Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anmol Garg from DAM Capital Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Nirav. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of DAM Capital, we welcome you all to Q3 and Nine-Month FY 2024 Conference Call of Affle India Limited. I take this opportunity to welcome the management of Affle India Limited, represented by Mr. Anuj Khanna Sohum, who is MD and CEO of the company, and Mr. Kapil Bhutani, who is the CFO of the company. Before we begin the discussion, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made in today's conference call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve some risk and uncertainties. Kindly refer to Slide 23 of the company's Q3 earning presentation for a detailed disclaimer. I'll now hand over the call to Mr. Anuj Khanna Sohum for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, Anuj.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. I trust all of you are keeping in good health. We are glad to confirm that we have achieved a decisive and timely turnaround in developed markets, anchored on our determined execution, with increased investments in sales and marketing and our hands-on entrepreneurial leadership. Post-COVID, this was our first significant challenge, and we were transparent with our stakeholders about our action plans since the start of this financial year, and we delivered on our commitment to complete the turnaround in calendar year 2023 itself. We entered 2024 with our strategic mode fortified, stronger than ever before. Our 15 Gen AI patent filings have strengthened our intellectual capital, and the INR 7.5 billion cash capital has strengthened our financial balance sheet.
We consciously invested in new product use cases and ecosystem-level partnerships to unlock premium inventories and touchpoints on connected devices, including CTV, SKAN, iOS App Store, and other OEM app stores, both in India and international markets. This was the first significant step towards our long-term strategic direction, as the premium converted users enable higher lifetime value for advertisers and thus unlock the sustainable premium pricing bids for the most profitable ad campaigns across both emerging and developed markets. Speaking of Q3 FY 2024, we achieved our highest ever quarterly revenue, highest EBITDA, PAT, conversions, and CPCU rates till date. In Q3 FY 2024, we delivered revenue growth of 32.6% year-on-year and 15.6% quarter-on-quarter.
We continued to enhance our consumer-centric platform offerings, progressively delivering stronger than ever quarterly EBITDA of INR 967 million and PAT of INR 768 million. Our CPCU business delivered about 84 million conversions during the quarter at the CPCU rate of INR 57. That helped us achieve CPCU revenue of INR 4.76 billion, an increase of 38.2% year-on-year and 19.2% quarter-on-quarter. We continue to witness a robust market opportunity as advertisers steadily accelerate their digital spending, resulting in broad-based growth in our CPCU business in global emerging markets. In terms of the nine-month FY 2024, we achieved revenue growth of 24% year-on-year and PAT growth of 14.7% year-on-year.
Overall, for nine months, our CPCU revenue increased by 25.9% year-on-year and has grown at a CAGR of about 60% in the last four-year period. Our strong anchoring across India and global emerging markets continues to be resilient, and it contributed over 74% of our quarterly revenues this time. Our growth for India and emerging markets combined was about 24% year-on-year, which was majorly all organic and about 16% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. While global emerging markets clearly performed exceptionally well and grew about 41% year-on-year, there was a significant pullback effect of real money gaming within the gaming vertical in India. If not for this impact, India would have achieved much greater sequential growth from Q2 to Q3 in FY 2024 itself, just like we did in FY 2023.
Our broad-based growth across diversified verticals continues to give us the confidence that the broad market tailwind in India, across most of our verticals and global emerging markets across all our verticals is intact. Speaking of developed markets, we have significantly strengthened our foundation for the developed markets with our integrated consumer platform propositions, greater investment in sales and marketing, and the confidence in our teams to convincingly win from here onwards. Despite the U.S. fintech vertical continuing as a major laggard even in this quarter, our growth in developed markets together with YouAppi was 67% year-on-year and about 14% quarter-on-quarter. With this robust foundation rebuilt, we are confident of capitalizing on the improved macro market outlook, and our outlook for FY 2025 is optimistic. While most of the other industry players are adopting Gen AI to optimize human capital and costs.
Affle is investing in Gen AI-powered innovations to go much beyond cost efficiencies to enable long-term revenue growth and competitive advantages. We filed 15 new patents in India during Q3. These patents power futuristic use cases of interaction, training, integration of Gen AI agents, and cover advanced AI areas, including personalization and recommendation, predictive analysis, privacy, enhanced fraud detection, and so on. As discussed over the previous earnings call, in Q3, we launched our first Gen AI-powered product, which is a multilingual keyword recommendation engine, as a premium platform to drive conversions. In addition to this, we were recently granted a new U.S. patent related to digital ad fraud, and thus our total patent portfolio today includes 35 patents filed or granted.
Continuing to share our customer success stories, this time we have also included three case studies, which are focused on travel vertical, food tech, and e-commerce conversions for a global FMCG company. Our Affle 2.0 Consumer Platform Stack continues to be recognized in the industry as a top performer, and we recently won top rankings and awards across various industry forums and indexes. For example, in the 16th edition of AppsFlyer Performance Index, our platforms were ranked amongst the top 10 global gaming platforms and featured amongst the global top 10 non-gaming category as well. We also achieved the number one non-SRN app discovery platform rank in India. In the Singular SKAdNetwork rankings, we were the top DSP on SKAN 4.0 readiness. Furthermore, we won the Most Outstanding Programmatic Platform of the Year award at the AdGully MOBEXX Awards 2023.
Lastly, we also won the Outstanding Partner Award at the OPPO Developer Conference. With that, I now hand over the discussion to our CFO, Kapil Bhutani, to discuss the financials. Thank you. Over to you, Kapil.
Thank you, Anuj. Thank you, everybody for joining in. Wishing everyone a good day, and hope you are keeping safe and well. This is the first time we are meeting in 2024. Wishing you a Happy New Year also. Continuing our growth momentum, we concluded quarter three for financial year 2024 on a strong note and delivered revenue from operations of INR 4,987 million, that is INR 498.7 crores, a growth of 32.6% YoY. During the quarter, India contributed 26.5%, while India international market contributed 73.5% to our revenues. Sequentially, quarter three revenues increased by 15.6% on quarter-over-quarter, led by broad-based growth in our CTV business, with robust business momentum across global emerging markets and successful turnaround in developed markets.
