Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q4 and FY 2025 earnings conference call of Saregama India Limited, hosted by JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Eksha Modi from JM Financial. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Pooja. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Q4 FY 2025 earnings conference call of Saregama India Limited. First of all, I would like to thank the management of Saregama India Limited for giving us the opportunity to host this call. From the management team, we have Mr. Vikram Mehra, Managing Director, Mr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Anand Kumar, Group Head, Investor Relations, and Mr. Pankaj Kedia, Vice President, Investor Relations. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Vikram Mehra for his opening remarks, post which we can open the floor for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, and a very good morning to everyone. Financial year 2025 saw a higher standard revenue of INR 1,171 crore, which is 46% growth over financial year 2024. Also, a higher EBITDA of INR 356 crore, which is 18% growth over financial year 2024, and a PBT of INR 276 crore, which is 2% higher than last year. Our investment on content this year was INR 316 crore, which was 62% higher than that of in financial year 2024. All of this is in sync with the strategy shared with all of you guys over the last few quarters, wherein we want to future-proof our company through aggressive new IP purchase, but at the same time hedge our risk by diversifying our IP portfolio across music, live events, long-format video, short-format video, and management of the content creators.
The other big highlight of the year for us was that our digital footprint across YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook grew from 239 million as of last year to 350 million during the year. That's a massive growth right now by any odd state. Coming to the quarter, this quarter saw operating revenue of INR 241 crore and a PBT of INR 81.6 crore. Let me start, as always, with the music business, which comprises of music licensing and artist management. This vertical remained flattish on a year-on-year basis during the quarter, primarily because of Wink shutting down. We had no revenue coming from our platform during this quarter. If we see the numbers on a full-year basis, music revenues grew by close to 13%, which is lower than the previous year.
The big area of decline was primarily on account of closure of Wink and movement of Gaana and Hungama from a free service to a fully paid service. The good news was that this fall was countered by increase in revenue coming from paid subscription and also from the YouTube Premium channels. In fact, for us, the revenue made from paid OTT and YouTube services grew by a very high double-digit percentage. Remember, the base is still very, very small. In the next few quarters, we believe paid subscription to become the single biggest growth driver for Saregama. Yes, there has been a lot of pain over the last few quarters with multiple services shutting down, whether it was Resso shutting down earlier. Now, Hungama has shut down, Wink has shut down, Gaana has gone behind the paywall.
All this has been giving short-term pain to us because our monies that were coming from the free services have stopped coming. In the long run, it's a very healthy sign for the industry's growth. On the publishing side of the business, the revenues continue to grow. Every major web show in India, from Ashram Season 4 on Amazon MX Player to a couple of Sharma Season 3 and 4 on Netflix, or the IPL opening ceremony on Star, or it was with a big movie like Salman star of Sikandar, or Balayak star of Telugu movie Daku Maharaj, they all have one thing in common. They're taking a license for a Saregama song in the show.
Even brands like Tata Motors, who came with this massive Tata Kirby campaign during IPL using the song Toba Toba, or Dream11, or Mobile One, they all used the songs in this quarter. Our focus on keeping our catalog relevant is growing practically every quarter onwards. We have a dedicated team whose only role is to maximize the revenue that is coming from the older content of ours. We continue with the strategy of future-proofing this company by investing in newer content. The last 12 months have been the most aggressive from Saregama's side in terms of new content release. We spent close to INR 300 crore on new content alone and its marketing. Most of our albums are charting at top position across various languages. All this can be easily verified through YouTube or Spotify charts.
We have 10 songs released in financial year 2025 that have crossed the 100 million views mark on YouTube. This is just songs released over the last 12 months. 10 of them are sitting in the 100 million club. An album like Isthri 2 has crossed 3.1 billion streams across YouTube and OTT in less than a year. That tells you that if you get a good album and you market it correctly, there is a lot of revenue potential that is sitting in there. This quarter saw a release of two very popular songs which have been chartbusters. One is Premalu from a Telugu movie, Koot, and second is Arijit Singh's "Tu Hai To Main Hoon," from Akshay Kumar's movie, Sky Force. The company continued to maintain its leadership position across Gujarati and Bhojpuri languages. We have also opened our content acquisition now in Odia and Chhattisgarhi languages.
If we see the track record in financial year 2025, we have the best hit rate ratio. Yes, some of that is fake and will not run away from it, but I give a lot of credit to our database acquisition approach that we people have been able to instill within the system. This is good predictive models that are allowing us to buy the right content at the right pricing. This year, we also ended up acquiring 22 small music labels across seven languages, with overall who controlled 2,800 songs. These are all low-profile, under-the-radar acquisitions, typically in languages where we are not very strong. These are relatively more smaller languages of the country. This costed us close to INR 17 crore, and we believe all this is going to further strengthen our position as we go forward.
Our lineup for the next 12 months is all in place, where we have music from some of the biggest films that are going to get released this year. Let me start with the in this quarter, one of the most highly anticipated films is a Tamil film called Thug Life, which has got Kamal Haasan and Mani Ratnam coming together after many, many years, along with A.R. Rahman's music. We then have Dharma's Tu Meri Mai Tera, Main Tera Tu Meri, which is a Kartik Aaryan movie. We also have Dharma's Sarzamin. We have Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Love and War. We have Telugu superstar Nani's Paradise and Isthri. We have Ranveer Singh's Don Dar. Tamil superstar Dhanush Idli Kadai. Another massive star of Tamil called Suriya's Vadi Vasal and Shiva Karthikeyan's Parashakti. I'm just giving you the names of some of the bigger titles.
Similarly, there are huge titles which are sitting in, whether it's Darshan's Devil in Kannada and similar big titles sitting out there in Malayalam too. South was and continues to remain a huge focus area for us while we keep on strengthening our position on the Hindi side too. As I've been sharing with you right now, now forward in a few quarters, the next few years will be the period during which we will invest in content in very heavy fashion to once again get ourselves back into the number one position that we used to enjoy a few decades back. We will buy big, and we will buy smart. This year, the charge-off on account of new content was 48% higher than last year. We are in a transitional state currently where new content expenses are going up in a step fashion.
