Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Saregama India Limited Q4 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call hosted by Emkay Global Financial Services Limited. 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 this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Pranav Kshatriya from Emkay Global Financial Services Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to welcome the management and thank them for this opportunity. We have with us today Mr. Vikram Mehra, Managing Director, and Mr. Pankaj Kedia, Executive Director, Investor Relations. I shall hand over the call to the management for their opening remark. Over to you, gentlemen.
Thank you. A very good afternoon to all of you. The quarter four of the financial year saw revenue from operations at INR 287 crore with an year-on-year growth of 19%. Our highest ever adjusted EBITDA at INR 133 crore with year-on-year growth of 31% and operational PBT at INR 105 crore, which is an year-on-year growth of 37%. Let me start with music. Global recorded music grew to close to $32 billion in 2025 according to IFPI, with India still under 2% of that despite housing 18% of the world's population. We in India are operating in the most under-penetrated large music market on Earth. Saregama's entire strategy is built around that 20-year opportunity that is sitting in front of us.
If I look at financial year 2026, the overall music vertical, and for the sake of simplicity, now onwards, when we talk about music vertical, we'll combine everything in it: music licensing, artist management, and the retail business. All the three core elements from music are going to be there under the music vertical. Together, it recorded revenue of INR 814 crore, which was 17% year-on-year growth. Annual EBITDA stood at INR 517 crore with a 22% year-on-year growth and an annual net margin of INR 377 crore, which was a 27% year-on-year margin growth. This is music vertical overall, licensing, artist management, and retail. There was some concern that was expressed at the end of Q2 from multiple partners and investors about our music vertical growth trajectory.
At that time, the management team had attributed it solely to the phasing of the music content releases. Post Q2, as the content started getting released in Q3 and Q4, Saregama is back on the growth track. The other factor that really helped us in this Q4 growth rate is moving out of Airtel Wynk's revenue in the denominator. In 2025, Q4 did not have Wynk revenue, which helped us a lot. We are completely out of the cycle of free platforms shutting down, and that has started showing in the growth numbers of our music vertical. H1 has seen a growth of 7%, while H2 has seen a growth of 26%. What I'm proud of sharing is that H2 it also became a big testament to our music business guiding principles.
When Dhurandhar 1 song started picking up in the month of December, we went all out building them further using our digital marketing muscle. The Pocket Aces digital footprint played a massive role here. This ensured that the success of the album was extended over a much longer duration. Today, even after, what, close to five months of the release of the album, we are still daily generating 6 million streams on the audio OTT and 11 million views on YouTube. The song Shararat stays at the number one global position. I'm repeating, number one global position on YouTube even today. We very strongly believe within the company that hit songs don't come every day. When you get one, in this case, we got a full hit album, you have to really make it count by pushing it aggressively in terms of marketing and promotions.
The second principle within the music vertical that I've reiterated multiple times in front of all of you that we very strongly at Saregama believe in, is that the music purchase has to be done only with a financial lens in front of us and never that of vanity. After the massive success of Dhurandhar 1, it was very tempting for us as a company to also go for Dhurandhar 2 music. In fact, there was a lot of peer and partner pressure around it. Everybody expected Saregama to go and bag Dhurandhar 2 music. I'm very proud that the acquisition team stood its ground and refused to buy the album because of the pricing. The expectations of the producer just did not fit into a five-year payback guideline. We said, no.
I'm proud to share our position actually stands vindicated today. We did the right thing by not going out there and picking it up. As we continue growing the music vertical, we are steadfastly maintaining that we will grow it, keeping in mind strong economic principles and never do things which are coming out of vanity. Overall, the company released close to 1,200 original and premium recreations across Hindi, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, and Bengali languages. Our spends this year on new music content was close to INR 235 crore, and another INR 104 crore was spent on doing inorganic purchases of various small and mid-size catalogs.
Our spend of INR 235 crore on new content was lower than what we had planned, and this specifically happened because some of the bigger movies that we had planned to release in Q4 actually got pushed. I think the biggest name will be Sanjay Leela Bhansali Love and War and Telugu superstar Nani's film Paradise. During this quarter, the company completed its strategic investment in Bhansali Productions through a significant minority ownership. With the valuation linked to the financial performance of the Bhansali Productions company over the next three years. This arrangement provides Saregama with an exclusive access to marquee Hindi film music at a predictable cost based on a predefined formula. There is a terrific lineup of films planned by Bhansali Productions.
This in turn ensures that Saregama secures our A and B+ Hindi film music album requirement for next 24 to 30 months. We won't have to go hunting in the market for it. Our overall lineup for FY 2027 includes the delayed and now scheduled album of Love and War of Mr. Bhansali. Dharma Productions starring Kartik Aaryan called Naagzilla. Rajinikanth's next Tamil film. Sivakarthikeyan's Tamil film Seyon. Nani's Telugu expected blockbuster Paradise, amongst others. During the year, we also want to further consolidate our leadership position that we got with the acquisition of Nav Haryanvi . This year, we plan to go back and build that one weakness that we had. We want to fill in that gap, which is Punjabi music. We have done our homework over the last six months debating on what strategy to adopt.
We are confident we have something good coming our way now, and hopefully the results will start showing within the next two to three quarters. Overall, we continue with our guidance of a five-year payback period, followed by anything between 55 to 75 years of returns. Music catalog globally is increasingly being treated as an infrastructure like inflation-linked asset. It's long-term, it's predictable, and its value keeps on going up as platforms keep on re-increasing their own subscription prices. That's a reason why institutional capital from the likes of Bain or Apollo or KKR is now flowing into this space through various kinds of JVs and direct catalog purchases. All of this is happening at this juncture globally. We at Saregama, with a 180,000 songs catalog growing at 5,500 new releases per year, is exactly the kind of asset that compounds value over decades.
Let me touch the subscription part of the audio business. This year saw a focused effort by platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and Gaana to build paid subscription revenue. The net result was an improvement in Saregama's revenue, despite revenue from the free remaining flat. If we have been able to go back and show growth, subscription has already started playing a role there. A recent Indian customer study that was conducted and shared by EY and IMI stated that 64% of free music customers in India are ready to shift to a reasonably priced paid service if all free services in the market stop. This is data right now which has been shared in the latest FICCI report also. It just re-validates what we all believe in. Indian customer is not stingy.