Our nine-month revenues stood at INR 13,366 million, that is INR 133.66 crores, a robust growth of 24% YoY. In terms of OpEx, our delivery, our inventory and data costs stood at 61.6% of our revenue from operation in this quarter, while, which was higher about 108 basis point on the sequential basis. As also highlighted by Anuj, we are calibrating our platform onto premium inventory touchpoints and deeper ecosystem-level partnerships. Our other expenses stood at 6.6% of the revenue and, and increased by INR 75 million, that is INR 7.5 crores, on quarter-on-quarter basis, mainly on account of higher sales and marketing costs to support the developed market growth during the festive season.
We see this as a short-term investment phase with combined impact of increase in our inventory and data costs and other expenses underpinning our strategic positioning and the business, business growth globally. Our employee benefit expenses for the quarter increased sequentially by 7.4% due to appraisals in two geographies. We achieved highest ever quarterly EBITDA in quarter three, which stood at INR 967 million, that is INR 96.7 crores, an increase of 20.3% YoY. In nine months of financial year 2024, our EBITDA increased by 18.4% YOY, while EBITDA margin stood at 19.6%. Our profit after tax for the quarter stood at INR 768 million, that is INR 76.8 crores, an increase of 11.4% YoY and 15% quarter- over- quarter.
We remain focused on our working capital management, as there was no material change in our collection risk. In quarter three, we made investment of INR 372.97 million, that is INR 37.3 crores, and acquired 9.03% stake in Explorza Private Limited on a fully diluted basis. Explorza own the indigenous social media app for people who like to travel and explore new places. It's a strategic investment for us that complements our verticalization strategy to go deeper into travel vertical. Looking ahead, we remain confident of long-term business prospects to invest further in our business and stay committed to deliver long-term sustainable growth. With this, I end our presentation. Let's please open the floor for questions.
Thank you very much. We'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone 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. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Anmol Garg from DAM Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. So I had a couple of questions. Firstly, we have seen a strong recovery in the international business, led by developed markets and emerging. So now I understand that some of it is because of seasonality, but even excluding the seasonality, can we expect the strong growth momentum to continue in the developed markets?
Should I take that question first, or would you like to ask all your questions together?
No, Anuj, you can answer that, and I'll ask my next question after that.
All right. Well, I think the, the developed markets, what you're seeing, the growth that has come, it's, it's a growth that has been long awaited. I mean, you know, it should have... First of all, the fact that, in developed markets we were degrowing for several quarters was, you know, a deeply, internal issue that we were dealing with, and we were sorting it out. And we knew we would sort it out with it because we had a clear action plan. So we have to see the growth in context. This is the growth that we deserved, which belonged to us, was evading us because of certain issues. We fixed those issues decisively and won it back. Now that we've won it back, I mean, it's still, I would say our base is still small. The addressable market is huge.
Our belief, confidence in our differentiated offerings, and our, you know, commitment to deliver growth is, is there. The opportunity is there for us to take. So I am very optimistic that we will continue this, this trend, because, there is renewed commitment, confidence on the ground. The team has greater self-belief. But look, it's not easy to turn around, you know, especially when you are fixing the team and you are going out there. I think we have done something fantastic in solving, what we did in 2023. So I'm really very happy with where we are, and we are stronger than ever before. So our optimism on continuing developed markets growth trajectory is, is positive, especially on year-on-year basis, because the last few quarters were so muted, right, for us.
So, I mean, the bad news of 2023, you know, the subdued quarters of developed markets will appear as, you know, better performance in 2024, because as we build up from here, we will start seeing the, you know, much bigger year-on-year positive trends for developed markets. So, but I'm not comparing it only year-on-year, because that's the easier battle for us on developed markets going forward. But sequentially, fundamentally, winning what we deserve in the market because we have great products, and we have a differentiated model. So I'm really quite optimistic on that.
Thanks, Anuj, for the answer. And, just on the India business as well, we have seen some sequential weakness over there. Now, you indicated that it is because of the RMG to some extent. What I wanted to understand is that, is now RMG coming to the base, and we will see good growth from here on?
So RMG impacted us basically last two quarters, okay? Q2 and Q3. Q2, it was impacting us about midway through the quarter because of certain regulatory changes, which, you know, impacted the fundamentals of, you know, the RMG category or, you know, what kind of ROI measurement these people do. So I think there is, there is a clear impact, and I think last quarter we quantified it. This quarter, the impact was bigger. Why? Because, you know, you typically expect bigger budgets coming from there, and they were holding back, and the impact was for the whole quarter versus half the quarter.
So I think, if I were to eliminate RMG as a, you know, let's say, the impact, or if I were to look at what would RMG be on, you know, a comparable basis like it did in Q2 to Q3 festive season impact, we would have seen India growing comfortably around 20% plus, 20%-25% year-on-year basis, and sequentially, we would have grown much better like we have always done from Q2 to Q3. So this quarter, the only vertical that I would isolate the impact to is the gaming vertical, primarily linked to RMG and the GST impact. And we are hoping that, you know, in 2024, this will taper off slowly. And one of the ways to cover that is to go more premium. So when...
You know, just think of it this way, business fundamentals, each of these advertisers, needs to make money. They need to be profitable. The only way to be profitable is if they get users and converted users, which are going to deliver high lifetime value for them. If we give them premium users, they will have the ability to pay us, and we'll be having the ability to price well enough to make, 20%-25% EBITDA. So therefore, especially in markets like India, where unit economics is harsh, the strategy of Affle to go more and more premium, including there is enough critical mass of iOS devices focusing on iOS SKAN, focusing on iOS App Store, focusing on CTV, OEM app stores and inventories, which are more premium in the market.
