Dr Suneeta Reddy, MD of Apollo Hospitals, highlighted the hospital segment’s performance: “Hospital did very well. A growth of 14% in revenues with a revenue of ₹3,183 crores, EBITDA at ₹790 crores representing a 17% increase in EBITDA and profits for the hospital of ₹422 crores representing a 21% improvement in profit.”
Occupancy rates for the quarter stood at 67.1%, slightly below expectations. “There was a 4% improvement in ALOS, which meant that we came down to 3.14 days. If we had been at four days ALOS, we would technically have been at 72% occupancy. So, we have carefully managed to reduce average length of stay to enable patients to really go home faster and to reduce their bills,” said Dr Reddy.
Apollo’s expansion plans remain aggressive. During the quarter, the company opened 100 beds in Pune and 40 beds in Defence Colony. By the first quarter of the next fiscal year, Apollo expects to open 1,035 beds across several new facilities, including Belenus Hospital in Sarjapur (Bangalore), Sonarpur (Kolkata), and Sandhya Elite (Hyderabad), with further expansion planned in Gurgaon.
Regarding profitability, Dr Reddy explained the company’s margin performance: “If you look at healthcare services, we are at a very healthy 24.8%. Apollo Health and Lifestyle is at 10.2%. They have grown their EBITDA margin by 141 basis points. Apollo Healthco is at 4.5%, but that is a different retail business. Offline pharmacies are at 7.8%.”
The pharmacy segment continues to grow strongly, with Healthco adding 185 physical pharmacies this quarter, bringing the total to 7,113—the largest pharmacy network in India. “They have a private label share of 15.53%, which is giving them the margin of 7.8, a very healthy margin, which has improved by 12 basis points. The offline continues to grow with the GMV of ₹525 crores for the quarter, and they have three sources of revenue—insurance, doctor consult, diagnostics, and delivering pharmaceutical products at home—all of them growing at somewhere 23% but growing strongly at 20%,” she added.
The company’s Health and Lifestyle business, despite being loss-making, showed strong growth with a 20% revenue increase and a 39% jump in EBITDA. Dr Reddy expects the segment to turn profitable in the next quarter: “If you look at the different lines of the business, they are all profitable. A little bit of focus on admin costs, etc., they should be profitable, and they are growing the diagnostics scale, which is giving them a healthy 10.8% margin. That margin trajectory will grow.”On the international front, Apollo is focusing on project work and consultancy rather than setting up hospitals overseas. “We have got about ₹20 crores of revenue from the work that we do and project in,” Dr Reddy noted.
Apollo’s capital expenditure plan for expansion includes 1,385 new beds at an estimated cost of ₹2 crores per bed, totaling ₹3,000 crores for the current phase, with another ₹3,000 crores planned for the next phase. Regarding other business verticals, Dr Reddy said: “Healthco is now, it will become a separate company. It is fully capitalised, requires no further capital. Apollo Health and Lifestyle is looking at some restructuring that will bring it capital for growth…Apollo is always there to support them with capital for growth.”
With strong operational performance and strategic expansion plans across hospitals, pharmacies, and lifestyle businesses, Apollo Hospitals continues to reinforce its position as a leader in India’s healthcare sector.