Indian customer values music and is ready to pay. If the free option is available, people always prefer the free option. The moment free option goes away, Indian customer is ready to pay. We maintain our bullish position on the subscription growth in the country. Just to put it in perspective, the paid streaming penetration is 67% in Sweden, 57% in the U.S., 50% in the U.K., 13% odd in Brazil and China, versus less than 3% in India. This is according to the Goldman Sachs estimates, and this is a percentage of the internet users in any country. With every percentage point of penetration translating to 14 million paying subscribers. The runway in India is structurally larger than any other larger market in the world, and Saregama plays in this market. The other part that everybody wants to talk about is AI.
While at Saregama we are watching this space carefully and have not committed any significant capital to it at this moment, our position in the company is that owned music, which is artist-driven premium music, is going to become far more valuable and not less valuable in this AI-driven world where a lot of AI slop is coming in. Authenticated, human-created music with clear provenance becomes your premium asset because customer at the end of the day is not just relating to a song. Customers also relate to the artist behind the song. That artist might be the actor on whom the song is picturized or the singer who has gone out there and sung the song. This is something that this mass-generated AI slop, which is flooding the ecosystem, can never provide.
In the long run, companies like Saregama with having the most premium catalog of the country across multiple languages is going to become even more sought after from the song value perspective. At the same time, we are realizing that AI is creating new licensing opportunity, as can be witnessed by the deals signed by various global music labels with various generative AI platforms. At the right time, we will also engage commercially with many of these people. It may become one more way in which our revenues our IP can be monetized. I'd also like to share that we have recently launched a dedicated AI efficiency team, headed by a very senior tech person from the company.
This team is analyzing every people-heavy process in the company, every area right now, whether it's infringement tracking or any other operations path, and is finding smarter AI-based solutions that can improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of all these processes. As promised, Pocket Aces has reached breakeven this year. We were committed to it. Pocket Aces team was committed to it, and I'm very proud that we finally went out there and delivered to what we had promised. The company has started making money, and we believe that as we people go forward, the profitability of the company will start going up. This is over and above the benefits Pocket Aces ends up offering to the music business and the live events business of Saregama. All those benefits are accruing actually more on the Saregama side.
While global majors are today talking about expanding artist brands beyond streaming, we have been quietly building it over last 3 to 4 years, and today it's already a meaningful EBITDA contributor through our artist management, live events, and brand partnerships vertical. Artist management, the newer vertical under music, works by making artists popular through our IP releases and then monetizing them via booking for live events, weddings, and more importantly, brand endorsements. Saregama gets a share of it. During the quarter, we added another 30 odd artists, taking the total artist managed by the company to 300+ . These artists combined have over 400 million follower and subscriber base on digital world. Our investment in content goes up, so does the investment in the artist.
In that case, the artist ends up making money for us, not just from the music, but also from their presence in various live events, brand partnerships. That becomes a second vertical through which you can go back and monetize the artist. Live events, the other verticals that we people are using to extend our relationship with the artist, ended up launching its first music festival IP called UN40 in this quarter. Instead of competing with other festival that are there in the market, we position our festival uniquely as a destination for only people under the age of 40, and hence the name UN40. Instead of bringing in international artists to perform at this music festival, we took a conscious call that we will work only with the Indian artist.
Rather than treating it as a weakness, we built it as a unique positioning of the UN40 festival, and that positioning helped. Every other festival in the country has a particular format in which artists come out there and perform during festivals. We turn it on its head and said that apart from the artist performing, we will also have stand-up comedy acts in it, and we will have physical interactive games along the lines of what Takeshi's Castle used to do on television earlier. They were games where multiple people were participating with each other in a funny enough fashion. I'm proud to say all these gambles that we people had taken for UN40 actually worked. We generated 12,000 footfalls along with eight sponsor brands coming on board. Remember, this is season one of this festival.
We plan to nurture this festival further and make it even bigger in FY 2027. We expect this IP to break even by FY 2028. Overall, live events vertical during the year saw a revenue of INR 62 crore. I accept that this revenue or number is far lower than FY 2025. Please keep in mind, FY 2025 had a one-off event, which was Diljit Dosanjh India tour. These kind of tours don't happen at that frequency. If I remove that one-off revenue out, even the live vertical has seen growth this year. FY 2027 will see us launching a series of small concerts under the Carvaan Live branding, targeting middle-aged and older audiences that enjoy a sit-down premium music listening experience. We are also increasing our focus on the American market.
Tours with Ilaiyaraaja, Sudesh Bhosle, and Anup Jalota have already been announced. Globally, music labels are increasingly focused on monetizing super fans. In fact, Luminate research shows super fans spend 105% more than the average listener, and 73% of them buy physical merchandise. Carvaan Live and our diaspora-focused tours in America target exactly this audience segment within the Indian context: older, financially comfortable, and willing to pay a premium for curated experience with artists they grew up listening to. Our long-term belief in the potential of live events keeps getting reinforced every quarter, and we will continue upping our focus in this area. Brand partnerships. As mentioned last time, we have created a new vertical called brand partnerships in order to maximize revenue from the brands across the various businesses that we have, which is music, live events, and short format videos.
In this last quarter, we partnered with brands such as Škoda, Lakmé, Hero, OpenAI, Coca-Cola, Ajio and more. Let me talk about the last vertical, which is video. On an annual basis, the video vertical has declined by 43% to INR 108 crore. Let me very clearly state this: this decline is by design and has not happened by chance. We have shared this with many of you guys in the past that early in the year, last year, we have took a conscious call that we will wind down our own in-house film production business that we were doing under the Yoodlee brand name, and instead will invest in a production house. During the year, we zeroed down on a potential partnership with Bhansalis and went ahead with that.
That's the only reason why you are seeing a serious decline in the video vertical, and we are happy with this. We don't expect video vertical to go up substantially within the company. The focus will stay primarily on TV serials and the digital content only, primarily short format. All our film ambitions and hence our need to secure music of big films, that ambition is gonna be fulfilled only through our partnership with Bhansali Productions. As I come to the close of my address, what I'd like to share with you is that India is at an early stage of global streaming curve. Keep in mind, this is a feature and not a bug. It means our growth is driven by subscriber expansion, ARPU expansion, and also format diversification simultaneously.
While the mature Western market primarily depends only on price hike today, we have three ways in which we know our revenue is going to go up. With that in mind, over the next few years, Saregama will continue investing in new music content. This will contribute not only to the immediate growth, but also put the company on a long-term growth path. For the music vertical, which is licensed music, artist management, and retail all combined, we continue with our medium-term guidance of 21%-23% revenue growth, 20%-21.33% CAGR in terms of revenue, with our annual EBITDA guidance for this vertical being anything between 60%-65%.
