with the dentist.

So, sorry for extending this, but probably if you can make this available on, let's say, a pharmacy, so that, you know, then on one side you have patients, on another side you have a group of dentists who a patient can look at, and probably, you know, get them service on the portal, rather than specifically restricting himself to a particular doctor.

So, in the future, again, you know, it's very dynamic in nature how this business will pan out. Like I said, it's just very, very recent, probably a week or two that it has been launched. The dentist has to educate the patient here first. I think the education part is a very important aspect over the next one or two years in terms of patient understanding how to use it, when to use it, how to connect with your trusted dentist. Usually, patients don't change the dentist very easily. So, that trust factor of the dentist to the patient is very important. In the future, if things may pan out, if we want to, you know, give this over a B2C or a D2C direct platform, that can be evaluated. But today, we feel the dentist has to be involved in this ecosystem to explain to the patient of how to use, when to use, and how to diagnose the right situation. That is the current goal.

Got it. Very helpful. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nitesh Gupta with Samarud Bharat. Please go ahead. Yes, Nitesh, please go ahead with your question.

So, I just want to understand the export percentage to the U.S. and after this trade deal normalization, what we can expect?

Sure. So currently, the U.S. percentage is 20% of our revenue. And, you know, at 10%, the situation is, I would say, better than 50%. But before, it was zero to us. So there is still some percentage. But I think U.S. has done well. You know, if you look at the numbers, the U.S. has done well. And we don't see any situation of why it should not keep doing well over the next few years. I think we are positioned very well. We have done a lot of work in the U.S. over the past years. At 10%, it's not a deal breaker. So 10% does not create a situation where business can't be done. You know, 50% was very, very steep. So over the medium to long term, we don't see it as an issue.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and want to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Nitin Gandhi from Enoch Advisors. Please go ahead. Since there is no response from the participant, we move to the next participant. The next question comes in from the line of Ajay with Nevasay. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the follow-up opportunity. Sir, my question is on the competition. Maybe you can elaborate. Sir, for the export market for laboratory, I guess, Heartland Dental was one of the largest U.S. BSO partners. And U.S. is, I guess, around 20% of the company's revenue. So, wanted to understand, like, is there any renewal or contract review timeline with Heartland Dental because of the, maybe, tariff situation and how things are quite uncertain over there. So, is there any renewal or any change in the contract? And I also wanted to understand like, I mean, we had plans of adding few more DSOs. So any update on that? Or what timelines are we expecting to maybe add those things.

So I think to your question number one, there has been no change. In fact, like I said, the situation has become better than what it was, 50% to 10%. So we don't see any challenge for the U.S. business. And regarding adding DSOs, I think even if we add, probably will not call out inner calls. You know, if the U.S. business is doing well, I think we are happy and shareholders should be happy that it's going well. Heartland all out was the special because they are the biggest in the world. So this was more of an assurance to the shareholders that if you are able to get someone like Heartland over us, then it's an important piece that our quality standards, a lot of our business standards are at a good level. So, based on that, you know, future will keep adding, and we have added, and we will keep adding in the future also, different DSOs.

So, sir, just one question on this follow-up. So, like, so, in our US, export revenue, Heartland would be the major contributor?

No. We are pretty diversified.

And sir, on the domestic competition, I guess, I mean, because there are a lot of regional players and also the industry is quite unorganized. And there is a lot of funding activity as well, like players, like, I mean, I don't want to really name, but...

See, competition, Ajay, have been since 35 years of us doing business. Now, if you tell us, was there competition or not? The answer is yes. 20 years later, will there be competition? The answer is yes. So that will never change. You know, in the past, yeah, probably non-funded competitors and now funded competitors. But we are also funding. We are sitting with 99 crores cash in hand. So we know how to deploy, where to deploy.

I just wanted to ask more on like how is the situation maybe in terms of maybe is it like we have to provide more credit or how are we maybe trying to beat that competition or gain more market share? The question was more on that. I truly agree the competition has been there and Lakshmi has been growing very well and fighting this competition, but wanted to understand more on how do we strategize to win the market share over the years.

So now in general, you know, what we do, I cannot give you details of how we want to win over the market. But in general, what we have done in the past, you know, innovation is one of our key components that we always keep innovating. Digitization, we have already called out that we will digitize. And then there are a lot of other micro and micro things that we will do based on the understanding of, you know, market. ...experience to grow this. But on the general, I can tell you that, you know, we will always try and win over the dentist with our digital automation and the innovation that we will bring to the market.