Because if you see the chart which has been shared in our presentation, it will show you right now how steeply our content acquisition budgets are going up. Since the expenses are going up in a step fashion, the incremental revenue from these expenses are just about matching the charge-off that we people are taking. As we move to the later part of financial year 2026, you will start seeing the impact right now that the increase in revenue will also start having a direct impact on the profitability. At the beginning of the year, I had stated this that during the next, this is as of April 2024. I had said we'll take a six, for the next six to seven quarters. The top line is going to grow rapidly. The EBITDA is going to follow, but not that rapidly, and PBT will be growing at a slower rate.
The moment we come to the seventh or the eighth quarter, PBT will also start moving at a much faster pace for the simple reason that the content that we would have taken by that time will start having a revenue which is higher than the charge-off that we will be accounting for. With all this investment in new content, we maintain our guidance of five-year payback period. After the five-year payback period is over, you have another 55-75 years of reaping profits. Artist management, the newer vertical under music monetization, where artists are made popular through our IP releases, and then we monetize these artists by booking them for live events, weddings, and brand endorsements, from which Saregama gets a share. As our investment in new content goes up, these artists are going to become bigger and bigger.
With digital advertising growing at 17% per annum, we believe that the artists in the influencer economy will be the biggest beneficiary. I'll give you an example of how we people are now using our power of content creation to go and make our artists bigger. Our artist Mahi sang for the movie Nadaniyaan and also sang for the Hotstar show Hai Junoon!, while Pragati is the lead actress in our own show called AFK. She also sang for Hai Junoon! show, which is on Jio Hotstar. Three of our talent, Viraj Ghelani, Arjun, and Pragati, are also appearing in a comedy film produced by us called Paadi Animals. During the year, we added Samyuktha Hegde, a prominent Kannada artist with 1.3 million followers, and Karan Sonavani, with 1.4 million followers, as part of our influencer management program. You will be seeing more and more content coming with these people.
Viraj is a great example as an artist who's managed by us. We are doing live shows also with Viraj, and we are now also doing digital content creation, both from which are funded by brands and are put on YouTube, also shows that can be licensed out to digital platforms like Netflix and Amazon. Overall, with a stated goal of acquiring 25%-30% of all new music released in India, the music licensing vertical should double its revenue in the next two, three and a half years. All this acquisition that we are doing will be funded through QIP and internal accruals. Now let me shift to the video vertical, where we make films under the brand name Udly, digital series under the brand name DICE, and short format content under the brand name Filter Copy.
The most exciting thing for us in this category always remains is massive growth in smartphone ownership, which is turning our TV into the hands of every individual in this country. If you see anybody who in this country is free even for five minutes, is consuming some form of content or other, and we want to be in the center of it. We are still at a very early stage of building this vertical. We expect over the next five years this vertical to keep on growing at a CAGR of 25%. We released multiple series during this quarter: Agra Affairs on Amazon MX Player, OopsAb Kya on Jio Hotstar, a branded series High Heels on YouTube where L'Oréal was our advertiser. We also released a small Telugu film called Dilruba. Our TV series on Sun TV continued to perform very, very well.
Video vertical, we are still trying to find a way. What we are clear about video vertical is we will try multiple things, try all things at a smaller budget. If we have to fail, we'll fail fast, but we'll fail small so that we can keep on correcting our mistakes and come out with a strategy that is expected to work. Financial year 2025 was also a little difficult because most of the digital platforms that used to license our content were in a state of flux. There was a merger going on between two of the biggest platforms. The third one had a change of leadership. We saw right now not enough amount of licensing was happening. We believe financial year 2026 is going to be far better. Let me move to the live events piece.
As promised, after a very successful Diljit tour in the last quarter, that we will now continue building on the live events vertical. We believe this is a vertical which has got a serious amount of leg in the days to come. During the quarter, we did successful sh ows of Viraj Ghillani and Satinder Sartaaj. Later this year, starting from Q1, we have shows planned with Himesh Reshammiya. We have shows of Viraj Ghillani. We have next round of Disco Dancer shows coming in. We also have a kids' series, live series, Say Cheese Grandpa. We are also planning a two-day music festival in the southern part of the country. While Diljit India Tour's success may not get repeated in every quarter, the success of that tour has proved to us the long-term potential of the live events vertical.
It's a no-brainer that as the disposable incomes in the country go up, the discretionary spends are going to go up. One of the big beneficiaries of increase in discretionary spend worldwide always has been experienced entertainment. People like to go out there and enjoy themselves along with their friends and family. Keeping that in mind, we will continue to keep on experimenting and scaling the live events business in the future. This year saw the transition of Karva from being a hardcore retail store-driven product to now practically, for all practical purposes, a 100% e-commerce-driven product. We are selling it from the big digital platform and some of the modern retail outlets only. We have scaled down our product portfolio and the entire infrastructure that we had built to support the Karva business.
The manpower that was supporting Karva has been brought down from over 100+ at the beginning of the year to under 25 as we reach here. We still believe in this product. We believe this product has legs there as long as we are managing it at a cost structure that makes sense. We will continue pushing it on e-commerce, and we are fairly certain that we will start touching single middle-digit margins by the end of Financial year 2026. Our long-term strategy of diversifying from just being a music label to an entertainment IP company is paying off. It not only reduces over-dependence on any burden vertical, but is allowing us to drive massive cost and revenue synergies across all the verticals. Between Financial year 2025- 2027, we committed to invest over INR 1,000 crore in new music content.
Of this content, content worth close to INR 525 crore, INR 130 crore are already secured. This will contribute not only to the immediate growth, but also put the company on a long-term growth path. We believe music verticals comprising licensing and artist management to grow at 22%-23% per annum over the medium term. At the overall company level, we expect PBT to double over the next three to four years. Both music and video verticals are going to contribute to that. We maintain our annual adjusted EBITDA guidance of 32%-33%. There may be a blip here and there on the quarter because a big event number is coming in. Overall, keeping in mind that we are in music, video, as well as live events business, we are holding onto our EBITDA guidance of 32%-33%.