Saregama's growth narrative will continue to be steady in the medium to long term, thanks to the ever-increasing digital consumption, both in terms of new customers joining the market and existing customers consuming more. With over +650 million internet users in India, our cash reserves, professional managerial depth, and access to the soundtracks of the best films, we will be able to drive earnings not just for the next two to three years, but for the next 20 to 30 years.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Happy to take questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Congrats on very good numbers. My first question is on the two things which you highlighted. First was weakness in Punjabi. I wanted to understand why this segment has been a bit on the lower side. Is it because it's niche market or more competitive or more expensive? How much allocation you plan over the next two years in this? Second is on AI IP monetization. How big can this be? Any examples from the developed market? If you can talk more about this. That is my first question.
Okay. On the Punjabi side, we have experimented getting to this market twice over the last six years. I'll be honest and confess that our strategy never worked out. Any market that we get into, we need to keep a very tight balance between market share and the return on investment, which is a five-year payback principle. The market is a very expensive market, we also understand that if you get it right, the monetization happens not just from Punjabis living in India, but from U.S., Canada, and U.K. also. We have been able to crack a model whereby we are working with more and more artists in a fashion that we do a combined deal with them, both for the recorded music as well as doing live events with the same artist.
This is where Saregama starts getting uniquely placed compared to all other peers in the market, because we're the only guys who are playing across both recorded music and live. I am fairly confident, hopefully not overconfident. I'm fairly confident that we will be able to crack it this time. We, maybe by the end of the year or end of Q 3, we'll be in a better position to share our performance with you. If you start following us on any of the social media, you will have the answers faster than even I can share with you. You were asking about AI.
See, what we are very clearly seeing that all this AI slop, which means purely AI-generated content, which are from engines which have not been trained on any of the international music catalogs, that kind of content has come in a very big fashion. It's there. It's there across all platforms. The fact of life is, it's seeing no traction. This and all the music labels globally and in India are working very closely with the leading three global streaming platforms, making it very clear that the When the content pool is going to get distributed across the labels, no value should get assigned to content which is getting generated purely or through AI. There is no revenue leakage today. There is no market share loss happening today.
We are hopeful that platforms and IP owners will come to a reasonable agreement whereby the royalty monies or the content pool monies will get distributed only to genuine IP and not the AI slop. Hopefully, I've answered your question.
Thank you. My second and last question will be, you spent INR 235 crore on new content. Given some of the movies, which you said have been pushed to FY 2027, what will be the budget for FY 2027? In terms of Airtel Wynk, that service ending essentially, where would that customer for you would have gone, if any idea on that?
Let me answer the first question. It's also part of our presentation, we are expecting our new content budget to be anything between INR 300 crore-INR 350 crore this year. As for Airtel Wynk, Airtel Wynk shut in November 2024. The customers have already got distributed across the other platforms. What I can tell you, which are the other platforms, it will be wrong on my part to tell you where did they exactly move. That's a platform prerogative. There's Spotify, there's JioSaavn, there's Amazon, there's Gaana, there's Apple, there's YouTube.
Understood. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Kavish Parekh from 360 ONE Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a great set of numbers for two quarters in a row. My first question pertains to one of the notes to accounts you put. You seem to have written back provisions worth INR 99 million during the quarter. Could you share what do these provisions pertain to and where exactly is the impact reflected?
This is something that happens every year. What we do is during the year, we build up a position on the provision side, and when the actual consumption data comes out, that's the time we are in a better position to decide how much royalty has to be paid or not paid. Remember, I've shared this in the past. Royalties, today, when all the new content is being bought, royalties are to be paid only on the Hindi film music. All the South Indian content and Hindi non-film content is one-time payment content, and there's no royalty overflow that happens. Actual consumption reports from the platforms come at a much later stage, and that's why this is a natural process that happens every year. Whenever the reports come in-
Does this.
We actually go back and clear it.
Does this in any way impact your revenue items, or is this entirely on the royalty line item, the cost side of it?
See, what you need to do is, also the other part right now I forgot to mention is you congratulated us on a Q3 , Q4 . You need to congratulate us on Q1-Q4 because it very often happens is that some of the stuff right now which we had taken a provision in Q1 actually got written it down in Q4 . Please, every time when you are looking at our numbers, Saregama's numbers always have to be looked at on a rolling 12-month basis, so that all these kind of factors start going out of the window.
Even advances is a pretty good. Another example I can throw in on a 12-month basis is, when you're looking to look at a cash position. There are times right now when the advances come in and then finally the advances position is getting wound down. If we are gonna be looking at it on a quarter-on-quarter basis, you will see a serious amount of ups and downs there. It's best always evaluate our numbers right now on a 12-month basis.
No, sir, I understand that. What I'm trying to understand is this one of the reasons for this provision write back? Does this sit in your revenue or is that the reason for the 42% EBITDA margin that you've reported? Is this in any way aiding your growth or is this only on the margin front?
It's all sitting as part of your cost structures only.
Nothing in the revenue?
It's as we write down. These are all cost structures which are getting winded down.
Understood. Understood. Pretty helpful. Second, on your disclosures on page 20 of your deck, thanks for the clarification at the start of the call that music now includes, licensing retail as well as artist management. Here could you please explain the movement in margins? What explains the sustained up move in margins here, from about, sub 60%, few quarters ago to 60%, and then, the sharp jump to 68% today? Would you be able to attribute this to any particular, vertical here, say, licensing or artist or retail, or is this broad-based across the three?
The individual, if you see right now the segmental results, you will realize we have also shared the individual results there at all times. You know exactly out of this how the margins have changed right now on the artist management part. Also, when you're looking at my margins, it's always better, once again, please look at on a four -month. Q4 looks like that much better than a Q2 or a Q1. The fact of life is, it's about when the content got released. In some quarter, the cost of the content is being recognized, but the revenue is going to be flowing in the next quarter onwards. Overall, we had mentioned this, that we were at a stage whereby we were really scaling up our content investments as far new music is concerned.
As we people go forward, as we look at FY 2028- FY 2030, we believe that our content investments should go up only at closer to the rate of inflation, because we will be in a good position of a 25%-30% market share of the newer content. As the new content investments start going up in a linear fashion and not a step function fashion, you will see that slow, first EBITDA and then PBT will start flowing the growth trajectory of the revenue growth.
Understood. Thanks for that, Vikram. Last question from my side. Organic content spend this year stood at about INR 235 crores, but the cash flow in the PBT states about INR 186 crores. I understand this difference here pertains to the marketing spend. Your nine-month PBT mentioned about INR 228 crores in the PBT's cash flow. That INR 228 seems to have come down to INR 186.
