HT Media Ltd posted net income of Rs32.4 crore for the quarter ended 30 June, down 14% from the year ago period, on flat ad revenue growth. The results surpassed analysts’ expectations. A Reuters poll of brokerages forecast 40% lower net profit at Rs23.2 crore.
Net sales grew 1% y-o-y to Rs328 crore. Circulation revenue went up 24% to Rs44 crore on account of greater realizations and increased cover prices. Rs8.8 crore has been booked as revenue from the merger of the radio business.
Thanks to a 34% decrease in advertising and sales promotion expenses, total expenditure grew only 3% y-o-y to Rs266 crore. Employee cost went up by 27%, while we are mostly seeing negative growth in employee costs, indicating that organization hasn’t done dramatic staff cuts. The company maintained an Ebitda margin of 22%.
The company has booked an exceptional item of Rs4.5 crore as dimunition in the value of Metropolitan Media, HT’s joint venture with Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd that used to publish Metro Now as a daily. The title has since become a weekly.
HT Media publishes Hindustan Times, Hindustan and Mint.
Operational updates
HT’s redesign has been launched during this quarter. We have been seeking feedback from industry executives and others we speak regularly with and the (admittedly unscientific and anecdotal) general response has been very positive. People like the design, but are more impressed with the revamped content. It’d be interesting to see how TOI responds to changes to their arch rival.
The company has commissioned new printing facilities in Mumbai and hopes that this will help them achieve greater operational efficiencies in Mumbai and nearby markets for all publications.
Mint has launched in Chennai and Kolkata and the footprint is now significantly larger. The company hopes that Mint’s readership growth will result in commensurate revenue growth in the future.
Job portal Shine.com, run by HT’s wholly owned subsidiary Firefly e-Ventures, has crossed 2.5 million registered users.
With a net debt of just Rs175.5 crore, the company is poised to invest in expanding its businesses, it said in a release.
It is expected because more and more companies are depending on free advertisement websites, so this has to happen and its a bening i think with some most popular websites for advertising like http://www.craigslist.com http://www.hindlist.com have come up with offers of allowing to post free classifieds advertisements.