Getting to more premium users for our advertisers is the way to solve it, and this strategy is already in place, and thankfully was already in place preemptively before this RMG impact. But, you know, what, what will solve all this going forward, it'll take maybe a few more quarters, but is, the strategy is clear and the direction is right. And we will, we will. Once RMG budgets come back, I think we'll be the, we'll be the first company to truly take them on to, to a profitable advertising campaign, you know. So we will deliver value for them, and we are ready for it.
Understood, understood. And my last question is for Kapil. We have seen on the cost side we have seen almost INR 7.5 crore increase in the other expenses. Is this because of the marketing expenses in the developed markets? And how much will it how much of it will continue going ahead in Q4 and in FY 2025?
So, as mentioned in our commentary, we had, we said that primarily this is on account of marketing, spends we have started to incur post the COVID, and, the impetus comes in maximum in Q3. But however, Q4, there are many events lined up internationally and India, so I think so that the expenses would continue for Q4 before it, stabilizes and, for the next year.
Oh, okay. Okay.
I can add on to that a bit, because, because I mentioned in my commentary that when we, when we go for a turnaround situation, we need to. You know, there are two ways of turning around, right? One is, you know, the, the way it was being done by some of our leaders, who had to let go of their jobs, was to become more defensive. You know, where the business is coming down, you're cutting, you know, you're trying to spend less. In 2023, you know, by taking the reins of the developed markets directly, our conviction and belief led to, "No, we've got to back it up. We've got to do more investments in sales and marketing, because you know what? We believe in our product.
We know what we are doing, and we need to back it up." So if you see consistently throughout these nine months, if you take the nine-month number, you'll see we invested almost INR 30 crore more in these other expenses versus the, the same period in the nine months in the previous year. Now, I would say out of 30, 15 we should have anyways done because of the kind of growth expectations, but we doubled it down to another 15, and we did INR 30 crore, and you're seeing the impact of that. But this is not a defensive view that, oh, you know, expenses are going up, there's a margin shape. Not at all. This is a more aggressive move, which is showing belief into our capabilities. We're saying: Guys, we need to deliver this turnaround, and let's make it happen.
I'm really glad that we did that, and those investments are working and will continue to work for us, as we go into 2024.
Sure. Thanks, Anuj. Thanks, Kapil, for the answers. I'll get back in the queue.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Arun from Avendus Spark . Please go ahead.
Good morning to all. Thanks for the opportunity. Anuj, my question is on, again, on India portfolio. You, you qualified that-
Sorry to interrupt you. Can you please speak a little louder?
Sure. Hopefully now it is clearer. So, Anuj, I was talking about. I was asking about the India portfolio. You qualified that RMG is a problem, but is the spending in this vertical has completely come to a standstill, or it is more like a budget getting curtailed for the quarter, and it will be coming up in the, say, by the year end? How... What is the ground reality right now?
So the ground reality is that the this used to be or is expected to be a high-growth, profitable you know advertising budget. And after the impact of the GST, sometime middle of Q2, most of the spending was being held back. Or if there were advertising budgets, they were pricing it at a level where profitability of those revenues will become a challenge. So in order to fix that, one has to see that RMG has to find its own unit economics and equilibrium again and adjust to that. And we need to help that category by getting to them more premium conversions, so that they can make higher lifetime value on those users, and therefore, get an ROI on the marketing spend, leaving enough room for everybody to make money. So the issue is not only about money going away.
I think the issue is that the impact is hitting the profitability and the fundamental ROI of those ad spends, and therefore, it's going to impact pricing. We, as a company, will never succumb on, you know, pricing, so we will always justify that, you know what? How do we... Because their problem is also our problem. We need to make ROI on those ad spends, and we need to deliver ROI to them on those ad spends, and we want to make sure that we do that with our profitability intact. So I think the challenge is both in terms of the spend is not coming, and if the spend is there, if some limited budget is still there, then the pricing on that budget is, you know, still waiting to bounce back.
We are helping the cause fundamentally by showing to them: "Hey, you know what? When you spend with us, don't worry about pricing. Focus on your ROI. We can give you profitable users. You will be able to make money. Let's work together." So I think it's work in progress, and as much as I can explain to you the ground reality, I think I have attempted to do that. Because sometimes we look at revenue as, well, just not all revenue is equal. Some revenue is worth 20%-25% EBITDA, and some revenue is not worth that. So I think Apple is very selective and careful, and not only taking up the revenue, but delivering fundamental values, otherwise, how would we sustain? You know, somebody will run a campaign, but if they don't make profit on the next quarter, they will not put the budget, right?
So then how do you build sustainable, profitable, consistent growth is by giving ROI to the advertisers. And the math of RMG still needs to find profitability and therefore sustainable growth. But I think we are fixing it. It's work in progress.
So, if I understand what you are saying about the unit economics part, that given the current regulations and how it has shaped, has become, the marketable or targetable users in this universe itself has kind of shrunk, which is impacting the spend and which means that fewer and fewer users to be targeted at the elevated CPC or a premium CPCU, which means—
I think it will be a mix. I think it will be a mix, not like fewer, but what it will... We need to do a mix so that in each campaign it can become better. At least our endeavor as Apple would be that each- let's take the most premium segment and the budgets for the most premium segment at the most premium pricing. Let's take that, the cream of the budget, right? I mean, let's say whatever budget is there for RMG, the most profitable segments, I want Apple to lock that in and be the default partner for RMG or any advertiser for that matter, in that segment. But that does not mean that there will be no budgets for other users. I mean, that's not what I'm implying. It's not so black and white. It's always more in the gray.
But what I'm trying to explain to you is that the unit economics of RMG is shaken by that, and it will take time to find its balance, and I'm explaining how Apple is helping in that and how Apple will take the, hopefully, the best part of the budgets.