Right.
Could you explain this movement?
This specific one, can I take offline with you right now? I'll have to go through all the numbers when you're saying nine months part. Broadly speaking is what we are sharing with you is the investment. When you say the investment, it is in terms of the music that got released during the financial year. The charge-off that we are taking right now will be connected not just to the music that got released this year, but also the charge-off of the music that got released over the last few years. We write off our music charges on the content side over a period of 10 years, where marketing gets written off in the same year.
Understood. Sure. Let's take this offline. Thank you. Thanks, Vikram.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Aanchal Jalan with Lotus Wealth Family Office. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Congratulations on the good set of numbers. Sir, in the last con call also, you had discussed that there is a potential of around 100 million paid subscribers in India, and now also you said that 64% of free music users are ready to switch to paid subscription. Say hypothetically, if there are around 10 million paid subscribers in India, what would be our share in it in percentage terms?
Ma'am, I can't go out there and share my market share in the market today. Remember, we are not getting the subscriber. Spotify is getting the subscriber. When a Spotify subscriber is listening to music during the month, we get paid based on market share of what subscriber heard during the month. Are you with me?
Yes, sir.
I don't own the subscriber. I partially own the consumption of that subscriber on that platform.
Yes. Can you give me some context, like what would be our share in it, as in our consumption share in it?
Ma'am, at this juncture, but the other data point I can go back and share with you, that in terms of revenue, which is coming from the music side, we are the second-largest company in the country after T-Series. As far new music is concerned, new music being defined as the music that was released over the last 12 months, we have number one position across multiple languages in the country.
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Avnish Sharma with JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah, can you hear me?
Yes, please.
Yeah. Congratulations on the good set of numbers. I have a few questions. If you see a bit of history, the revenue for full quarter 2024, that the growth was around 40% at the time. After that, the growth has remained subdued in terms of revenue. It has improved over the last two quarters. My question is, should we expect the current trends that we have in revenue to continue in the coming quarters, or should we look at the numbers like how should we look at the numbers then?
I'm assuming you're talking about the music vertical?
Yeah, yeah, music vertical, yeah.
For music vertical, I had stated this in the past also that our growth was getting subdued. In fact, I'll say over the last two years now, primarily on account of the fact a lot of free streaming platforms had shut down, and their revenue numbers were sitting as part of the denominator, while those things were not available in numerator at all. You had four different platforms changing shape and form, some shutting down, some going fully behind the paywall. That effect is completely over, which is the reason that it gives us the confidence to give you a guidance of 20%-23% growth coming as overall music vertical, which is licensing, artist management, and we also including the Carvaan business in this. We are fairly confident.
You will again have a quarter here and a quarter there, but on a full year basis, we will live up to these kind of numbers.
Understood. That's great. The second question is on the margins in the music segment. There's a significant uptake in the margins this quarter. Just wanted to understand the reason for the same.
For this quarter?
Yeah.
Again, please don't look at from the quarter perspective, because like, a very good example will be Dhurandhar. Dhurandhar got released in the month of December. The entire marketing cost of Dhurandhar is sitting in Q3, while it got released in the end part of December.
Lot of revenue upside is sitting on quarter four, while the marketing got written in quarter three. Whenever you're looking at us, please look at us on a four-month, four-quarter basis.
Understood.
That gives some kind of a uniformity. Otherwise.
Yeah, understood. My last question is, in terms of the competition, we see the non-digital revenue has increased significantly for the competition. Just wanted to know our split of digital and non-digital and trends over the past three, four quarters.
Yeah. We don't disclose our digital, non-digital, but all I can go back and tell you, and you can check this from non-music labels. Don't ask me or any of my competitors. Go to the normal industry people and check out. The largest absolute number of non-digital revenue in the country still comes through Saregama.
Understood.
In fact, on digital, I'm number two, I'm not number one. On non-digital, I'm number one.
Understood. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Thanks. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Prateek Poddar with Bandhan AMC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, am I audible?
Yeah, Prateek.
Yeah. Hi. just could you confirm, Vikram, that, you know, we had this headwind of discontinued platforms in the base. That is now over with? Is that a fair understanding?
Yeah, it's over with. There's no platform sitting out there now in our denominator.
Okay. The second question, just on events business. While I understand and appreciate that this is a lumpy business from a revenue perspective, this quarter I saw a loss in the event business. That was something which I couldn't understand.
Yeah, yeah.
The wedding business?
I added as part of my opening commentary. We people launched our first festival IP this year. Typically, festival IPs take anything between three to four years to do a break even. That loss is all primarily going out of because of UN40. I expect it to be having some for this trend to continue. Only in FY 2028 do we expect the festival to do a break even. Every time you'd have any bit of a debate on a festival, just look at the Coachella numbers, and then you start realizing that festivals take five, seven years to build. After that, they become massive profit machines. The biggest beauty of festival is you're not dependent on any one individual artist. You can keep on changing artists because the festival is bigger than the artist.
Understood. This would be a quarterly phenomena, right? It's not for the year. I mean, the UN40 festival, which I heard would be.
UN40 will be an annual phenomena, this festival. We may end up launching another one or two festivals if we believe there's a decent amount of opportunity there. UN40 is an annual thing. We have already announced UN40 for February 27th.
Okay. Once in a year, right?
Yeah.
Okay. Is there a budget of amount of losses you would want to keep aside? Let's say the investment, it's not losses, it's actually investments for the future.
Yeah.
How much would you want to keep aside?
Let's put it this way. You've seen the numbers now. This is year one, and year one takes the largest amount of losses because you're trying to establish. There are already expectations. We know brand revenues are gonna go up further. We know the number of tickets we'll be able to sell are gonna go up further. The losses are gonna come down, they're not gonna go up on a festival-by-festival basis. Typically, if one is running the festival business in a financially prudent fashion, after year one, you need to take a call is that, is it working or not? If not, shut it down. If it working, year two you make it bigger, but you get ensured right now your losses come down.
Superb. Last question, Sorry. Just on the video segment, given that you have already called out that we would be going through a production house and you will be winding down the video business, how should I think about capital employed and then overall margins, right? I think you called out segmental margins, and you did give a guidance, but the revenue mix changes, right? Essentially, a lot of our revenue now comes from music plus artist plus retail and a bit of events, and video sits with the production house. How should I think about company level business?
You know, the guidance that I've given right now are for the EBITDA margins only of the music vertical and nothing else.
Yes. Yeah.
