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  • CMP : 339.7 Chg : -1.85 (-0.54%)
  • Target : 725.0 (16.0%)
  • Target Period : 12-18 Month

25 Jan 2023

IT services growth likely to accelerate from here…

About The Stock

Sonata Software (Sonata) offers IT services (30%) and product licensing & deployment (70%).

  • The company provides IT services to travel, retail, agri & commodities and manufacturing and software vendors
  • Net debt free and healthy double digit return ratio (with RoCE of >30%)
Q3FY23 Results

Sonata reported overall strong Q3FY23 revenue numbers.

  • IT services dollar revenues grew 4.7% QoQ & 3.9% in CC terms
  • EBITDA margins in IT services declined 70 bps QoQ to 25.2%
  • The company closed four large deals in Q3
What should Investors do?

Sonata’s share price has grown by ~2.7x over the past five years (from ~₹ 233 in January 2018 to ~₹ 625 levels in January 2022).

  • We change our rating from HOLD to BUY on the stock
Target Price and Valuation

We value Sonata at ₹ 725 i.e. 18x P/E on FY25E EPS.

Key Triggers for future price performance
  • The new CEO announced a plan to double IT services revenue in four years, to be aided by large deal momentum and tuck in acquisition
  • Strong digital capabilities helping it to accelerate digital revenue growth enhancing digital revenue mix. i.e. 73% of mix now vs. 68% a year ago
  • Upgrades in Microsoft Dynamics and tapping Fortune 1000 clients in the medium to large category bode well for revenue growth
  • Robust hiring trend, winning large deals and inorganic growth prompt us to build IT service dollar revenue growth of over 16.7% CAGR over FY22-25E
Alternate Stock Idea

Apart from Sonata, in our IT coverage we also like Infosys.

  • Key beneficiary of improved digital demand, industry leading revenue growth and healthy capital allocation prompt us to be positive
  • BUY with a target price of ₹ 1,730

Key Financial Summary

Particulars FY20 FY21 FY22 5 Year CAGR(FY17-FY22) FY23E FY24E FY25E 3 Year CAGR (FY22-FY25E)
Net Sales 3,743.3 4,228.1 5,553.4 18.6 7,146.4 7,994.0 8,833.6 16.7
EBITDA 372.8 379.4 463.8 19.3 612.8 655.6 784.7 19.2
EBITDA Margin (%) 10.0 9.0 8.4 - 8.6 8.2 8.9 -
PAT 276.9 244.0 376.5 19.1 437.6 474.7 566.8 14.6
EPS (|) 26.7 23.5 27.2 - 31.2 33.9 40.4 -
P/E (x) 23.4 26.6 23.0 - 20.0 18.5 15.5 -
RoNW (%) 41.4 26.9 34.2 - 34.3 32.4 33.5 -
RoCE (%) 44.7 33.5 39.8 - 40.7 38.9 40.7 -
Source: Company, ICICI Direct Research