PBT numbers, which are on the lower side for this financial year, will start moving up by Q3, Q4 of this year, of financial year 2026. We are all, as a company, extremely bullish on the way that digital economy is panning out. We are very happy with the processes and the data-driven approach that we have been able to go back and build in Saregama, which makes the company not only very strong on IP, but also in a way independent of individual dependence. The basic infrastructure of processes and data will ensure that the company is going to survive and recover back to number one position in the days to come. Thank you, and open to questions now.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. My first question is on revenue. So revenue was weak this time versus very strong growth in earlier quarters. If you could tell us in FY 2026 how we should build in terms of our model for each of the revenue items, was there any one-off which led to revenue decline this time?
Remember, please do not compare us quarter four with quarter three. Quarter three had one-off revenue of the Diljit tour that had got factored in.
Otherwise, if you look at an overall basis, even if you look at the year-wise basis, financial year 2025 is a 46% growth over financial year 2024. I do not think revenue growth has been an issue right now in this particular year. No, no, Q4 YoY, I am saying. Q4 YoY. It is down 8%. I mean, I think we have stated this to you in specific, and by and large, the entire investment community, please look at our business on a 12-month rolling basis. You cannot look at our business on a quarterly basis. It just does not work that way. I am not saying look at me on a financial year basis, but please look at us right now on a 12-month rolling basis.
The quarterly seasonality and the way a movie's release gets pushed, so the music revenue starts getting pushed, or the film revenue itself starts getting pushed, a live event getting pushed from one quarter to the second quarter, this is a way of life for us. One small event in the environment right now and everything starts getting pushed. Please look at us on a 12-month basis, and I think we had a very decent financial year 2025. As we people go forward, the music licensing business of ours is going to be growing at 22%-23% on a mid-term basis. The video business of ours is going to be growing at 25% per year on a medium-term bas
is. There was no one-off in Q4. I do understand that it's a longer-term horizon. In terms of pushing off, was there any particular reason? Because anyway, we are comparing Q4- Q4. There will be a calendar, right? For three months, there will be a calendar. No, no, I understand, but every time this is an old question that is coming in, there may have been an event right now which would have got the revenues overflow from an OTT platform, may have come in a particular quarter and one financial year and may not come in the same quarter the next financial year. Right? Society overflows are also functioning that way. It's not in our hand. The publishing societies who give monies to us, they decide their own cycle, and sometimes a larger amount of money comes in Q3, sometimes it comes in Q4. You can't compare in the real sense right now quarter to quarter. It's better to look at our data always on a rolling 12-month basis. Sure.
Last quick question. Recently, we saw one movie on the last day move from cinema theater to OTT. Could you tell us in terms of Hindi movies or say even for the regional, is there any turn which is happening in terms of theater versus OTT? Any thinking which is again coming back? Because there is a COVID, but suddenly last week that development, geopolitical thing very q uick for such a drastic action. Is there something more behind that? Because you are a veteran in that industry. Your thoughts on that?
Firstly, let me just inform you right now that the said movie you're talking about has once again decided to come in theaters. That deal is done. They are coming back into theaters.
See, this is as a music label when I look at it, we have enough protection in our agreements that if a movie decides to move from a theater release to an OTT release, we get a suitable amount of adjustments in the fee that we are paying to a film producer. This part that this debate is ongoing at this juncture that will people be going to theaters to watch a movie? Just look at the success of the movies that are doing well, whether it's F32 or a Karva or if I'm both are INR 500 crore plus movies that are working on. Let's wait which way Thug Life in South is going to go back and work. If you look at Hindi's Rate 2 or Good, Bad and Ugly that came in Tamil recently, all of them will touch between INR 100 crore and INR 150 crore.
If there are good movies, people are still very happy to come to the theater. Remember for all of us, and even more if you are living in non-Bombay Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta, what does a person do to entertain himself along with his or her family? Going out to have a burger at a mall is a great thing, but you can't do it every weekend. Sometimes you need a change, and movie theaters provide this massive amount of change for any family. That's why, in general, we believe that theater economy is still very much there to stay, but the kind of movies that will do well in theater may undergo some amount of change.
Understood. That's all from m y side. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Swapnil Potdukhe from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.
My first question is on the one-off impact that you mentioned in your opening remarks with respect to closure of Wink, Gaana, Resso, etc. Just wanted to get a sense as to when exactly should we expect these closures to come into our base? Because if I'm not wrong, Wink closed in July sometime. Gaana was a bit earlier, if I'm not wrong. Just getting a sense as to the time as to where these one-offs will not be an impact on our music revenues going ahead.
Answer two parts here. One, am I understanding Wink closed in November, not in July? This is the first quarter that we people had without any revenues coming from there. Let me restate our position. Sad as we are that some of these free streaming platforms are shutting down.
Truly speaking, in a way, we are very relieved that because we know free streaming is not the way this industry can get built. Globally, every market after market from a U.S. to a China to any of the European countries or even some of the LATAM countries, the music industry is built on the back of paid subscription on streaming. There are over 700 million people who are paying for some form of audio streaming on some platform or other. We believe that with the less number of players available, you will see that transition happening rapidly in India also. We are already seeing the green shoots, as I mentioned in my opening statement, that the revenue that Saregama makes from paid subscription part of the streaming platforms has grown by a very high double-digit percentage during the year.
If I'm not a betting man, but if I were to put my neck out, I'll say four-five quarters, you will see paid subscriptions really taking off. As mentioned in the past, the yield that we all get, entire industry, not just Saregama, all of us, the yield that we will get for one song heard under paid subscription is far higher than the yield we get on the free side. Yes, there is a short-term pain that is being inflicted on us, but I think this is the right thing to happen right now for paid economy to take off.
Okay. Vikram, just on that paid subscription thing, right? What would be the revenue share in your music from the subscriptions today? Secondly. Yeah, sorry. So music share of subscription, sorry. Rephrase your question so that I'm able to put your question.
