PhysicsWallah, Co-founder, Prateek Maheshwari, spoke with ET Now, outlining trends across enrolments, revenue, online–offline mix, and the increasingly central role of artificial intelligence in operations.
In the interaction, ET Now opened by noting the flurry of developments in the recent quarter — from an acquisition to new expansion plans — and asked how the second half of the fiscal was shaping up.
Maheshwari pointed to a strong performance so far. “So, overall, first half looks very solid for us in terms of enrolment growth, in terms of revenue growth, like the overall revenue is up by 29% in first half and just quarter two PAT is up by 70%,” he said, adding that the cyclic nature of the business makes the third quarter consistently the strongest. According to him, Q3’s EBITDA should rise to around 20%, compared with 15% in Q2. He expects the full-year picture to reflect “solid growth in top line and significant growth in bottom line.”
FY27: A Year of Meaningful Profits
When asked about the journey to becoming full-year PAT positive in FY27, Maheshwari underlined that the company is not targeting a marginal break-even but a meaningful expansion in profitability. “That will be a substantial profit for FY27,” he said, noting that planning cycles begin early due to the concentration of admissions in the first two quarters of each year.He also highlighted a major milestone on the horizon: “Next year will be a unique year where our offline, the entire offline business will also turn EBITDA positive.” Achieving profitability in both online and offline streams marks a shift in strategy, especially after years of aggressive offline expansion.ARPU Trends and Business MixET Now also probed the difference in online and offline ARPUs, noting the dip in offline averages. Maheshwari attributed this to the introduction of short-term offline courses. “ARPU of offline is 4% down because we have introduced a lot of short-term courses in our offline learning segment,” he said. However, he stressed that offline enrolments are up 30% and revenue is higher by 22%, making the trend “very-very healthy”.
On the online side, ARPUs have grown 8% year-on-year. Maheshwari reiterated the company’s stance of keeping high-quality education affordable: “We do not want to increase our online ACPU drastically because we stand for highest quality education, should be accessible to each and every student of India.” Doubling batch prices could accelerate EBITDA growth, he admitted, but would go against the firm’s mission to serve Tier III and Tier IV students.
AI at the Core of Future Strategy
AI has quietly become the company’s biggest operational lever. Maheshwari explained that the organisation has been investing heavily in AI since FY23 and now has over 100 people working in that vertical alone. “AI Guru, AI Grader, AI Sahayak are couple of AI product which are already in place,” he said, adding that AI has resolved “more than 10 crore doubts” and checked over seven lakh handwritten answer sheets this year.
The company is training its proprietary AI models using its vast student data pool, which he believes gives it a major advantage. Engagement levels, he said, have risen significantly.
Reducing Costs Through Automation
When asked how AI is helping reduce costs, Maheshwari gave a clear example: “Cost of solving a doubt by AI is 5% to 7% of the cost of a solving of a doubt by a human.” With accuracy nearing 88%, he expects 80% of doubts to be handled by AI in the future, freeing subject experts to be redeployed to offline centres. AI-generated test papers and automated answer-sheet evaluation, he said, are now matching human-level quality.
Revenue Guidance for H2 and Beyond
The firm has already reported around ₹1,900 crore in revenue for the first half of FY26. When asked for guidance, Maheshwari said the second half would remain broadly in line with the first. For profitability, he added: “Quarter three as I mentioned, like that would be the strongest quarter, and for overall you will see the EBITDA from the last year to this year will be almost more than four times.”
With offline profitability approaching, AI-led cost efficiencies strengthening, and steady enrolment momentum, the company appears set for a pivotal FY27 — one it hopes will mark a full transition into profitable, scalable growth.