Video part, listen, we are still going through this churn state. It will take us a year or something to stabilize. The Bhansali Productions numbers are going to enter our books right now. In terms of what is the exact name right now, share or net profit of associate accounted for using the equity method. That's a line item.
Yeah.
Under which we are going to be putting the numbers of our partner company. Our own video vertical, which time, we are not green-lighting any major new projects. Whatever was there in the pipeline, that's the only thing we want to complete in financial year 2027. Our focus will continue on the shorter format and TV series and digital series business. That business typically is, if run well, should always be a profitable business. In the past, we have always been profitable in that part of the business. You're looking at margins that are anything between what? Net margins of 8%-15%, 8%-18%. Very little capital actually gets allocated to series business.
You take advances from most of the times, you take advances from the platforms or the TV channels and make content using that. The only place where we end up taking some of our own bets, which is numbers which are running into lakhs, not even crores, is what we do on the short format side. From the capital allocation perspective, to answer your question, the we had earlier indicated to you guys that between our video vertical and the live vertical, the total capital of that will get allocated will be 18% of the total capital deployed. That number is going to go down dramatically, will be in the mid-single digits now.
Fantastic. Thanks. This was helpful. Best wishes.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Yash Bajaj with Lucky Investments. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, team, thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations for the great set of numbers. My first question is on our plans of the INR 1,000 crore spend on new content acquisition. Should we consider FY 2027 as one of the five -year deals for this kind of investment if you take FY 2025?
Yeah.
FY 2026.
Yeah.
FY 2027 cumulative numbers?
Yep, you're absolutely right. FY 2025, 2026, 2027 was INR 1,000 crore odd, and we will be in that ballpark, in that space only. Our intent is from 28 onwards, increase it only in a linear fashion, and no more step jumps in new content investments. We are happy with the current 25%-30% market share that we have of the new music coming out in the market.
Got it. Understood. My second question is, thank you for actually kind of giving a detailed explanation of how the music business and the EBITDA margins and profit margins look like. My only question here is that what is the difference between music EBITDA percentage and music net margin percentage?
Sure.
Is it that the music EBITDA percentage has?
That if you-
Marketing and production?
If you see that specific slide in the presentation we have made, we have written about it. Music net margin is EBITDA less content charge. The newer content we have. Marketing and everything we have to consider is then due the content charge that we are taking for the newer content has not been deducted when we calculate EBITDA. You deduct that, you get the net margins.
Okay. Understood. Understood. Just a question around this as well, that, now that if, like you mentioned that, we have to look at the P&L on a rolling four-quarter basis, if we take, FY 2025, music net margin percentage compared to, FY 2026 music net margin percentage, there is an increase from a 42% to, I think, 47%-48%. So what explains that 600 basis points, improvement? If you can help us understand that.
You know, all verticals, the biggest vertical remains the licensing vertical. What you are seeing is that initial years content investment that we had done, the heavy lifting of the charge that we are taking had happened in 2025. All the content that we people did in 2025, and there are massive hits like IFI which is sitting there or Amaran which is sitting out there in FY 2025. The bigger charge of that has been taken in 2025, while the revenue benefits of that will keep on accruing to us over the years. 2026 is a good example of it. Last year, when our numbers were going on the flatter side, I had stated this, that the numbers in 2025 were on the flatter side compared to 2024.
We just jumped into new content investment in a meaningful fashion. Though the revenues were going up, the charge-off was also very, very big, and hence the overall profitability was going on the flattish side. This year onwards, while our content investment is there, but the benefit of 2024 and 2025 is also coming to 2026. You with me?
Okay. Understood. Yes, yes. Got it. Got it.
The beauty of music business is that, once you have done the heavy charge-off in the beginning, if you do your music selection in a correct and a fashion, you keep on doing that, some amount of drip marketing throughout behind a hit song, the song has got a very long life, it will keep on generating revenues for you.
No, very clear, sir. Just one final question is, just on the subscription part of the business, if you can help us understand what proportion of our business would be subscription today, or if you're not comfortable sharing that?
I don't-
Help us understand the growth rate between, suppose, subscription versus free business?
You know, the Saregama directly has no subscription. Spotify has subscription, YouTube has sub.
Yes. I mean paid. Paid, I mean paid.
No. Since, let me not go back and share that data. It's just too competitor-sensitive data. The fact of life is that the monies that we were making from the free side of audio streaming platforms are flattish, and I'm acknowledging it.
Understood.
Growth that you're seeing in the numbers that is coming in, and the numbers are there in front of you, is all coming courtesy the paid subscription side.
Got it.
Remember, it's just right at the beginning. We have the massive play left in terms of new subscribers coming in, ARPU expansion and various other monetization mechanisms coming in. Unfortunate part is that even the Latin American countries are far ahead of us in terms of penetration. The positive part is there's a massive road in front of us.
Understood. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Govindarajan Chellappa from CSIM. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have three of them. First, just a clarification. In your presentation, you mentioned that you expect music net margins to improve by 300- 500 basis points in three to five years. In essence, you're expecting the EBIT margins to move from 46% odd to a sustainable 50%. Is that understanding correct?
In fact, if I'm looking at the EBIT margins, currently also our music, are hovering around 60% odd. If you look at my slide,
Not the net margins.
You are talking about.
Is basically the EBIT margin for the business.
If you're talking about the net percentages, which are somewhere hovering between 46%-50%, yes, over next three to five years, you should have 300-500 basis points increase coming on our music business, everything else remaining as it is.
Okay. This would be a linear increase or you think this will be backended?
No, no. It may take us another year or two for the buildup to start happening. What we are realizing is that as our digital footprint is becoming stronger and bigger, a big advantage is coming in that the incremental marketing cost that I have to incur to promote a song, a decent chunk of that I am able to go out there and do it because of the Pocket Aces digital footprint. That is the kind of saving we end up accruing in the system. The process has started. You will see it in a linear. It will not be a single step jump that will happen, it will be linear. Linear where the angle is a little lower in the beginning and becomes steeper as we go ahead.
Okay, understood. My second question is on short format videos. Right now I think you get paid a fixed fee per annum by each of the platforms. Is this an annual contract? How or, you know, is it renewed annually and what is the basis for renewal? You know, you've mentioned that there could be, you know, conversations around sharing ad spends on short format. If you could give an update on that.
Actually nothing has changed over the last one year. This is one of the areas which bothers us. Short format content, all our deals have one-year deals, and the renewal typically happens basis the usage of our content during the year. Yes, we are able to get some kind of a step jump, but it is not as ideal as an advertising driven model is because an advertising driven model, you straight away see benefit accruing right now to your bottom line. What happens with YouTube free service. Short format content, all the licensing to short format services is still a fixed fee deal renewed on an annual basis.