My question is very simple. What would be the share of paid subscription in your music business today?
I will not be able to share that right now because that's all confidential data. I'll be going and violating all my agreements. What I can tell you is that if I have a subscription deal going on with their platform, on an average, the platform shares 50% of whatever they make. If there's a platform X who are making INR 100 net in a month, on an average, they will share 50 bucks, what is called as a content pool. This money gets divided equally amongst all the songs into the number of times the songs are heard during the month.
Okay. The question would then be, given that you are still maintaining your medium-term guidance on the music revenues, will this paid subscriptions revenue be able to offset any impact of these closures, which will still be there in your base, right, for FY 2026 at least, some part of that? Will they be able to? Yeah.
When I have given the guidance of 22%-23% growth in our music business, that is not dependent on subscription taking off. This is an impact of the growth in the digital economy and the increase in the market share that Saregama is able to drive. As and when the subscription takes off in an aggressive enough fashion, the numbers are going to be far higher than this.
Answer to your second question out here is, are we confident that the growth numbers are going to be higher in the music side this year, financial year 2026, compared to 2025? Yes, we are.
Okay. That would also mean that your YouTube revenues in your music would have gone up meaningfully, right? If I'm not wrong, digital used to contribute around 70% of your total revenues, music revenues. Of that, roughly. Yeah.
Digital contributes around that number. Digital includes all the audio streaming platforms, video streaming platforms, and short format apps. Overall, digital is around that number for 70%.
Right. YouTube used to be around 33%-35%. I've never been to this, so please don't put words in my mouth. No, but indicatively, that number would have only gone up, right, from YouTube revenues. Just trying to.
In my opinion, that YouTube revenues grew for us, and that was to a large extent able to help neutralize because overall revenues are still music revenues have gone up by 13% during the year. The big help came from subscription, which has a small base going up substantially, growing substantially, and YouTube numbers doing pretty well for us. I've given you F3 is an exception. I understand that part. Still, F3, 3.1 billion numbers have all come during this financial year. It was released in the month of August. I think first song hit in July or somewhere. We have done 3.1 billion. There are music labels whose total number of streams during the year becomes 3.1 billion, which is a single album has done.
Got it. Just one question. You mentioned that you have acquired a significantly higher amount of content this year, roughly around INR 300 crore+ . At the same time, we are not seeing our music revenues growing in a way, right? This year, particularly, obviously, there were some one-offs, and that is there. Does that also mean that the payback period for any content that you acquired already may go maybe longer than five years than the typical that we typically have, right? Most of your revenues maybe will come in the first year.
We are holding on to a guidance of five-year payback period, and I am very confident of that. If and when we people start realizing at any time that the sources of revenue are coming down, so does the cost of acquisition.
Got it. Just the last one on the Karva side.
Obviously, the revenues are meaningfully down because of changing the strategy there. Any sense on what kind of profitability was there in the business in FY 2024 and where are we in FY 2025 right now?
All I can say is Karva at best in a quarter was just doing a break even with all these new changes that have been brought in, which is rationalizing the manpower, rationalizing the number of SKUs that we people are putting in, and getting out of the mom-and-pop retail outlets, which also meant there were a lot of distribution expenses. With all the actions that we have taken, we believe that Karva in financial year 2026 should start coming back to the mid-single-digit margin percentages.
Got it. Thanks a lot, Vikram, and all th e best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mayur Patel from 360 ONE AMC. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vikram and the team. Thanks for the opportunity. Just one question. Is it possible to quantify if we exclude the impact of Wink shutting down, what could have been the music revenue growth in this quarter?
I can't give you specific. Then I'm giving you my what was the deal value of my Wink. That will be a question. What is it? Can you just recapitalize it? Sorry. The revenue would have been decent right now. Let me put it this way. Again, please don't look at us ever on a quarter basis. Our industry is in a fashion in a way right now that you need to look at us on a 12-month rolling basis. Reward us, punish us, but also do it on a 12-month rolling basis.
Because the way the practices of the industry are, the monies that we end up getting, they're not timed right now to a particular month for any of our partners.
Understood. Understood. Vikram, the idea was to just understand that excluding these shutdowns, how is the organic growth? Is it?
Let me answer the question in a different fashion. We people have been managing this 22%-23% growth on a music licensing business right now on a steady fashion over the last six-seven years now. I'm holding on to that guidance as we people go forward. This is irrespective of subscription taking off in a very big fashion. We believe subscription, if it continues to grow at the rate it's growing today, which is when two of the big platforms, Spotify and Jio, are still offering free service.
Keeping that in mind, we have our projection of 22%-23%, which tells you we are fairly confident that the impact may be happening right now in the short- term here and there. On a medium-term basis, we believe there's a very healthy growth potential which is sitting in.
Sure. Is it like you've given a good outlook on the shift to the paid subscription ways over next one year? Do you think sometime during next 12 months would be the inflection point for this paid as a catalyst taking off? Or is it more like a couple of years' journey?
Repeat myself out here. It's difficult to take a punt on this, but yes. From whatever conversations we are having right now, because there are only two free guys left in the market now.
One of them is the world's biggest streaming platform, which worldwide drives only paid subscription. Free is not their model. The other is India's biggest conglomerate. If you see this year, IPL was also put behind the paywall. I have no reason to believe that these guys will continue doling out free services because financially, it does not make sense for them also. Yes, whether it will be four quarters, five quarters, I do not know. It is that horizon in which I believe that the subscription economy should start taking off.
Got it. Thanks a lot, Vikram, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kavish Parekh from B&K Securities. Please proceed. Hi, Vikram. Thanks for the opportunity.
Vikram, could you share some more details about the exceptional gain that you have recorded? What changed in the outlook for Pocket Aces, and what is the new valuation?
Hi, Kavish. Pankaj this side. I'll just take that question. Yeah. When we acquired Pocket Aces for about 51% stake, we recorded 100% liability in our books because it was a committed transaction, right? Based on the valuation and estimates, we recorded a liability. We also did a purchase price allocation and recorded a goodwill to that effect. Now, when we have acquired the remaining 40%, 40% point something, and we also need to acquire the remaining 8%-10%, we have reassessed the liability. There is a write-back of liability on account of the lesser consideration, and there is a corresponding impact on account of reduction in goodwill.