All right, great. So, understood that. Just that, if you go by your commentary, that without RMG, you would have achieved kind of 20% one, this kind of implies that, our, our, the contribution of gaming to our India business is quite high, which was not, which was not we had, I had in mind, because I remember you as saying that no vertical contributes more than 10%, 15%, but it seems like we are quite hit by this. Is there any other verticals which is, which is no- which is at a high contributing vertical? Say, for example, say currently something is happening in Fintech side as well, with the RBI regulating one of the largest fintech.
So, what are the other risks that we are probably running at this point of time with respect to? Because it seems like one or other vertical seems to be always coming and biting us at some point of time. So, if you can qualify this risk, it will be very-
Maybe I will explain it. Maybe I'll explain it to you in a slightly different way. When I say our business is broad-based, what is the meaning of broad-based? Broad-based means that we are across multiple verticals, across multiple geographies. So India, global emerging markets, international markets, across these markets, which are fairly broad-based, existing customer base is very large. New customers are getting joined in across industry verticals and so on. So at a macro level, overall, when we look at it, of course, there are certain verticals which are, let's say, bigger than the others. So Fintech is relatively bigger. Gaming is becoming an important vertical for us. The e-commerce and category E, F, G, H, which are the four categories that we talk about, I would say category H is now bouncing back with travel, right?
It's becoming stronger, and we are trying to put more investments to boost that even further. But in category E, which is e-commerce, entertainment, education, yes, there was a time where education was under pressure, but the other verticals were going along strong. In category F, Fintech, Foodtech, we have put case studies on those several times. We are doing well. FMCG, now this time we have put the case study of FMCG. We are doing well. In category D, gaming is definitely strong, and category H, as I said, we are improving. Now, when I look at the overall global business of our company, which category is, you know, in some countries, let's say in India, this, real money gaming or gaming category reaching close to around, you know, 20-odd%.
But when I look at it overall across emerging markets globally and balance it out, it is not. So I mean, what level of granularity of diversification do we go? Now, when we look at the U.S. market, yes, we have already qualified, even in my comments the last couple of quarters, that yes, fintech has caused some impact there. But the way I want you to look at our business is that it's a diversified, broad-based growth business, and in that sense, it is naturally de-risked. Okay? So it is naturally de-risked, and therefore, even if we say that we would have done maybe INR 20+ crore more, you know, or more business with RMG, that would still keep it around 20-odd% or less, as a whole sort of space within India.
I think if you ask any other adtech player in the India market, they are probably way more deeply over-calibrated. You know, I would say almost all of them, whether it is the publishers or the partners, would be easily 50-odd% plus in the gaming category. Globally, any adtech company, if you look at, they will have more than 50-60%, or in some cases, 80% of the business is coming from gaming category. We are a well-diversified, broad-based company, and if we were not, we would not have been... So when the U.S. developed markets took a hit, we were still able to cope up because the rest of the 75% of the business, India and emerging markets, are doing well.
When RMG had an impact, we qualified it proactively, but you know, the rest of India is still able to keep up that, you know, the, the, to neutralize that impact. So yes, every other, because we are a broad base, yes, some vertical will have an issue in some country, somewhere. But you must also take, you know, confidence from the fact that it is not a one trick pony, it is a well-diversified business, and at least it, it makes me sleep much better that we have naturally de-risked ourselves by being broad-based, well-diversified.
Very, very helpful, detailed answer, Anuj. Thank you for that. Second, my second question is on the margins.
Just to add one thing, what Anuj said was, we would have done 20% on YoY growth. We would have done 24% on Q-on-Q growth if the budgets or the RMG impact would have not been there. I think so, it's not 14%, it's 22%.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Kapil. Now on to my second question. The margins, especially the inventory and data costs, it used to be around 50%-55%, and then we did quite a few acquisitions. And then we also qualified that some of those increase in the cost is because of the investments. Now that the growth is, especially couple of verticals, is not, it is under some pressure. Is there any scope for us to revisiting this strategy and reducing the near-term investments so that... Of course, long term we need to invest, but some of these, is there any scope for this margin going back to 55%-58%, rather than currently at around 60%-62%? I'm sorry, cost is going back to those levels. Because there is some headwinds in these categories, and is it right to keep investing in some verticals? Is it something that is under the review during?
Sorry, which verticals are you saying that we should not be investing in?
No, not at the vertical, at a specific vertical level, but overall. The growth has somewhat in some countries has moderated. Is there any plan to reduce back and go back to those levels of cost levels, cut back on some investments?
Cut back on investments on you said-
On the inventory and data costs, yes. Yeah, inventory and data costs.
Okay. So I think we are a... I mean, you probably have already observed that we are an, you know, an assertive growth-oriented company. We, unless we are forced to, I don't think we will play defensive. So I think this is important to know that what is the DNA of the company. And, of course, it has to be a balanced strategy where you play aggressive and defensive both. You can't play one, but I think anybody who would look at Apple and know us would know that we will continue to be an aggressive, growth-oriented player out there, and our postures would hardly ever be defensive, by default. And therefore, I would not pull back. I would absolutely say that there is a great opportunity for us. 74% of our business is emerging markets.
Whichever way we look at it, one vertical here or there is not going to change Apple's overall posture, that we need to be a market conqueror in these places. We are investing in our products. We are future-proofing our products and capabilities. We have a differentiated proposition. We are going and winning the ecosystem. We are building ecosystem partnerships that will lock in premium relationships and partnerships for four-five years, and that's the kind of posturing we are doing. So there should be no pullback. And, quite frankly, you know, we are not trying to optimize for, you know, a percentage point here or there. We are doing what is right for our business with a longer-term view. And that's what we are doing.
Even when we were turning around in the U.S., the focus was not only the turnaround quantitatively and deliver some number, because, you know, we need to get back to those numbers. I think it was to fundamentally strengthen what we are doing in that market, right? So it's, like, you don't renovate your house just to be at the same level as it was before. You renovate because you want to make it much better. And I think 2023, we have done that renovation, rebuilding the stronger foundation, and there's no reason for us to be defensive, to optimize and pull back anywhere. No, not at all. I think we have a very, very good market position, and we need to keep on pushing forward, and we will keep doing that.