Okay. My last question is on this line item, unallocable expenditure. It's moved from INR 7 odd crore in FY 2023 to INR 74 crore in FY 2026. You know, what are the components of this? Has there been any reclassification? How do we think about growth in this expenditure over the next few years?
My thing is, unfortunately, I don't have a CFO at this moment. Can I ensure right now somebody calls you up and takes you through these numbers in detail?
Sure.
You're quoting FY 2023 to 2026 movement now.
Yeah. I mean, every year it has doubled.
We will go back and sit with you. The core part I can go back and say that the core management team is all sitting in there. There is some amount of manpower cost also that is sitting in. Kuldeep, do you have an answer to this, if you can help?
Sir.
From FY-
Mohan, can you repeat your query? We just lost you in between.
Yeah. The unallocable expenditure, which comes below the segmental results.
Right
It moved from INR 7 crore in FY 2023 to INR 16 crore in 2024 to INR 36 crore in 2025 and INR 74 crore in FY 2026. Right. There's a 10x increase in that expenditure.
If we have to look, if we see a comparison between 2025 and 2026, in FY 2026 it was INR 37 crores and it is now INR 73 crores. Because this unallocable expense is net of other income, which is the income which we do in investment in mutual funds and FDs. When we are investing in the content, we are realizing that those investments, and that is where the interest income has dropped. As a result of same, you are seeing that delta in this expense.
This is one of the major reason also is in the expense, which you see here.
Okay. I Okay. Sorry.
As the QIP funds are getting utilized, either in terms of purchases or earlier Pocket Aces then happened Bhansali and our newer music content that we are doing, the interest income on that capital is coming down, which means the netting off effect is coming down. In reality, the unallocable expenses are not going up to in any alarming fashion. It's just the netting off portion, which is giving this illusion as if they are going up.
Okay. I mean, I think I need to take this offline because between FY 2023 and FY 2026.
Please, happy to.
Other income has dropped only INR 10 crore, whereas this is down by only INR 70 crore.
Happy to go back and check.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'll take this offline. Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of [Sanmat Jain] from Kemal Kaya Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, am I audible?
Yes, please.
Yeah. I had two questions. I wanted to know about the revenue from social media platforms. Suppose an influencer posts our music, so what's the deal structure and how much do we make from that one reel? What is the revenue model there?
I had answered this, I think, just last question only. All our social media platform deals are flat fee deals. That means we get paid a flat fee by this platform for utilization of our music across a reel short post during the year. You're not getting paid right now on a per reel basis, but this license is restricted only for individual consumption and usage. A brand cannot take advantage of this and post any reel of theirs. Brands have to take, negotiate a license from us directly.
Okay. Understood. Okay. My other question was related to the investment part. Suppose we do INR 350 crore in FY 2027 to reach our stated target of INR 1,000 crore. From FY 2028, what investment budget are we planning?
We are looking at a linear increase as we people go forward from after post FY 2027. Because principally we are comfortable that 25%-30% market share that we will get with the INR 300 crore to INR 350 crore ka content investment. As you go forward, you can look at anything in terms of very high single-digit to a very low double-digit percentage increase on year-on-year basis.
Okay. Considering the base of INR 350 crores for FY 2027, incremental to that you are saying, right? Suppose INR 400 crores kind of number.
Yeah. See, for me, it's at this juncture of 12 months away, it's more of a philosophical question, and our philosophy is clear that we started from zero investment in this company on new music. We have ramped it up in a very rapid fashion over the last three years to give ourselves clear leadership position in multiple languages, to get ourselves a 25%-30% market share in the basis in terms of new music. We are comfortable. We want to create it a position here. We don't want to go back and do another massive step function jump here.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Rohan Nagpal with Helios Capital Management. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks for taking my question. Am I audible?
Yes, please.
Just on the set of numbers. I just want to understand the seasonality that we see in the music revenues that we're booking even after taking out artist management. There seems to be a steady rise.
Sorry, your audio-
Through the year. What is the underlying driver of that increasing streaming or licensing revenue Q1- Q4?
Sorry, I'm so sorry. You will have to repeat your question. Could not hear you. Hello?
Hello?
Hello.
Trying. Hello?
Rohan, please go ahead with your question once again.
Okay.
Your audio wasn't clear earlier.
Okay. There's a clear sort of increasing trend between Q1 and Q4 on the music revenue that we generate ex-Aarka and ex-artist management, increasing licensing revenue. I want to understand what is the driver of this increasing revenue in licensing between Q1 and Q4 through the years?
Between Q1, Q4, actually the biggest factor is when which a big album is getting released. A lot of this revenue that you're seeing right now is also governed by the new music releases. Typically, in our country, Q1 being the IPL time, you will have less new big movies getting released during the year. Q3 being the Diwali time ends up seeing a massive release in terms of new music, and then the December, January timeframe is very, very big. One being Christmas, second, being around Onam. Why am I saying Onam? Around 14th of January, the 14th January becomes a very big release date in South India, and then 14th February becomes a very big release date across the country as far romantic movies are concerned.
You typically in our country have bigger releases coming in Q3, Q4. The only date that stands out is around Onam wala date, which is from 15th August to end of the August, where you do have big Malayalam and sometimes patriotic, patriotism-driven Hindi films also coming out. Sometimes that Q2 may become bigger than Q3 also, and we have seen that in the past happening with us. Q1 typically is the most muted one because there are very few releases. The other factor which need to keep in mind for Q4 is that there are some of the commercial relationships where the money hits us only at the end of the year. This typically happens with various relationships we have with various societies.
They're able to go out there and finish their reconciliation for the entire year and release the monies only, typically. They do two or three tranches [Non-English content] payment, but if they're getting delayed, primarily all the payments end up hitting you on Q4. That's why, like a stuck record, I'll again repeat, please look at us on a rolling 12-month basis.
Understood. That's really helpful. Thank you. The other question I have is, there's a sharp decrease in the advertisement and sales promotion expenses here. Is that, on account of, events not being there this year or not with the same intensity, or is there some other factor driving that?
I'll let two big factors start coming in here. One, you have nailed it. Last year, this also included all the advertising that we people had done for the Diljit Dosanjh show. We have scaled down the video verticals this year, so very few new films were released by us this year, while 2025 also had film advertising expenses hitting it. This is not just music. Music, there isn't that much amount of change. There is some amount of reduction because if you see the content investment that we have done during the year, which is a combination of content plus marketing on new music, has come down compared to the previous year.
