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Informist, Tuesday, May 20, 2025

By Avishek Rakshit & Gopika Balasubramanium

KOLKATA/MUMBAI – Defence public sector undertaking Bharat Electronics Ltd. is eyeing a revenue growth of 15.0-17.5% in the next 4-5 years and a top-line growth of 20% after five years, Chairman and Managing Director Manoj Jain said Tuesday.

"I can tell you that growth, what I want to have, definitely should be minimum 15%. So, 15.0% to 17.5%, and after five years, we want to touch even 20%", Jain told sector analysts in a post-earnings call Tuesday. Bharat Electronics declared its earnings for the quarter and the year ended Mar. 31 Monday evening. "But right now, it is 15.0% to 17.5% growth what I am looking at, and I am confident, we will definitely achieve it in the next five years. And about profit also, now we are giving consistently more than 20%."

In the ongoing financial year, the company has guided for a revenue growth of 15%, and an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation margin of 27%.

The Navratna defence public sector undertaking reported a net profit of INR 21.05 billion in the quarter ended March as against INR 17.8 billion in the year-ago quarter. The revenue, which also beat the Street, rose around 7% on year to INR 91.2 billion in Jan-Mar as against INR 85.3 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Jain said that the company is expecting to receive orders of INR 270 billion in the ongoing financial year.

Bharat Electronics is expecting order inflow for subsystems of the Indian Navy's Next Generation Corvette initiative which will be placed by the shipyards manufacturing these vessels. Although the shipyards manufacture ships and other vessels, many technological systems like radar, sonar and others are procured from other companies and fitted in the vessels by the shipyard. Hence, Bharat Electronics is optimist of bagging orders for these kind of subsystems.

"Next Generation Corvette, for that, there are so many items of BEL (Bharat Electronics Ltd.) So, we are expecting a major order of that subsystems, because that will come from one of the shipyards only, or two of the shipyards," Jain said. "We are hoping that majority of those subsystems, there are around 10 to 12 subsystems, which are there on these type of ships. So those will come in this year."

In addition, the company may also bag the orders for electronic warfare systems under the Shatrughat and Samaghat programmes of the defence forces.

This apart, Jain said that orders will also flow in from many other equipment making initiatives of the Indian armed forces like radar systems, drones, anti-drone warfare and others. It is also eyeing projects under the Indian armed forces' emergency defence procurement scheme. Jain said that the company will get more clarity on which all orders are coming to the company from the Indian forces in the next 7-10 days.

"We are expecting Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air Missile order, hopefully before March, but it may slip to Apr-May (2026) also. Right now, we are thinking it may come by Feb-Mar itself, because good progress is there on that front. But worst case, it may be shifted by one quarter," Jain said.

The Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air Missile order is alone valued at INR 300 billion.

The company is also eying to increase exports and is targeting revenues of $120 million from it in 2025-26 (Apr-Mar). Jain said that some of the equipment and technologies developed by Bharat Electronics were used during Operation Sindoor and its performance in the military operation was good.

"That gives us much more confidence. And our users also much more confidence on this complex technological solution, which we have made for them. But that perception of them will not only improve our order book from Indian users, but definitely it will help us export some of these solutions or variants of these solutions to various countries worldwide," Jain said.

Jain said that the company needs to invest on building the requisite infrastructure to achieve the intended revenue growth and will open new plants in the next 2-4 years.

"On the capex (capital expenditure) front itself, you might have noticed that we have increased our investment. And next, in subsequent years, we have a really good growth plan. I can assure you, it will be more than 1,000 crore (INR 10 billion) per year," Jain said. "We are having plans of making new factories at important locations in India, which will be, some of them will be even bigger than our present establishment."

At 1254 IST, shares of Bharat Electronics traded 0.7% higher at INR 366.30 on the National Stock Exchange. End

US$1 = INR 85.51

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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