Thanks, Anuj. I have a couple of questions, but I'll get back to them. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Shobhit Singhal, from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I have a couple of questions. So first, what was the contribution from UAP during the quarter and the organic growth, if you can share?
Sure. I would let Kapil answer the split of organic to inorganic. But qualitatively, I just want to make two comments before Kapil goes into the detail of the answer. UAP, unlike the other acquisitions of the past, which were all, by the way, done in the COVID periods, UAP was a post-COVID transaction. And given that we had built our confidence both with good cases and, you know, some complications with acquisitions, which are always inevitable, that our confidence was higher. So we built the thesis of integrating UAP within one year, and within less than one year, I'm pretty confident that we will be able to integrate UAP fully within our system. We're already seeing very positive engagements, you know, in terms of what we have managed to achieve so far.
With that as a backdrop, Kapil, over to you to answer the split of the map.
Yeah, for quarter three, the revenue contribution is close to 14.5% from UAP, and EBITDA contribution is about 10% of our EBITDA.
Okay, and the second question is around the international business. So now, if I exclude UAP, so we have seen a better performance in the international business. So could you please give us some sense in terms of the U.S. business? So, like, where is that standing now, and what is the expected growth rate, traction, and whether things are aligning with our plan? And additionally, if you could share information on our performance in the other emerging nations apart from India.
Well, thanks for your question. Yes, it is absolutely correct that international markets are going well. I covered that in detail in my commentary, you know, talking about how 74% of our quarterly revenue comes from India, plus global emerging markets, and we're doing exceptionally well. Of course, international markets, we are doing very, very well as well. And the developed markets' turnaround has helped, because earlier, global emerging markets in India, I think we're kind of consistent there, barring the RMG situation. But in developed markets, we were seeing a pullback for all this time, right? And that's the reason why you were seeing, oh, international is not growing as much. But now, with the developed markets, earlier, they were degrowing, now we've managed to turn this around to get it back to the growth trajectory.
So you're seeing a positive impact, and for next, I think next three, four quarters, you will continue to see consistent growth in developed markets, in the, international markets overall. I'm pretty bullish about it. No reason to see anything disturbing that. In terms of more color on specific non-India emerging markets, well, I would say, we are doing broadly well across, Latin American markets, you know, rest of Asia Pac emerging markets, Africa is, you know, shaping up nicely, and so on and so forth. So I think overall, global emerging markets is a, is a strong anchor for us.
The unit economics of India as well as global emerging markets is tough for other competitors to play in, and therefore, Apple's approach and strategy is able to create the right kind of premium pricing to do profitable business in these markets. It's harsher territory for other competitors. So yes, there are those competitors, but I think we have a competitive moat which is stronger than others in these markets. So that's how we are anchored. I hope that has answered your question.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for the detail.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vikrant Gupta from ICICI Prudential. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Am I audible?
Yes, you are.
Hi, and good morning. So I have two questions. Firstly, if you could talk about the mobile advertising industry in India in 2023. What sort of growth rate did the industry grow at, and how do you think Apple India grew at, adjusting for the impacts that we quantified on the real money gaming side? Are we growing faster than the industry, slower than the industry? What is your sense, and how is the growth as we exit 2023 for the industry? That's one. Second, on the margins, so I think in Q3, despite a strong revenue growth, which we generally see a margin expansion which did not come through, because of the investments that you talked about.
Given your commentary that these are front-foot investments and you would like to continue to invest to get that growth in developed markets, what is your view on the margin trajectory of the acquired entities through which you got the developed market exposure? We were sort of thinking that, you know, at least directionally, the margins were keeping up for these entities as you optimized on costs. So is there anything? Those were the two questions. Thanks.
Okay, thanks for your questions. I will take the second question first, which is more specific to us, and then I'll also talk about the industry, India, as well as, you know, just generally emerging markets and, you know, what kind of mobile ad industry growth and numbers that you see. Now, in terms of margin, I think it is, it is absolutely important to see that this is not just usual business as usual growth. Okay? So one is business as usual growth, where, okay, there's sequentially continuity and there's growth. This is a turnaround growth. Turnaround growth is where quarter-on-quarter, we were actually coming down in developed markets, right? And then you have to put brute force effort to lift it back up, to change the entire direction of it and push it back into growth, but in a much more stronger way.
Because when you go back up, let's be better than where we were before, right? So, so I think that is, that is the kind of turnaround that you're seeing here, and therefore, that has to be seen in light with that, that what did it take to do the turnaround? And therefore, the transparency that we built since May 2023, talking about the fact that, "Hey, we have issues in developed markets, we are seeing degrowth, and we need to turn around, and we'll turn it around by end of this year," That commentary, transparency, investing into sales and marketing, not just sales and...
I'm telling you, the amount of time and effort on the ground, as well as, you know, intensity of leadership that we have provided to this turnaround, it is, it is of much greater magnitudes, and the numbers will never show you that. So it has taken us a good amount of effort to ensure that we turn this around to change the trajectory. One of the parameters that the number is showing you is the other expenses that went up, and we have qualified that if somebody is not confident about their product or turnaround capacity, they will not put money on its back, they will not put time on its back, and I would have not put my words on it and credibility on it that I'll turn it around by Q3.
So the fact that we believed in our plan, we had a plan, we executed on it, we were transparent about it. Now, now you've seen the turnaround. Together with that, you have seen the symptoms of, hey, other expenses went up. So we are explaining that. That's all. Now, do we have to consistently keep on investing this once it... No, I don't think so. We don't have to be as aggressive on the other expenses all the time, but give us at least another quarter or so to be absolutely sure, you know, that the turnaround is indeed steady state, and then from there, you know, we can put it to the normalization levels and therefore see a margin expansion, right? So I hope that has answered your question on the growth commitment and the margin expansion aspect.