Key takeaways of recent quarter & conference call highlights

  • IT service dollar revenues increased 4.7% QoQ & 13.3% YoY to US$60.5 million, (3.9% in CC terms) while rupee revenue came in at | 489.6 crore, up 6.3% QoQ & 23.9% YoY. Domestic product business revenues grew 70.5% QoQ & 21.1% YoY to | 1,773.6 crore. Consolidated revenues increased 21.7% YoY to | 2,260.8 crore
  • IT service EBITDA margin (including other income) declined ~70 bps QoQ to 25.2% due to elevated employee cost & increased marketing spend in Q3. Domestic product business EBITDA declined ~160 bps QoQ to 2.9% while the consolidated EBITDA margin reported was 7.6% with a corresponding EBITDA of | 172.8 crore, up 4.3% QoQ
  • Geography wise the IT services revenue growth was driven by Europe (20% of mix) & RoW (27% of mix) reporting growth of 10.2% & 13% QoQ, respectively, while US (53% of mix) declined 0.9% sequentially. Vertical wise the growth was led by ISV & Manufacturing business reporting a growth of 12.1% & 11.8% QoQ respectively while Retail, Healthcare & Commodity segments were laggards reporting a decline of 8.3%, 4.8% & 2.6% QoQ, respectively
  • The company’s revenue from top 10 clients declined 0.7% QoQ while from Top 20 clients increased 6.3% QoQ. The company during the quarter added 20 new clients and for 9MFY23 it added 42 clients. The company’s US$1 mn+ revenue contributing clients increased by seven to 46 during the quarter implying it is gaining increased wallet share from its clients
  • The company indicated that it had hired 140 engineers to its teams & the total employee strength increased to 5,786. The company further mentioned that it will continue with fresher intake program & in Q4FY23 it will add ~150 freshers to its team
  • The new CEO reiterated that he is planning to double IT services revenue in four years as he is looking to accelerate the growth from hereon. He also mentioned that he continues to focus on large deals which along with enhancing presence in BFSI & Healthcare verticals would be building blocks to reach the growth target. The company also indicated that large part of this would be organic but did not rule out any tuck in acquisitions, which would be a subset of the targeted growth. The company also mentioned that it is not looking for inorganic opportunity for scale but largely a tuck in acquisition to cover up any white spaces. The company won four large deals in the quarter on the base of two large deals it declared last quarter
  • The company indicated that clients continue to spend on cloud migration as there is a need for the same. The company also indicated that it is making investments into their GTM (Go to Market) strategy in geographies like US, UK and India and verticals like TMT, Manufacturing, Travel verticals and also in their two new verticals of BFSI and Healthcare. The company has also appointed new CTO and also indicated that the company has created this role to drive the growth. The company also mentioned that in terms of product business, their partnership with Microsoft is progressing from strength to strength. The company also mentioned that at this moment, it is not seeing any softness in pipeline or in order book and it continue to be healthy. The company also mentioned it is also not getting any indication of slow growth from hyperscalers like Microsoft as well as Oracle. It, however, indicated that it is witnessing softness in some pockets of Hi-tech (pertains to couple of clients only)
  • The company indicated that four large deals it won were from cloud transformation, customer experience modernisation and also mentioned that none of these deals falls under vendor consolidation theme. First deal is with one of the largest utilities companies in US with revenues of more than US$14bn and over 13K+ employees with 15mn customers. The deal is of two-year duration. The company proposed a new solution to design, develop and implement new platform to enhance field management services as well customer experience. Second deal is with an Australian company, which is a manufacturer of road safety products with revenues of US$1.5bn and ~1.75 mn member. The company’s IT systems were running on legacy platform. Sonata will be modernising its IT stack as well as customer experience. The deal is for three years
  • The company also indicated that Travel vertical is seeing good momentum in the medium term as Tours and Travel companies continues their investments on cloud migration, customer experience on travel recovery globally. The company also indicated that bookings in the winter were also strong which indicates near term growth momentum. The company also indicated that its hiring for the medium term will be in line with its growth aspiration and since it is looking to double revenues in next four years, its employee strength, which is currently at 6,000 will likely also double in that timeframe. The company also indicated that due to its continued investments in talent, it is seeing 150 bps of margin hit for FY24. The company also indicated that margin hit for FY25 may not be that steep as seen in FY24 due to operating leverage will play out. The company also mentioned that pricing is also one the margin levers for them as its expertise is not categorised in commodity and market is ready to give premium to niche skills it is offering
  • On products business, the company indicated that their relationship with Microsoft continue to be strong and continue to work with them to get multiyear annuity deals. The company indicated that its quarterly annualised attrition has come down to 15% now while attrition for this quarter was 21%. The company also indicated that it will be watchful on attrition trend for the next few quarters to confirm the moderation as market for niche skills is still hot. The company indicated that it is expecting a wage hike impact of 120-150 bps in Q4 and it is likely to be absorbed in the next four quarters
 
Variance Analysis
 
   Q3FY23   Q3FY22   YoY (%)   Q2FY22   QoQ (%)  Comments
 Revenue         2,261        1,858          21.7        1,496            51.1 IT services reported 3.9% QoQ CC growth while rupee revenues grew by 6.3% QoQ while Domestic Products business grew by 70.5% QoQ 
Employee expenses           240           189          26.9           222              7.9  
Purchase of stock-in trade & other        1,755        1,457          20.5        1,019            72.3  
Gross Margin           266           212          25.1           255              4.2  
Gross margin (%)          11.7          11.4  32 bps           17.0  -529 bps   
Other expenses           109             81          35.7           100              9.1  
             
EBITDA           156           132          18.7           155              1.1  
EBITDA Margin (%)            6.9            7.1  -17 bps           10.3  -342 bps  EBITDA margins for IT services declined ~70bps QoQ to 25.2% while that of product business declined due by 160bps QoQ, due to increased talent retention cost & increased marketing spend
Depreciation & amortisation             14             13            7.4             14                -    
EBIT           143           119          19.9           141              1.2  
EBIT Margin (%)            6.3            6.4  -9 bps             9.4  -312 bps   
 Other income (less interest)              13             11          19.8               7            73.5  
PBT           155           130          19.9           148              4.7  
Tax paid             38             32          18.0             36              5.8  
PAT           118             98          20.5           113              4.4  

Disclaimer

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