Metropolis Healthcare is targeting a revenue of more than Rs 2,500 crore over the next three years, up from Rs 1,646 crore in FY26. The diagnostics chain plans to drive this growth organically by boosting utilisation of its lab network and improving operating margins.
The company expects revenue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14-15 per cent over the next three years. The projection does not include incremental revenue from future acquisitions.
“Most of it will be actually organic. If you see the inorganic assets, whatever growth they had to add, now it is already in the base,” said Ameera Shah, executive chairperson of Metropolis Healthcare. “Whatever growth we are seeing in FY27 and beyond is actually all organic at this point in time that we are projecting. And obviously, if we do anything inorganic, [that will be] on top of that.”
The projected 14-15 per cent growth marks a slight moderation from the 17.6 per cent CAGR seen between FY24 and FY26, when revenue rose from Rs 1,190 crore to Rs 1,646 crore.
The company plans its next phase of expansion to be different from the network built in recent years. Rather than adding laboratories rapidly, Metropolis intends to channel volumes through existing infrastructure.
“We don’t have plans to add labs rapidly in the next three-year strategy, but we will keep adding more and more centres,” said Surendran Chemmenkotil, the company’s managing director. “The [company’s] 209 labs are good enough to serve these 750 towns.”
Besides the laboratories, Metropolis has more than 5,000 “touchpoints” across 750 towns. It plans to increase company-owned centres from around 750 to 1,000 over three years, while taking the centre-to-lab ratio from 24:1 to around 35:1.
It also plans around 100 “mini-hubs” — comprising 50 upgrades and 50 new builds — as it seeks to do more from each location.
Metropolis is also looking to expand beyond pathology at some of its centres by adding basic radiology and allied services.
Shah said the company will focus on services such as X-ray, ECG, sonography and echo, along with consultations and other preventive health offerings, rather than high-end radiology such as CT and MRI.
The move will meet broader patient needs at existing locations and improve centre productivity. “Out of the 210 labs, 90 labs have come in the last two to three years. So we have a huge opportunity to fill in these labs,” Chemmenkotil said.
More collection centres will bring additional workloads into the existing laboratories and improve productivity, he added.
Better utilisation is also central to Metropolis’ margin ambitions. The company is targeting an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) margin of around 27-28 per cent over the next three years, compared with 24.4 per cent in FY26.
Metropolis’ organic business had an FY26 margin of 25.9 per cent, with the consolidated margin diluted by the lower profitability of acquired Core Diagnostics.
“Our aspiration is to move margin from 24.5 per cent to 28 per cent during this three-year journey,” Shah said.
Higher centre productivity, operating leverage and a richer mix of specialty diagnostics and preventive-health packages will contribute to growth. Automation and digitisation will also allow volumes to increase without a corresponding addition of resources, she said.
Specialty diagnostics, which accounted for 40 per cent of revenue in the first quarter of FY27 (Q1 FY27), is targeted to rise to around 45 per cent over three years.
TruHealth, the company’s preventive-health offering, is targeted to increase from 18 per cent to over 25 per cent of revenue over the same period.
Another margin lever is Core Diagnostics, whose ebitda margin has already moved from minus 2 per cent to high single digits within four quarters.
Metropolis expects Core’s margin to top 20 per cent by year three, moving towards company-level profitability.
In Q1 FY27, Metropolis reported revenue of Rs 450 crore, up 17 per cent year-on-year, ahead of its 14-15 per cent full-year growth guidance.
Ebitda margin stood at 25.2 per cent, up 210 basis points year-on-year.
Revenue from Tier-III markets grew around 25 per cent during the quarter, compared with 14 per cent in Tier-II and 11 per cent in Tier-I markets, while rural centres grew by 36 per cent.