The net impact of this entire amount is about INR 4.9 crore, which is shown as an exception item, not arising from business. Having said that, there is a third element to it. The contractual liability that we have as a part of accounting standards, we record at a discounted value, at a net present value. So there is a notional finance cost of about INR 4.1 crore, but that is sitting in my finance cost line item above the exception item. If I just put all this together, the total impact of these three items is about INR 0.8 crore+ on the overall P&L. Operationally, I would say if you kind of want to still adjust this INR 0.8 crore, our PBT would be about INR 275 crore. This is an accounting adjustment. We still are very bullish on Pocket Aces.
It is just on account of a prudent and conservative accounting policy that we reassess our liabilities and valuation so that it gets reflected correctly in our balance sheet.
Understood. Thanks for that, Pankaj. Thanks for the detailed explanation. On Pocket Aces, following up, FY 2024 had witnessed a 12-odd percent decline in terms of revenues for Pocket Aces. How did revenues grow in FY 2025, and did you manage to hit break even? Is there any timeline for acquiring the balance 10%?
Let me try to answer the first two things. The good news is Pocket Aces is back onto their growth path. We have close to 18% growth that we have been able to go and register in Pocket Aces across the year. The losses have come down in Pocket Aces. Where I'm going to confess is we have not been able to do.
We have not been able to get them to break even at this juncture. We are still a little off break even, but the losses have come down drastically compared to what they were. Sometime in the middle of this year, we hope right now that we will end up achieving the break even number also. The remaining stake we are looking at right now, there's very limited amount left here. Over the next 12-15 months, this should also go up. Apart from the ESOPs, which are sitting right now with the senior executives there, everything else is going to be picked up by us.
Understood. Thank you, brother. Thank you, team.
Thank you. We will take our next question from the line of Harssh Shah from Dalaal & Broacha. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. A few questions from my side.
So firstly, when I look in the music vertical, which you kind of showed us. You may have to repeat yourself. Your voice is breaking. No, there is some discipline surge. Yeah. Yeah. One second. Yeah. Is it audible now? Yeah. Better. Yeah. So basically, what I was asking is on the EBIT margin in the music vertical, right, which we kind of include the Carvaan part also. So what we observed that the EBIT margin are at multi-quarter high. So basically, what I wanted to understand here is, is it a function of, I mean, in addition to the reduction in losses in the Carvaan business, anything else which has kind of contributed to the higher profitability in the music vertical? Meaning, has there been any sort of rationalization that has happened even on the music vertical, I mean, excluding the retail part?
No, because you're trying to derive the profitability by removing Carvaan without knowing Carvaan's profitability. Yes, the Carvaan's numbers are, ta them as the break-even numbers only that are sitting in here. What you're also going to see right now, two trends. One, if you see the numbers, we are showing a very decent growth right now at the EBITDA level also. That's one good part. Second, the royalty expenses, if you see on the overall basis, you're going to see the number coming down in spite of the music revenue going up. Because all the newer content that we people are picking up, if it is non-Hindi film content, it is all royalty-free music. It's only one-time payment. If it is Hindi film content, the newer content, the royalty payouts have not started yet.
They will happen only once you people recover, which is typically a five-year payback cycle. If we keep on growing these revenues more and more substantially, yes, the profitability profile of music licensing will continue improving. Because apart from content, the only other cost that's sitting out here is either manpower cost or the tech cost that we people are putting in. Both of them do not jump up right now linearly along with the revenue.
Okay. Basically, what you are indicating is, is it a case of basically the scaling?
You are again picking. Sorry.
Sorry to interrupt, Harsh. Your voice is breaking. Maybe the question is too.
Yeah. Is it audible right now? Yes, sir. Yeah. What I am asking is that the improvement in margin that we are seeing here, basically, it is more to do with scale, right?
Listen, when you are talking about improvement in margin, please look at everything on a financial year basis or 12-month basis. Please do not read anything on a quarter basis. Correct. Our margins do not change quarter on quarter. It is all the same thing, which I have repeated, I think, three, 4x earlier. I will again reiterate. Please read us on 12-month rolling basis. Evaluate our performance only on a 12-month rolling basis. I do not think I will be honest out here. I do not think the benefits of scale have started accruing to us yet. I do not even see at this moment our music licensing margins going up that dramatically, and they are not expected to go up that dramatically. You will see starting improvement on the music revenue, music margins of ours, which is licensing plus artist management as we start hitting the end of this financial year.
Because that's a time the charge-off on account of the new music is going to be far lower than the benefits of last two years' content acquisitions revenue. Have I made my point?
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Secondly, when I look at the inventory number in our balance sheet, is the understanding correct that this time around, for the full year, we might have purchased less number of Hindi films? Because, I mean, when I look at the intangibles, that has increased much faster than the inventory number.
Harssh, your call is breaking so much. Harssh, the breakup between Hindi and non-Hindi largely remains same. See, it depends on what period or what point of time during the financial year you make a purchase. It also, so I mean, if I can answer that question. Because when you're looking at intangibles, you're looking at the carrying cost. Correct. Yeah.
If you can repeat, what is the exact question on intangibles?
No. So basically, what I was trying to understand that for FY 2025, is it a case that we have acquired more of non-Hindi films?
Not really, Harssh. The ratio remains more or less similar. It may not be exact from year-to-year basis. Yeah, the market behaves in a certain way, and we follow the market.
There is no strategic shift right now, Ha rsh, if I can answer your question. We are not making any strategic shift. It may still happen on the phasing of the movies. Some movies release on time. Some movies get delayed. You may get this feeling at times. Overall, we are very, very bullish on the regional side. Within regional, on the film side, the South market is a big focus area for us.
