STL's record Q1FY27: PAT at ₹197 Cr, margin hits 20.8% as revenue grows 87% YoY

Sterlite Technologies posted its strongest quarter on record: consolidated revenue of ₹1,910 Cr (+87.4% YoY from ₹1,019 Cr, +32.5% QoQ from ₹1,441 Cr), EBITDA of ₹397 Cr at a 20.8% margin, and PAT of ₹197 Cr — up from just ₹10 Cr a year ago and ₹59 Cr last quarter. Net profit margin expanded to 10.3% from 1.0% YoY and EBITDA margin from 13.7% YoY (15.1% QoQ) to 20.8%, the highest in nearly 20 quarters. Neither this quarter nor the year-ago comparison carries any exceptional item, so the YoY jump is a clean operating improvement, not a base-effect artefact.

The margin bridge sits almost entirely on mix and operating leverage: DC & Cloud revenue rose to 21% of the book from 1% in FY26, and combined with Large Enterprise (18%) the 'Enterprise & DC' segment is now 39% of revenue, already past management's own FY27 target of scaling that segment to 30%. Segment EBITDA in the core optical networking business jumped to ₹401 Cr (21.8% margin) from ₹137 Cr a year ago, confirming the improvement is coming from higher-value AI-data-centre and connectivity products rather than a one-off cost cut.

For context: this is the highest quarterly PAT in the last 6 quarters on our records; revenue is at a 6-quarter high.

We found no specific brokerage consensus for this print, so the beat/miss versus street cannot be confirmed (vsStreet: unknown). Against management's own April prior-quarter guidance, the quarter is a clear beat: the stated FY27 exit target of a 20% EBITDA margin was hit in the first quarter itself (20.8%), and the balance sheet turned net debt-free (net cash ₹483 Cr) well ahead of the guided <1.2x net-debt/EBITDA goal, aided by the ₹1,500 Cr QIP that closed in early July. CRISIL revised its outlook to 'Stable' and ICRA upgraded the long-term rating to AA (Stable) in the same window. Order momentum reinforces the print: order intake was ₹13,100 Cr in the quarter alone (1.7x all of FY26), lifting the open order book 2.4x to ₹18,618 Cr, anchored by a $1.11 Bn (₹10,000+ Cr) hyperscaler Product Award Letter for AI data centres plus $100 Mn+ of Neuralis integrated-solution wins. MD Ankit Agarwal called it "the strongest quarter in STL's history," a framing the numbers support — revenue, EBITDA and PAT are all quarterly records, and standalone PAT of ₹125 Cr (vs ₹2 Cr YoY) tracks the same direction as consolidated, so there is no material divergence between the two statements.