Advertising growth returns for Network18 as it reports a profit of Rs 11.43 crores

After a pullback in ad-spends from mid-June to mid-September, there appears to have been some recovery for Network18: it reported total consolidated revenues of Rs 439 crores, substantially higher than the Rs 373 crores last year, and a significant improvement over Rs 383 crores in the preceding quarter. The company turned a profit of Rs 11.43 crores for the period, up from a loss of Rs 71 crores in the preceding quarter. The company said that advertising growth returned, but a few sectors are yet to recover, but it is hopeful because of “strong financial markets, upcoming union budget, state elections and continued revival in consumer spending.”

Digital Results

On a standalone basis, web operations reported revenues of Rs 13.98 crores for the quarter, a marginal increase from Rs 13.93 crores in the preceding quarter and Rs 13.11 crores in the same quarter last year. The segment reported a loss of Rs 11.68 crores for the quarter, a decline from Rs 13.92 crores the last quarter, but substantially higher than Rs 7.45 crores for the same quarter last year.

• News consumers spent 1.76 billion minutes on Network18 properties in November 2017
• Moneycontrol reported a monthly traffic of 22 million users, and 0.5 billion pageviews. Monthly active users were 3.6 million in November 2017, its highest ever. On the day of the Gujarat Election results, Moneycontrol got around 4.5 million users. It reported 225% year on year growth in “average monthly mobile user count”.
• News18 reported 64 million users in December 2017. Its sports category reported 6.7 million users in October 2017. News18 now offers news in 12 different languages, including Kannada, Odiya, Punjabi, Assamese and others. They launched Bengali, Urdu and Gujarati in November.
• Firstpost reported 33 million users in December 2017. It has launched F Studio, a creative video unit, Firstpective, a “user led opinion first” app, ShowSha, an entertainment portal.
• BookMyShow reported 4.3 million app installs, managed sports events like India’s Cricket series with Sri Lanka and New Zealand, and ticketing for 7 out of 10 ISL teams. It also managed the Mughal-e-Azam event in Delhi. BookMyshow started an offline food and beverage sale business at select cinemas in Mumbai and Hyderabad, entered into a JV with PVR’s Vkaao. It’s Music Jukebox has 1 million plus song downloads. BookMyShow also launched a loyalty program.
• HomeShop18 is merging with ShopCJ: shareholders of ShopCJ are being given 25% equity in HomeShop18, and Network18 will be the largest shareholder in the company. However, the combined entity will not be a subsidiary of Network18. Details here.

Download: Press release | Financials