On the non-film side, we are focusing a lot on languages like Bhojpuri, Bengali, Chhattisgarhi, Odia, Gujarati, Marathi, and Punjabi-Haryanvi. Those are the languages we people are attacking. We are considering Rajasthani also as a potential area we want to get ourselves into. Hindi film, we are making slower steps. The good thing for us is, if you look at calendar year 2024, the two biggest albums of Hindi both belong to us. So we are getting it right and hopefully getting it right at the appropriate pricing.
Got it. One last question from my side. On the video segment, right, you did mention that we are in the early stages of kind of developing this vertical. The profitability, I understand that we are in the early stages, with being kind of underwhelming.
Definitely, certain lessons we would have learned, right, as to how we want to kind of build this vertical. If you could highlight what is going to drive the profitability or maybe what steps would you be taking to ensure that we do not burn money or even though it is a smaller number, but we kind of grow profitably going forward?
We will be, all I can say is when we started the video vertical, our only concept at that time was direct to digital small-budget films.
From that time to now, where we are saying that we will make theatrical films but only at a smaller budget, these are not micro-budget, but a smaller budget theatrical films, to acquiring Pocket Aces, which gives us a huge expertise in the shorter format content, to high-quality, youth-oriented digital content that goes on YouTube or to platforms like Amazon Mini or Amazon MX Player or Netflix or a Jio Hotstar. We have also moved a lot. Each of these verticals is evaluated both on the basis of their ability to grow as well as their margin profile and the kind of engagement we are able to bring with the target segment that we people are after. You will see that experimentation.
All I can say is a year back, when we were having this conversation, similar call, somebody asked me the same question on live events, saying, "Why are you doing live events? Live events doesn't make money." Today, nobody has asked me this question because live events have started making money. Give us time. We are not geniuses that we will get everything right the first time. We are approaching there. You are not seeing our losses ever going to be that big because we experiment a lot. We fail, but we fail fast, and we fail small to get our strategy in place. Video is a focus market for us. We will never do this all-guns-blaring approach out there in video. We will experiment, and we will turn it profitable.
Got it. Demerger? Anything possible in terms of demerger on Carvaan or something like that?
This is all speculation. Right now is let's go to the business right now. Got it. Got it.
Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jyoti Singh from Arihant Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. As you mentioned on the revenue side, given the recent decline in revenue from the event business, can you share how market shows such as Cap Mania and that, so Viraj, are expected to revive momentum in this segment? Are there any measurable KPIs or targets you are aiming for? Second question, on the regional language side, we are a lot of focus on the Bhojpuri and other Gujarati language, but they still contribute only a small portion to the overall revenue. Can you provide insight on it?
Ma'am, firstly, did you see a decline in the event revenue? It's a decline compared to earlier quarter right now, sir. Ma'am, I'm repeating for your sake, sixth time in this call, please evaluate us on a 12-month rolling basis. You cannot do business like events cannot be seen on a quarterly basis. Most of the events in this country happen in the Diwali-valla time frame, right? Other times, right, the number of events starts coming down. Please, please, I'm requesting you. Everything you read us, your question is valid. How will we maintain the growth momentum? I'll answer that. Please don't look at these things right now on a quarter-to-quarter basis. It will never work out. Going ahead on the events part, yes, we believe in events a lot.
What Diljit Shakhsev has gone back and taught us is that if we get a good artist and we put up a very good show there, we market it correctly, Indian customers are looking for opportunities like that to go out with their friends and families, and they're ready to spend money. We are exploring possibilities of working on both artist-driven shows like Himesh Reshamya, and there are other artists also. Last quarter, we did something with Satinder Sartaaj. We are constantly looking at which other artists can we go out there and work with. Also do IP shows like get Disco Dancer the musical, get Say Cheese Grandpa kids-based musical, also launch the first music festival from outside. There is constant work which is happening. The very nature of the live events business is that the capital gets locked in it for a very, very short duration.
The best-case scenario is high single-digit margin but a very high IRR. You will see investment happening our side throughout. Also, all the artists that we have as part of our artist management vertical, we'll try to plug them in also right now in some of these live events. In that case, we get a double benefit. We get benefits on the live event as well as the artist profile goes up, and we can make more money under the artist management vertical of ours. That's the first question. Sorry, second question, I lo st track. Yeah.
The second question, basically on the regional side, there's a strong focus on Bhojpuri and other regional languages, but they still contribute a small portion to the overall mix. Yeah. Yeah.
It may contribute a small portion on the revenue, but it also contributes even a smaller portion on cost. At this juncture, again, I'm not a betting man. I don't want to take bets right now that a particular language will become bigger compared to the other ones. What we are seeing right now is more and more of us as Indians are now finally appreciating and enjoying our local culture, our local music, our local movies. Regional consumption of content in regional languages is going up substantially. Languages like Bhojpuri is what, second or the third largest spoken language in the country. We believe it's a large enough market. Once you do content in Bhojpuri, you talk to eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, parts of West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand. You're also getting into northern part of Madhya Pradesh, parts of Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi.
That's the audience that is sitting in there. Similarly, Gujarati, one of the highest disposable and discretionary spend community. We believe even if on the overall pie, this number may be smaller, but it's a profitable pie, and why should we let go of that?
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Lokesh Manik from Vallum Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.
I'll go off into the team. The first question was on the music vertical. We had a content charge-off about INR 85 crore last year at INR 524 crore. Ideally, we ought to have seen the music revenue increase by that much at the minimum. And given that your past commentary that the listener is platform agnostic, that is, if one platform shuts down, Himesh, he'll go to another platform and listen to the music.
Given these two scenarios, is shutting down the only reason that we are seeing a flattish growth on the music side?
That's a primary reason. You're right. Customers do switch, but there's always that much amount of lag between a service shutting down and the customers from that service moving across to the second service. Also, there's a role of minimum guarantees that starts happening out here. The net impact is there, but has the industry been able to absorb the closure of a service like Resso? Yes, we all have been able to, but Resso has been shut now for over, what, 15, 16 months. That does not even factor in anywhere in the overall revenues for the industry. Yes, that's the net part. Yes, that's a short-term impact that we people have gone out there and seen.