Got it. Sir, one question on the KidZ Dental and the Pediatric Dental. So, I guess you mentioned that international registrations are in progress. So, wanted to understand maybe if you can give some timeline for the maybe EU or US approval and the revenue potential once the approval comes through.

I think question 2, the potential is very good. It's true. Coming back to the timeline, I think in the past we have tried, but again, say this is all, you know, regulatory bodies. So it's very, very hard to predict. They give us a timeline, we probably call out a timeline, you know, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't happen. Because that's completely out of our control. And when they give us a timeline, it's always a very tentative. There is nothing to go back to them and tell them, you know, you said it will be six months, why not it will be nine months? Or you said it will be two years, why not it will be nine months? They don't answer you. So right now, like you said, we are in active phase of registration. We have cleared a few steps of registration. How and when it will come? As it comes, I think the good thing that we should do is once the registration comes, we should call out that we have achieved the registration versus giving a timeline.

Got it, sir. And, sir, like, because we are sitting on a lot of cash, so are we also looking for any acquisition or merger with maybe some of the smaller labs to consolidate the market or acquiring some IP or tech front in the aligners to maybe differentiate further ourselves? Or is it like we just focus on organic growth from now onward?

I can't give you all the details, but what we can tell you is since day one, when we started the business or even today post our IPO, we always keep our eyes and ears open. If there is an opportunity, we will decide, we will see if it brings value to Lakshmi Dental, we will go ahead with the opportunity. When, which sector, what type of situation that we will call out once it's done and not before that. Got it.

Can I ask you more questions?

Sorry to interrupt, Ajay. I would request you to rejoin the queue for more questions. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Akash with Investec Capital Services. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi, sir, and congratulations on the recovery in fourth quarter. So, just some broad-based questions, sir. In third quarter, you were told that, you know, that the EBITDA margins of 18% to 20% and gross margins of 75% to 80% will, you know, eventually be achieved by FI 27 or FI 28. So, and also the pat margins of 13 to 15%. Now, given the overall geographical construct and your recovery, do you still, you know, do you still keep or maintain the same?

Okay, so if you see what we have done for the quarter or even on, you know, on the early basis, we have maintained those margins. Our gross margins, removing the scanner, is at 75%. You know, EBITDA margins for the quarter is at 18%. So we, again, are confident to, I think, do what we have done in the past. But again, calling out anything today based on the current situation. Is not what we want to do today. And we will come back to you with an appropriate time when we feel that we can give this call out. But today, I think what two parts, you know, one, I think we have done well. So it's a good sign for the company and two. That is an answer to everyone that we will keep doing well. Whatever has happened in Q3 was an exception. In the future, unless something major comes up, microdynamic, which is out of our control, anything which is out of our control, it's very difficult for us to give an answer to. But we at the management for 35 years have been working extremely hard to make sure that we succeed, and we really want to do well in this space because there is tremendous opportunity. The awareness is increasing, you know, in terms of the global positioning, things are hopefully in the future will become fine. So I think we are pretty confident internally.

And just one last question. Sir, I kind of did some sort of channel checks with some of the dentists, and when it comes to invisible aligners, I think that not many have heard about, you know, Lakshmi's products. So how do you see your product faring versus the other, you know, other well-known competitors in the market?

So, I think one thing we try and explain to a lot of investors and shareholders is, in India, Lakshmi Dental Limited, you know, if you ask someone, especially dentists, they will not know. You know, investor community, because they keep tracking, they will know. Dentists in India know us as illusion. So, whether it's illusion dental, which is our lab, or illusion aligners, which is our aligner business. So if you ask for that, they would have heard the name. If they're doing business or not, like I said, today we are doing business with 22,000 dentists and aligners. There are maybe 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 dentists. India has 3 lakh dentists. So definitely we have not reached to 3 lakh dentists, but that's the potential. That is where the potential lies that as an organization, we have just started branding our products. It's been three or four years, and we feel over the long term this branding will pay off, and we will be accessible to many more dentists.

Okay, okay. Okay, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing remarks.

Thank you. With this, I conclude the call. If you have any further queries, please contact ASGA, our Investor Relations Advisors. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today on this earning call. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.