Got it. So you're saying that, we may see a moderation, but you're not sure yet, you'd like a photo?
I would want to reserve my options. That's all I'm saying. I mean, I'm not going to spend where it's not needed, but at the same time, you know, I just want to see how things are going, and we will take it up maybe in the next earnings call, okay? So therefore, I'm not committing that I'm going to pull it back or it's going to be lesser. But, you know, I'm going... You will see it becoming more normalized because what happened in the last nine months was a much deeper effort to turn it around versus, you know, what we have, what we would have done otherwise, if it was just cruising steadily. So I think that distinction has to be taken note of.
With respect to, say, now, the India market or global emerging markets, yes, these markets are growing well, and I think in 2023, the growth in mobile ad space would have been, you know, easily 20%-25%. Having said that, not all growth of mobile ad dollars, which is there in budgets, like I said earlier, not everything in this is the most profitable segment. So the pricing, the kind of advertisers, the payment terms, so on and so forth, not all ad campaigns and all budgets are of the same category. Affle is playing the premium sort of platform play, not only because, you know, we have, as a public company, a certain level of profitability to attain, but that has been the DNA of our company for the last, I would say, 10-12 years.
That, even if I want to attempt to change, I can't, because it's deeply seeded in our company: profitability, cash flow positive operations and margin efficiency. So a lot of the sales which come in in our organization, those campaigns are checked in detail, whether we should accept it or not accept it. So does it deserve to go in the system or not? Even if it goes into the system, the algorithm is designed in the way that it's looking for premium conversions, premium pricing. If we are not making enough margin, there is no point of running that campaign. So I think the important thing to note is that, yes, in India and global emerging markets, there is going to be a very, very good growth for next many years to come.
And that growth is anchored on the simple insight that the ad tech industry is still under-calibrating on digital versus the total advertising spend. In China, in U.S., in Europe, the total digital mobile spend has gone up to almost 70%-80% of the total ad spend, whereas in India, it's well below half of that, okay? And other global emerging markets also, it's well below half of that. So in the next many years to come, we will see consistent growth in digital ad spend in these markets, but because these markets have tough unit economics, not all growth, not all revenue and ad campaigns will be deserving profitable execution.
So we need to pick up, and therefore my emphasis on, you know, premium inventories driving premium conversion, so that the advertiser sees a higher ROI, and when they see higher ROI, they're willing to pay for that. And that's what, you know, is important to, to analyze our numbers, and that lens is very important. Because there is no other company, in my opinion, I mean, the companies that are large enough to be analyzed, that can deliver this kind of profitability on emerging markets. They don't know how to operate on these cost structures and these unit economics. And the only way is go CPCU, go premium, and, and that is the only way to make money in emerging markets, and this is 75%-74% of our business at the moment. Yeah.
Understood. I just have one more question, if I can ask. I wanted, Anuj, an outlook on UAP for fiscal 2025. I think you had characterized fiscal 2024 as a year where you would optimize on unit economics of the campaigns that we are running, and it may not reflect as much at the top line. Where are we in that, and how do you think FY 2025 would play out for UAP?
I'm very, very confident that, I think we have done the right acquisition, and more importantly, post-acquisition, we have done the right integration. And I think we are smarter, we are wiser, so we have covered our bases based on the learnings of what happened at Jampp. And I feel confident therefore to say that, you know, with UAP, we are very optimistic and positive, because the product integrations, the platform integrations, the people and process integrations, all of that has moved in way more smoothly than ever before. So either we got lucky or we have become better at this, as the case might be. But, I, I think, it's, it's a combination of both. So my outlook for rest of 2024, FY 2025, with respect to a fully integrated UAP is very optimistic.
I wouldn't want to quantify it any further, but you know, if you want to know how happy am I with it, I think so far it's perhaps you know, the best of what we have done.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Swapnil from JM Financial. Please, go ahead.
Hey. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. So I have a couple of questions, starting first with your organic growth. Now, if I were to look at your numbers for the last four, last five quarters, we have not crossed 15% organic growth in your business quarters. I understand that that can be partly explained by your weakness in the developed markets. What I fail to understand is that when the underlying market in India, especially, is growing 20%-25%, why are we not being able to compensate for that, and at least come closer to the market growth? I mean, logically, that should have been the case, and below 15% in some quarters we were low single digit as well. So that disconnect is something which is not clear. If you can start-
I'll explain to you. I'll explain to you. Yeah, I'll explain to you the math. If, if your business is growing 25% in India and global emerging markets organically, but in developed markets your business is coming down by, say, $3 million-$4 million every other, you know, you know, reporting period, you will see the overall reporting being normalized down, and there's, there's nothing I can do about that math, except for telling our investors that we are not doing well in developed markets, and we were seeing a pullback, and we are trying to turn it around. And now that I'm telling you that we have turned it around, therefore you see that, that the revenue has grown.
If this quarter also, developed markets would have pulled itself down instead of going up, I mean, you know, I will still be telling you the same discourse that, okay, we tried to turn it around and the turnaround didn't happen, and therefore our growth is not there. So in the last three- four quarters, okay, we have been seeing this pullback, consistent pullback in developed markets. The numbers were coming down. It's not about staying stagnant or growing lesser. There's... You know, it is coming down, and so it is negating some of the growth, and therefore a 24% or 25%, 20%, 25% growth of India global emerging markets is pulled back. On one side, we were turning around developed markets.
On the other hand, we saw, okay, RMG has an issue, so therefore in, after the Q1 earning in, in July, I think July or August, right? This happened, the announcement of GST. So yes, there were these few significant pullback events, and yet with all of that, we ended Q3 in December with the results that I've announced today. We ended it with the preferential issuance of Government of Singapore investment, with 15 patents filed and turnaround being achieved. So qualitatively, quantitatively, in every way, our financial balance sheet, our intellectual balance sheet, our market position, all of that has turned around. I would say 2023 was a year where we were living in Apple, which was being renovated, fixed, at the same time punching ahead, and we have finished all of those projects.