Had the impact of last year, I had Gaana on a pay side. Gaana became completely on the free side. Big impact was sitting in out there. Had that not been there, we would have been back right now on the track of what we have been able to do for so many years, and we are committed to be doing starting once again right now for financial year 2026. Got it.
My second question becomes on video. Prior to Pocket Aces, we were at about INR 115 crore in 2023, INR 157 crore in 2024. But that had some impact of Pocket Aces. If I add the three verticals, that is the web series, that is the TV, the Roja series on Sun TV, and the third is now the Pocket Aces, the revenue seems to be subdued in that sense.
Which vertical would you say would have gone down or not grown this year? That is one. Second, just continuing on this, since we are still figuring out our strategy in this area, and we have still not seen any synergistic effect on music from this vertical, so becoming profita bly PBT positive in the next two years, what factors are giving you that confidence?
Okay. Let me first answer your second part. I do not know where you arrived at that there is no synergy going in. We have seen a massive amount of positive impact that we have got on the music side in terms of our ability to acquire content when we are competing with the existing number one
When you go to a film producer and have a chat with the producer and explain to them the power that a channel like Filter Copy ends up giving us or our ability on the influencer side also, that we will be able to use this 315 million digital footprint to go back and promote the new film that the producer is getting in, that gives us a big edge in terms of acquiring newer content. Something I think we people may be not giving enough credit to, we are just in this business of acquiring new music content right now, the last two, three years only. Every big banner of this country, every—and if you start seeing the biggest movies that are coming in, if it is a banner which is not—unless there is a funding, somebody is producing.
If a music label is producing a movie, then it's a different issue. Everywhere else right now, all music is coming to us. I think that's a huge benefit that Filter Copy ended up giving us. Answering your first question, which vertical is not doing it, it's a fair assessment. The verticals right now where we were licensing shows to digital platforms like Netflix or Amazon Mini or Amazon MX Player or ZEE5 or Jio Hotstar, yes, that vertical was under pressure because literally there was a very little amount of licensed content that was being acquired by these platforms. We're already seeing trends here now that the merger has gone through between the top two guys, the other people have also started opening up once again in terms of going and licensing content.
You will see numbers going up right now on the series side too.
Got it. Any threat from the oversupply situation? There was an article today in Economic Times that said there's an oversupply of content in the industry today. Producers are sitting with a lot of unsold inventory. Any threat on that front? Do you see that this is just temporary?
Let me first answer from Saregama perspective. We don't create content unless we have a destination platform to give you comfort. Any of that series content that we people are creating, we do it only and only if a platform has given a green light for that. Otherwise, we don't go ahead. Even if there is an issue at times that happens in terms of oversupply, we won't be caught in that here because we have pre-agreements going on.
Yes, you were right because there was so little acquisition that was going on in the last 15 months because of this merger, change in management. There is this feeling right now that some of the content producers take parts, they create content, and then after that go back and license it. They may have content which is unsold, but as a policy, Saregama doesn't—we never do this. We know that if we produce content and then sell it, our margins will be higher, but we play safer there. We create content only and only if we have a platform greenlighting it. Because on the question of profitability, given we are still figuring out the strategy in this segment, just some thoughts on that. There is the films business. There is the longer format content which is sitting in.
In the longer format content, you create content out there for digital platforms. You create content for TV channels, and you also create content for award platforms like YouTube, but you get brands involved in it rather than a platform paying you money. There is a short format content that you are sitting on which goes on channels like Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Again, brands start coming in, but there is also a phenomena which is starting up right now called micro series. There are various kinds of models out there. We are experimenting with all those models. What gives me a lot of comfort is that we have been able to get enough reputation in the market, which can be reflected by the revenue numbers that we people are showing.
Just because the video revenue numbers of Saregama are under the music part, if you start comparing them right now with the revenue on a consistent basis, some of the bigger production houses are writing out here. We are right there. What we are also very, very clear, we are not going to indulge in this one high-profile film which is make it or break it. That's not the business model that we are building in our system. We are more comfortable with sustainable kind of models right now where there is not too much over-dependence on any one video asset of ours.
Right. Last one on the events, the INR 300 crore in FY2025, is this a one-off or do we expect growth from your events can do INR 400 crore, INR 500 crore, 26.7?
Unfortunately, these kinds of India has never seen this kind of event happening before. Exactly.
As a company, we do not want to get into events whereby maybe the top line will be there, but the margins with us will be 1% and 2%. We prefer doing businesses out here which are where the—because at the end of the day, beyond a point, top line is there only to go back and support the bottom line. That is a model that we are constantly looking at. Right now, the focus is more on working with the Indian artists and releasing our own IP shows, but we are also seriously looking at that can in a profitable fashion, we also start getting some of the international artists here.
Any guidance here for FY 2025, 2026 or 2027?
Too e arly, not on the event side.
Too early. Okay. Got it.
Not on the event side. Thank you so much for coming to. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We will take our next question from the line of Akshay Jogani from Exponent Tribe. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. I'm sorry if this session is repeated. I joined a little late. Last year, yeah, am I audible? Hi, Vikram. Am I audible?
You are audible, but your voice was not coming out very clear.
Is it better now? Better now. Perfect. I may be asking as a repeat. I joined a little late, but I just wanted to check that last year, the largest paying platform took a material price cut on a per-stream basis, right? It went from INR 0.10- INR 0.05. Now, do you expect that to further go down? What are the negotiations right this year?
Should we assume that the new pricing is the base that will not further collapse the growth from where we were in the year?
One, I can't. Which deals between us and any individual player. In general, our guidance is clear out here is that, one, we are holding on to a medium-term guidance of a music business growing at 22%-23%. There is no question of collapsing happening at all. Second, the dependence of Saregama in specific and Indian music industry in general on free is coming down. We believe right now it's a matter of another four to five quarters that you will see all of us growing in tandem right now on the back of growth on the subscription side.