[Non-English content ] these movies like Paradise and Love & War, had they got released as earlier planned in February, March timeframe, these expenses would have been a little higher.
Understood. The last question, there's a sharp decrease in the content charging cost this quarter. Is that because there was the under-marketing spend that was incurred in Q3, which is not there in Q4, or is there some other driver?
[Non-English content ]. Quarter-on-quarter becomes very tricky.
Fair enough.
When it goes up, we don't take, but if when the numbers move in our favor also, we don't take that credit on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Evaluate us on a 12-month basis becomes that much easier.
Understood. Correct. Thank you.
[Non-English content] movie release [Non-English content] 27th of December, now it will get the marketing ka spread [Non-English content] depend [Non-English content] . Is it front-loaded? Is it back-loaded? Everything changes. If the movie is getting released in December, was the last song also released in December? If the last song was also released, we will consider the entire content charge, otherwise the content charge moves to January. That's why it's always better to evaluate this thing on a 12-month basis.
Okay, fair enough. Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Manish Gupta from Equinox Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Is the IPRS movement a threat to the revenues, especially after Calcutta High Court ruling in that Vodafone case?
Sir, it did not have any implication on us. I'll just leave it there.
Okay. Okay. Secondly, sir, I understand that market price of the stock is neither your focus, and it should not be, nor under your control. However, markets are said to be voting machines in the short term and weighing machines in the long term. Saregama has been on a downtrend for several quarters now, notwithstanding today, which we are grateful for. Is there anything fundamentally altered or disrupted in the music industry or Saregama's business which is causing this downturn, in your opinion?
Sir, I'll not comment. As you rightly said, I am not gonna be commenting on the pricing. The P part of it, I am, and the management team is fully accountable on the EPS part of it. All I can go back and say is, Saregama, three years back, when we decided to get into new music, we had made a statement at that particular time that we are preparing this company for 2050. This company had made a mistake in year 2000 by deciding not to invest in new music content. It's easy for us today, right, if we sit and say that the only thing we want to drive is profitability. All that board has to go back and decide is that from now onwards, we will not invest in new content.
If we do that, and it's a very conscious part that we want to drive only profitability from music today, growth and a long-term sustainability is not something that we want to drive. This company can become a 75% margin business tomorrow. In music business, that's your beauty. There's very limited cost once you have already paid for the content that you have taken, and the music keeps on making money for you on a long-term basis. We took a conscious call, and that time also, we had prepared the market saying the going has been great, but the going has been great only on the back of the catalog. We don't want a situation 20 years down the line that the kids of that time ask that, "Who was Kishore Kumar or who was R.D.?
Burman? Because the Kishore Kumar of What Kishore Kumar is for us today, 20 years down the line.
We are just investing in newer content in an aggressive enough fashion. When you invest so heavily in newer content, especially in a step function jump, in the short run, the increase in revenue will get matched completely by the charge-off on content that you are taking. We are slowly getting out of that cycle now. If you are congratulating us for the quarter four results, believe you me right now, the real game of this started three years ago. We are now slowly getting into a position where the benefits will start accruing to us.
Fantastic, sir. Fantastic. My last question is that the new generation is now watching reels all the time.
Ji.
Does it or can it affect music revenues in coming times?
Sir, two to three things. One is Saregama has owned 92%- 91% of Pocket Aces, which owns the biggest Gen Z channel, where people watch reels. Saregama also owns in their through Pocket Aces, FilterCopy, which is the ultimate reels place for people under the age of 30. I have a play there. Second, anybody else who is using a reel at any particular time, you'll realize majority of the reels, I don't remember the percentage, but bulk of the reels you will see on any of the social media will have music attached to it. There is a monetization that ends up happening right now on the music side, too.
For us, our presence on social media, whether it's presence on social media, presence on a TV channel, presence on a digital series or a film, any time a video is seen, there is a high probability our music will get attached to it, which becomes another touch point for us to monetize. We look at it.
Right.
This expansion of reels with a lot of positivity.
Okay. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Resham Jain from VVD Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Sir, just one question. If you can share the revenue from the content which has been bought over the last five years, if that number can be shared. There is hardly any way you have this payback period in mind of five years. For us, it's very difficult to assess how profitable it is. If you can share at least the last five-year cumulative revenue in this year, FY 2026, of the content bought, that will at least be helpful for us to evaluate.
I'll tell you how you can arrive at this if you check on my last corporate presentation. There we have shared data with you that how much revenue, what percentage of the total revenue on the music side is coming actually from the music released after 2020. That data is as of FY 2025, does not include the 2026 data, and we will be releasing that part also shortly. Till 2025, you will get that information. If I remember my numbers correctly, 40% of the total revenue that we people had is music released between 2021-2024. This is as of May 2025 data.
Okay. Okay. If I then look at the overall revenue, because now you have artist management and other things also, obviously music revenue also is separate, the CAGR growth of the old music, from, as you mentioned in your comments also that it is inflation-driven, how should then one look at that part? That seems to be growing much slower than maybe some of the other competitors.
Look, I disagree with that part. I am not going to talk about competitors, please. I'm talking about our absolute numbers here. The catalog growth that we people have seen for us on an apple-to-apple basis, what does mean is that I'm going to be comparing my catalog growth on Spotify in over the last three years or a Gaana over the last three years or a YouTube over the last three years. We are growing at this juncture bit higher than inflation also. We are fairly confident this growth is going to get further accelerated as we go ahead.
Let me take this opportunity to also share with you that we are now creating a newer experiment within the company, whereby we are seeing that how can we use the capability of the generative AI to create enhanced content and properties around older music that we people have, which may be generative AI-driven music videos for a Hemant Kumar song or an S.D. Burman song, or it may be podcast, which will be connected to the older songs that we people have, which gives us not only an opportunity to promote the older music, but also find a fresher way to monetize the older music.
The problem is when you are going to be looking at my numbers, do keep in mind, the moment you do absolute catalog to absolute catalog, there's a decline because music had a decline because we had platforms like Resso shutting down. We had platforms like Wynk shutting down. We had Gaana going from a free to pay completely. We had Hungama shutting down. Overall numbers fell down in a dramatic enough fashion, which is the reason why you see music revenue growth over, except the last two quarters, were going on a more muted basis. On an apple-to-apple comparison basis right now, the catalog is growing.