We are fully renovated, our foundations are strong, and now we are living and breathing and saying: Wow, this is - we are entering 2024 calendar year stronger than ever before. So it, it was a tough year, no doubt, but if you are trying to make sense of the numbers and the math, the only way to make sense of it is India global emerging markets consistently growing well till a pullback in RMG coming in. Developed markets was pulling it lower, therefore, the reporting for last four quarters was always not the usual one from Affle. Now, this is all. This is our fifth year since we went public, and we negotiated all challenges, COVID, everything, you know, with almost perfection. And I think everybody started believing that in Affle, nothing will ever go wrong. But you know what? It's not like that.
Apple is also another company which is exposed to all kinds of things, but this was an important moment, a challenge, a significant challenge, post-COVID came. How we dealt with it, how did we communicate our action plan since May 2023 till now to deliver a turnaround, and I am deeply satisfied with how our team has performed in that context. Has it changed the thesis of growth of the company? Is India and emerging markets going to grow slower now? No, nothing like that. It is what it is, and I think we are reporting transparently and trying to make everybody understand how we are executing, and I'm very happy with where we are.
Got it, Anmol. Just slightly extending that point, would it be fair to say that everything, the worst, is behind us, and now we should start factoring in more than 20% organic growth on an overall consolidated basis? Because-
I would-
Like you said-
I would love to say that, but I think I've been advised by our top, you know, investor engagements where some... Just be conservative. You know, there's no reason to be over, I mean, conservative in guidance on what you should calibrate in your models, and give us the chance to over-deliver and surprise you.... So I think, for me, that makes a lot of sense. So please go ahead and model us conservatively, and allow us to come back to you with, you know, positive results. I can tell you my state of mind is very clear. I want to grow this company, and I want to keep growing this company disproportionately, but most importantly with much better profitability than any other ad tech industry player in the world.
For next five years, I would like to see Apple to set a benchmark that this is how you run this, an ad tech company. And, I think we will, we will set a great, example if we can do that, and that's, that's what we'll work hard for. So from that qualitative message, if you can, you know, do a conservative modeling around us, please do so. That will be much better, versus if you are always putting it aggressive, then we'll always be under more pressure, which we should not be, because we should execute to how the, how the situation on the ground is.
Just to add-
That's very clear. Just, yeah.
So, to supplement, just to add what Anuj answered to the previous question raised by Vikrant, was that we will. We like to be keeping the forward short-term guidances in a muted state, because we need one more quarter to be very sure on how our turnaround plan is working. We have done it for the one quarter. Let us give us one more quarter before we come to the next earning call to give you a a more concrete kind of a vision around it.
That is very clear. Thanks a lot for that clarification. And my second question is-
Also, I think next quarter is significant because there's no festive season. If the turnaround has truly happened, it's not a festive season turnaround. It is a turnaround that must continue to show without the festive season. So I'm, you know, our teams are working really hard, and I think we are on the right track, and we should come back with positive outcomes. But let it be one more quarter.
Sure. Sure, sir.
Thank you.
The second question-
Sorry to interrupt you. I'll request you to come back for a follow-up question. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted two data points and one question. One is that, if you could tell what is the current RMG mix, if we could share that? And is the non-CPCU business going down in this Q3? Is a recalibration of our contract in the CPCU part, or it's also because of maybe some other decline in the RMG business? So these are the clarifications. And just one incremental thought, if Anuj, you could share. You said that the 50-odd% or whatever percentage people are spending in digital should actually go higher for emerging market, just like the Western world. So you think this advancement would be a function of a better outcome that ad tech player like you can deliver for them?
Is it more about their awareness about spending on the premium inventory, as you highlighted? Or is it a general adoption that could happen on its own natural pace? That's it. Thank you.
So I'll take the second question first, because I, I just feel like talking about it first, if you don't mind. So I think the thesis of, you know, having the conviction in ad tech space for next three-five years, especially on India emerging markets, broadly speaking, is anchored on two key aspects. First, we, as consumers, are deeply spending our time on digital. Our attention is completely consumed by digital-connected devices, and therefore... And that is not likely to change anytime soon in the next three-five years. The youth or, you know, rural to urban, all demographics of users, I think we can safely say in next three-five years, everybody would be spending 75%-80% of their attention span on digital media.
On the other hand of the ecosystem, the advertisers, they have no option but to calibrate up and to catch up, to spend their ad spend also in proportion of where the consumer's attention is going. So it's a cause and effect. The consumer has already been on the devices. Why is the advertiser not catching up fast enough? I mean, frankly speaking, I started Affle in 2005. Since that time, I believe mobile should be the, you know, dominant media. And it took a long time. I mean, we're turning 18, 19 years old now as a company, and still it is under-calibrated. So it's only a natural course, inertia, time. I think it has to happen. It's inevitable that the spending of the advertisers on digital needs to double up from where it is right now.
In terms of percentage, I think it has to get into that 70%-80% zone eventually, and I think three-five years is the time for that. It will have many things. It will have regulation support, it will have technology support, it will have players like us who are seeing better ROI, GenAI, a lot of things, but I think the fundamental thing is the consumer trend. More and more people are transacting, more and more people are transacting higher value, higher volume on mobile and digital, so that will happen. So this is the answer to your second question, and if I may bother you, could you kindly say your first question again? That will help me to answer it.
Yeah. Simply it was, data, that what was the, RMG, mix, let's say, a year back? I think a reverse math suggested 20% plus or whatever is, what percentage it could be now. Any data would help here.
Yeah, I think I would say around 20%. I mean, I, it's not reverse math. I was actually saying that number, and that is how it was, and, you know, what we expect. And had it been, you know, the appropriate budgets that, you know, one had forecasted at the beginning of the year, non-GST time, we already knew, you know. Like, I mean, we can know what is going to come in this financial year in the various quarters, and those plans, when I look at it, it, you know, we see that we should have grown, comfortably in India over INR 150 crore plus revenue. And I mean, this, pullback in RMG, I think we have talked enough about it, and the fundamentals are clear. You know, the, what did GST do?