The good news on the subscription side is that even in case of Saregama, the revenue that Saregama made on a small base, but the revenue growth that Saregama has seen on the subscription side is very high, double-digit percentage this year. We believe that digitization and more and more Indian customers are realizing that for digital content, they have to go out there and pay. We'll ensure that subscription actually takes off in the next four to five quarters. Sure.
Vikram, when we speak to OTTs, they explicitly tell us that our gross margins are 10% or less across the board versus Spotify globally has a much higher gross margin. We need to get to that, and if that has to happen, then the music labels have to sort of wait before they can grow. Is that something that we need to worry about?
Because I think one of the reasons our growth has been slower is that shift in sort of the OTT expectations also, right, in terms of them not having to lose more money.
I'll not go ask you which OTT platforms you are quoting here, but there are only two OTT platforms which have a free service left in this country. The rest of the people who are offering free have anyway shut down. The other guys are all behind a paywall. Out of the two guys who are offering the free service, one is the world's biggest OTT platform whose entire business model is built only on subscription. They are not built on free part of the business.
The second is India's biggest conglomerate who have kept, who after the recent merger in their two media companies have been started putting almost all their content behind a paywall. I would like to believe that both of them are equally motivated to go out there and start driving the subscription part of the business. Anyway, I believe that's the only sustainable form in music which will ensure right now that the platforms as well as labels and the content creators in terms of artists and film producers all can make a livelihood. A free-based business is a very short-term part out here where beyond a point, one of the three of the partners is going to collapse. Yes, all this is great news for subscription coming out there maybe faster than we expect. Yeah.
But Vikram, as a follow-up on this is that Spotify also recently launched the self-serve ad platform, right? I mean, which kind of indicates that they think that ads is also a way with which they can work, right? I mean, do you think that that slows down subscription for India?
Listen, again, you are getting into very specific. I will not talk about a specific platform. In general, these platforms also, both these platforms which are free platforms, they're seeing a very decent growth on a very small base. I'm putting that rider out here. They have very decent growth on the subscription side. All our conversations with them tell us right now that they are very serious about growing and driving the subscription part. Let me go out and play the devil's advocate. What's the worst part? It's not a subscription-based business.
They run an advertising-based business. Our model is similar with them. If they can sustain a massive advertising-driven business the way YouTube does today, we are okay right now because we get the same share of money from advertising in that case. The only thing that cannot work is that a free business is going on where the platform makes no money and labels are getting some amount of money. That's not a sustainable business. We believe right now that platforms will take a call. I believe the things are going to be moving towards subscription side. You may have a belief on the advertising side. Both ways, we get a share on an average 50% of whatever they make.
Yeah. No, that's helpful. Thank you so much. That's a factor.
Thank you. We will take our next question from the line of Amans ingh from Profi Gates Capital. Please go ahead
. Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, our music licensing business, X of artist management and the Carvaan business has grown just 3%-4% for the full year FY 2025, while the comparable peer has reported 27%-28% growth in the similar line of business. Can you help me understand the variance here?
See, there is no business. You are cutting a line right now where the line does not exist. The way our music business is being built right now, primarily the entire non-film music business of ours is being built on the back of artist management. In our system right now, when we look at the profitability analysis, it is not done that songs need to be made and artists need to be made. Both these things go hand in hand.
We are taking bets on artists who are signed onto us, putting money on those people, and trying to make money from the same artist. Not just the songs that the artist has made, but also use the songs to make the artist make money from him. If you're going to be slicing and dicing it in a way that we don't run the business, it will be difficult for me to answer that question. Please look at this business right now always on a complete basis, which is music means licensing plus artist management. The artist who creates content and the content, they both go hand in hand here.
Sir, a clarification. We had a good hit rate in this financial year, and we have invested in content acquisition also. The licensing business should have grown.
As you report in PPD and your investor presentation and the segmental reporting, we can get the music licensing business, X of artist management and Carvaan. That has not shown the growth that I was asking.
Sir, I understand. Later you can go back and say, "Why has Gujarati non-film business from a particular artist not grown?" It becomes difficult right now. Business is not run that way. Please, when you look at the music business, our business is only the film music business. It's just licensing. The non-film business, which is a large part of our music business right now, is completely connected to the artist management piece. Let me repeat what I tried to explain to you is, if I'm creating a new song, the team that is creating the new song is also responsible for identifying the artist.
They are then evaluated based on the money that the song made on streaming platforms or YouTube or other digital platforms and also the money that the artist has made because of the song from a brand or a live event. Globally, these two things are completely tied to each other. Please look at us strategically. That's the approach we are following. We are not following the approach of just being a film music label.
Right. This is helpful. Secondly, on DICE, can you share the outlook on profitability in mid of next year? Can you also share what was the investment in content cost for FY 2025 and outlook for FY 2026, specifically for DICE? Sir, it's not DICE
. I think you're talking about Pocket Aces. DICE is a different brand. Right. Right.
The only thing at the liberty I am out here to say right now, last year, we grew by 17%. We have not been able to reach the—we have cut down our losses a lot, but we are still a little away right now, just a little away, a little away from a breakeven. This year, we will achieve a breakeven while continuing to grow at a rate right now. Hopefully, we should be upwards of 20%. On specific segments of theirs right now, they are all part of the larger Saregama company. Saregama company music business is going to be growing at 23%, while video business is going to be growing at 25% on a medium-term basis.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much. Good luck. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, we will take this as our last question. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vikram Mehra for closing comments.
Thank you. Thanks a lot. I'm very happy right now with the quality of questions and the level of interest I have seen. We, as a company, when we look at our India, we look at 750 million-800 million people with a smartphone in their hands. If we start counting some of the other parts of the world where music that is coming from India or the video content coming from India is consumed, you're looking at a huge number of close to 1.8 billion-2 billion people who consume our content. This makes us very excited about how rosy the future is going to be.
We want to be the primary content company that fulfills every platform that is going out there and talking to these consumers who want to consume Indian native content, whether it's in any form of audio or video or a live experience. The company is making all the investments on the content side, on the infrastructure side, and technology side to keep itself as fit and profitable and in the number one position 25 years from now onwards also. Thank you and seek all the blessings. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.