Okay. Understood. Perfect. All the best, and really admirable the way you communicate and show the passion about your business. Thanks for the time.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Sandeep Agarwal from Naredi Investment. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is this: our performance regarding the last three years. Our competitor company also have a market cap of INR 8,000 crore, approx similar to ours, and we have same P 37. Their ROC is 122, while our ROC is 17%. They said 1990 music, which music revised their top line and bottom line. While we have more good library of music song, but we can't perform. Will you tell where we are weak? They have INR 59 crore content costs last year, and we have approx INR 235 crore. They write up content cost 100% on release itself.
We are also a good property to monetize in Dum Dum area. Still we are far away from them. Just comment.
Sir, I can talk only about myself. If you have any question directly connected to Saregama, I'm happy to discuss. I'll not like to pass any comments on my competitor, on my competitor's business.
This is Hello? Hello?
Sandeep, you are audible.
We can hear you. Go ahead.
Hello.
Sandeep, you can go ahead, please.
Yeah, yeah. I just want to know that where we are. Yes, yes. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. My question is regarding the performance of our company. Why we are not performing?
Sir, I don't know how you're calling it not performing. The Indian Music Industry growth numbers have been published. This is a neutral study. None of us are involved in that part. EY has gone out there and done it as part of FICCI report. IMI, which is the Music Industry's apex body, has gone back and published this. Both of them are saying Music Industry during the year grew up between 7%-8%. Somebody is saying 6%, other is saying 8%. That's the industry growth rate. In that industry growth rate, the only reason Saregama has been able to grow faster because we aggressively bought newer content, and the fact that newer content has worked can be checked on YouTube, can be checked on Instagram, can be checked on Spotify.
You can go to various charts of Spotify, see that when I'm saying my content has worked, there are third party which is saying that the content has gone out there and worked. I know there's far better work we people can do, and we will try our very best to improve our numbers even further. Saying that our revenue is not growing or our strategy is not working will be a little unfair, sir. I don't know about competition. I know absolute numbers that are there in the market. I also promise you and commit to you right now that the numbers in terms of profitability as we go forward with the strategic approach we took three years back, as we continue on that path, are going to become even better.
Just one more. Sir, the company has been an aggressive content investment cycle, INR 1,000 crore across FY 2025-2027, which is very exciting. However, from the shareholder perspective, the ROEs has been around 13% for the last three years. The stock has some correction. Could you management help us understand?
You will, when we people raised the QIP, it was with a very specific thing in mind that we want to go out there and invest in content that will get us ready for the future. The first strategic call we take right now that the music has to be invested in, you are already seeing the results. We are growing far faster than the publicly acknowledged and published growth rate of the industry. Second, we took a call to go back and buy Pocket Aces. The fact that in last two years we have been able to go out there and turn around Pocket Aces and make it a huge marketing machine, and it's growing at a very fast pace.
Third, we have taken a conscious call to go out there and invest in Bhansali Productions. This will ensure that in the days to come, the most valuable film albums that will be coming out in the market will automatically go to Saregama at a pre-agreed and negotiated price, so that I have some kind of a control on the cost escalation that may happen in a very, very competitive market. The results of all these will start coming out. The equity that was raised has been invested in these areas. We are on the path finally to go back and increase the ROE. Are we happy with the 13.5% ROE? We are not, sir. We know this, that journey has to be traveled through, and we are traveling on that journey, and hopefully we are taking care of the guardrails.
We may make mistakes here and there, but the intent is very, very clear that in the end, the ROE has to go up because eventually shareholder value improvement is the final goal for everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Akshay Jogani with Xponent Tribe. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vikram. Thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations on a good set of numbers. Am I audible?
Yes, please.
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. We have a couple of, couple of questions. Like you mentioned that the headwind on, the platforms shutting down or switching off, free is sort of behind you. Over the next one to two years, as platforms sort of start pushing, and they have only started pushing premium, do you expect the growth rates to now sort of kind of mirror their growth rates, or do you think there are more changes within the industry structure that kind of are expected?
No, no. One part is what I'm expecting. Second is the guidance I'm happy to give at this juncture, knowing the current situation.
Yeah.
In the current scenario, looking at the subscription growth rate that is happening for the music vertical.
Yeah.
Absolutely. We believe in that very strongly. We believe subscription story has played out in every part of the world. In India, it's playing out on the video side now. The TVOD story is playing out on the gaming side in India now. We understand that the younger generation is comfortable with the idea of paying for digital content. I am 50+ . My age group has a serious problem paying for anything on digital. Even I start thinking. The younger people don't think that way.
Wow.
Born in the world of digital always being free, and they are comfortable paying for better experiences and not necessarily trying to find an easy way out. The fact of life is somebody has to shut this free supply and make pay on an affordable basis. India is not a $5 market. Any company that will try that is going to burn themselves here. India is a dollar and a half kind of a market, you can easily generate numbers of $100 million.
Sure. You know, one of the things you spoke in this conversation earlier, was that your, at a directional level, your free part of the revenue within music, has remained flattish while a large part of growth has come from the paid part. I mean, right?
Yep.
I understand that over the last one and a half year, there has been CPM pressures. There has been, I think YouTube algorithm changes, and YouTube itself has sort of not grown as much as you would have probably thought. At least our understanding is that. Is that something that you expect to change over the next year as well?
When I gave you that number right here of free being flat, this is more for audio OTT than the video OTT.
Okay.
YouTube for us has seen a growth, if that's the direct question, on free.
Yeah.
Paid both. Remember video OTT had its every other, some other or new pressure that starts coming up. I think the ban of real money games ended up taking a large revenue stream out of YouTube. The good part for us is because the kind of content we are putting out is more film music, which is more family content that's going in. We as a category got affected less by the going out of RMG advertising money, hence on YouTube, we were able to show a healthy growth both on the free and the paid side.
Sure.
I have heard this story of people saying that the numbers from video OTT are going down. Actually, that doesn't apply to us.
Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Sure. Thank you, and best of luck for the coming years.
Sure.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone. Many of you guys have complimented us on our Q4 results. Please remember you're finally seeing the fruits of what was started by us as a company three years ago. This trend hopefully is going to become even more pronounced as we people go forward. Always keep in mind, we in India are operating in world's most under-penetrated large music market with the most dominant catalog, which is growing at by 5,500 songs every year. A net debt-free balance sheet and a 650 million digital footprint. Every global trend, subscription growth, ARPU expansion, super fan monetization, catalog buy, purchases, and diversification that goes beyond streaming, which includes live events, has a much longer runway in India than anywhere else. Saregama is the cleanest way for anybody to own this thesis.
Thank you. Look forward to talking to you guys again next quarter.
Thank you. On behalf of Emkay Global Financial Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.