It took away the profitability or unit economics, changed, and therefore the ad campaigns, which are eventually going to deliver that. I mean, so there is an impact. There is no, no running away from it. And who will, who will solve this? And how will it get solved? And I think the way to solve it has also been provided some insight into. So that's kind of what we are looking at, and I don't think we should worry too much about it. We should, you know, we should just see it as that it's a blessing that Affle has a diversified, broad-based business, and I mean, these situations will happen in the industry, and some will be for a few quarters, some will be for a year or whatever, but I think we'll navigate through that gracefully and sensibly.
Yeah, just, and, one last bit, which was like, well, what led to the non-CPCU part of the business going down? Is it re-contracting or,
No, I think it's not re-contracting. Maybe I will highlight the case study that we shared. You know, like, non-CPCU, basically you can say, you know, it's branding or it is, you know, some other sort of forms of ad campaigns that are running. And if you look at the case study where we are saying even an FMCG customer, which is, you know, typically doing branding campaigns, even for those category of products, we are increasingly seeing greater adoption of conversion-led metrics and doing CPCU business, running ads to drive users, high-intent users to e-commerce stores, to convert and to create a purchase transaction eventually. So we are seeing more and more people adopting CPCU business. So it's, I think it's a natural phenomenon.
I mean, for all practical purposes, you have to see Affle as a, as a, a conversion-led consumer platform company. And, you know, and within that space, well, there will always be some advertisers who want to use our platform and intelligence, to run other forms of campaigns, and we won't stop that. But our endeavor is always to encourage them to say, "Hey, let's, let's go and drive ROI and conversion," because that's where, that's how we are positioned and that's how we want to be known.
Got it. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aditya from UBS Group. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. I just have a quick question on the connected TV space. So we are seeing the universe there kind of expanding. So just wanted to get your thoughts on how Affle is performing in this segment, especially on the CPCU model that you rolled out recently. Thank you.
Thanks for that question. Love forward-looking questions, and especially when they're on our products, where we are doing well. CTV and, you know, is an important aspect of what we are doing, not only because, you know, this is an expansion in the market where we are seeing linear TV budgets getting spent into connected TV budgets. So it's not taking, let's say, mobile budget to CTV or digital. It is expanding the digital pie more because of, you know, TV spends over to digital in this particular manner. So this is of course, a strategic area. It's also strategic for us because it is fitting well with our connected devices discourse, right? Because it's not just mobile. There is, let's say in any household, there will be, you know, one or two connected TVs, several smart mobile phone devices.
Now, how do you create the appropriate contextual sort of engagement and recommendations and experiences for these households, is an important sort of aspect in how we run a campaign. So, the business on CTV is doing well. In fact, across all verticals, we are blending CTV as an integrated proposition. So when I talk about, say, for example, in North America, it's an integrated proposition. We are going and selling mobile and CTV.
At least the pitching from the sales team and, you know, going to the customer, all of that is happening in an integrated fashion, and it is seen by our customers, and this is direct feedback we have got, that we are one of the few companies that is pitching it as an integrated proposition of connected devices of CTV plus mobile. And some of our competitors are now starting to sort of catch up with that and talk about it. And so it's doing well for us. I think it's building thought leadership for us. And yeah, I mean, qualitatively, I would say that in emerging markets, CTV is still at a more nascent level. You know, the market size is not large enough.
In developed markets, CTV is a much bigger phenomenon already, but when we go there as a combined proposition, mobile plus CTV, and the way we present it with our CPCU business model, I think it is being received very well by the customers, and our sales team feels more confident that we have a differentiated way to go to market. So it's helping us in many, many ways.
Got it. Thank you. And a quick follow-up. Is the kind of data that you get from CTV, or the kind of technology there, has it evolved enough for the CPC model to work well in that segment?
See, CPC model is a calibration which absolutely works in a scenario where when you combine CTV together with mobile. Now when you. That's why I was explaining to you that it is CPC on connected devices. Connected devices, meaning in a household, the CTV, the CTV is not an isolated device. The CTV is showing ads to a consumer. The consumer is in that household. In that household, he's using also the smartphone, and then he and she, if there is a conversion that is created, was the conversion created because you showed a CTV ad together with mobile, or you showed only mobile or CTV? Then it becomes more of a question of attribution. So when we do CTV business, we go to the advertiser and say, "This is our product. Give us your campaign.
I will drive a conversion with the consumer." That consumer is having this connected devices access, and we are able to hopefully deliver that, right? So I think the campaign will run across CTV and mobile as a combined fit with all the units taken into account, but you can't simply isolate and say, "This is a CTV, pure CTV conversion. This is a pure mobile..." So it is. The conversion is always linked to a consumer, right? And the consumer will have exposure to more than one connected devices, and that is the reality we are living with. So I think CTV is, think of it as another ad unit. On mobile, you can show a video ad. On CTV, you can show a video ad or a banner ad, and you can show different kinds of ad formats.
The end goal is to drive a conversion, and once you drive a conversion, you then attribute and say, how much was the effect of showing the... If you showed the campaign on CTV, the conversions were higher. If you didn't show the campaign on CTV, the conversions were lower. So it's, I think it's that kind of data analysis that we're able to show insights to the advertiser.
Okay, got it. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we'll take that as a last question. I will now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you very much for joining our earnings call today and for your insightful questions. I have always enjoyed talking about our company and especially so in the context of the fact that we've achieved the turnaround that we had promised and on time. I feel confident, reassured, and looking forward to delivering greater outcomes in 2024, and looking forward to financial year 2024, starting from April. So thank you very much, and stay well.
Thank you very much. On behalf of DAM Capital Advisors Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.