Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Aaditya Mulani from the HT Media Group. I would like to welcome you all to our quarter one financial year 2025-2026 earnings webinar. As a reminder, all the participants will be in listen- only mode. After we are through with the presentation, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions. I now hand over to Ms. Anna Abraham, CFO, Hindustan Media Ventures Limited and Head Investor Relations, HT Media Group. Thank you, and over to you, Anna.
Thank you, Aaditya. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of the HT Media Group, I would like to extend a warm welcome to our earnings webinar for the first quarter of financial year 2025-2026. Joining me on today's call are Mr. Piyush Gupta, Group CFO, Mr. Pervez Bajan, Head Financial Controllership and Taxation, and members of the investor relations team. We hope you've had an opportunity to review the financial results of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited that was announced yesterday, as well as those of HT Media Limited released earlier this afternoon. Please note that our discussion today will follow the presentation slides. This presentation, along with the financial statements, are available on the stock exchanges and in the investor relations section of our respective websites. Coming on to slide two, a s per our usual practice, we would not be providing any specific guidance on revenue or earnings projections.
Kindly keep in mind the disclaimer that is on the slide regarding forward-looking statements. This slide features comments from our chairperson on the company's performance on the concluded fiscal quarter. And I quote, "Building up from a successfully concluded last fiscal year, the first quarter in the current fiscal has also begun on a strong note, with both operating revenue and profitability showing growth as compared to the previous year. The print business has seen strong growth in advertising revenue, reflecting our leading market presence and the continued relevance of print as an effective medium. Our targeted efforts to grow circulation have delivered steadily, seeing sequential gains, further enhancing our reach. Growth in our radio business has been tepid, with the larger industry still facing challenges. However, we are pivoting the business with a renewed focus on growing non-free commercial time revenue.
Meanwhile, our digital businesses continue to show steady momentum, with our platforms Mosaic, Shine, and OTTplay driving growth through differentiated future-ready offerings. We are working towards accelerating growth of our digital business while deepening the impact of our print offerings and reimagining the radio business with experiential and integrated formats. As always, your trust powers our journey. With a relentless focus on quality journalism and immersive entertainment, we are creating richer, more relevant experiences for our diverse and evolving audiences." This is the agenda that we will be covering during the call today. We will first cover the consolidated financial results, followed by a detailed overview of our print, radio, and digital businesses. After the presentation, we will open the floor for a Q&A session. With that, I now hand over the call to Mr. Piyush Gupta.
Thank you, Anna. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining Q1 FY 2026 earnings call. You will just track the presentation on your screens. The first chart is on our consolidated financial summary. As you can see, in the first quarter of FY 2026, our total revenue have grown by 6% on a YoY basis at INR 451 crore. PAT is a INR - 11 crore, which is an improvement of 59%. On a sequential basis, the revenue is at -23% with PAT at -140%. Net cash is very healthy at close to INR 1,000 crore. Passing on to the business unit performance, and these I think right away into print. You can see improvement in print operating revenues compared to last year, this led by a significant growth in advertising revenues. Circulation showing sequential improvements as well.
Our ad revenues have come to INR 255 crore, which is a 17% improvement, and total operating revenue INR 324 crore, which is an 8% improvement. Going to the English segmentation and our advertisement revenue, these have come at INR 140 crores, is a 19% growth, so very healthy growth on a YoY basis. On a quarterly basis, however, it's a decline of 12%. Circulation revenue, however, has been a little tepid because our emphasis has been putting more copies and more readers. It's down by 22%. On a quarterly basis, it's flat. Coming on to the Hindi business. Our growth is 14%, with our ad revenues coming at INR 116 crore. On a quarterly basis, it's a decline of 9% at INR 116 crore. Circulation revenue on a YoY basis is at INR 39 crore, which is flat versus last year.
Radio, a s highlighted earlier, radio has been under a bit of pressure. Segment revenue saw a dip compared to the prior quarter due to high base effect from the big events which we conducted earlier this year. But on a YoY basis, our revenues stayed at INR 31 crore as against INR 36 crore last year. After the margin at -21%. Digital, you can see the segment revenues growth YoY as both digital properties, including OTTplay, continue to gain traction and profitability improvement owing to broad-based revenue expansion along with business investment rationalization. As a consequence, our operating revenues are at INR 56 crore, which is a growth of 21%, and operating margins are at a -38%. With that, we come to the end of the presentation. I hand it back to Aaditya.
Thank you, Piyush. We will now begin the Q&A session. You can click on the Raise Hand option, which will enable the moderator to unmute you for posing your query. Please introduce yourself before posing your query, and kindly restrict to a maximum of two questions per participant so that we may be able to address questions from all participants. We will wait for a few moments while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Gaurav Agarwal. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi, Piyush. Hi, Anna. I am a private investor. Basically, my question is regarding your one of the group companies, Digicontent . I believe there you all have diluted a large part of the equity as RSUs. Just wanted to know what is the impact on the P&L, because it is almost like 9.5% equity dilution. I believe even in the financial, you all should have separately adjusted or shown some details what is the impact on the P&L is.
We have no separate. It is part of our employee cost in the P&L.
In the last quarterly numbers, what is the impact? Can you tell me?
Last quarterly number, there cannot be an impact because the RSUs were issued only in the last month.
Gaurav, hi, this is Piyush . Gaurav, all the costs have been charged in the salary and wages account, and it is not a 9% dilution. I do not know how you calculated that, but the accounting has been conducted as per Ind AS, and it is not a 9% dilution. It is all employees' RSUs which have been given to the employees.
We disclose in the annual report as and when it comes up.
Piyush, it is 9.5%. Earlier, you all had INR 29 lakh shares, RSUs, which you guys increased it to 56. It is like 10% of the Digicontent equity.
Nothing issued as yet. There is a right to this thing and it is a benchmark to certain milestones also. Currently, there is no dilution.
Sorry.
There is no-
I couldn't get you. Can you come again, please?
Right at this point in time, the shares have not been issued as yet. When the shares get issued, then it will have some level of dilution. But at this point in time, there is no dilution.
If you find out the list of the entire BSE 500 list of companies, there would be very few who would have done such large. These all things happen in the private equity unlisted stocks. Founder allotments happen. How come all of a sudden, right from 2% then 5%, now it's 9.5%? That's a very-
That is, Gaurav, exactly the point that I am trying to make. First of all, it is not 9.5%. It is much less. That has been given as a right for us to buy and hand over the stock to the employee. It is not 9.5%. That is approval which has been taken for future handing out, but it will not be a 9%. If you want, we can separately engage and you can drop a mail out to the investor relation section, and we will give you the exact.
Just closing on that conversation, the digital business is a new-age business from that perspective. We are investing more and more in the digital business, so therefore it is listed, but there is growth potential similar to employee business.
Are there any specific employees, like I believe you guys have enrolled some?
Gaurav, this is Piyush . I tell you what, Gaurav, because this call is for the HT Media Group and DCR really does not fall into that. Why do not you send your specific queries on the investor relation and we will answer your query there?
Nobody bothers to respond on emails, neither calls. Manu is not available. The number which is there, that number seems to be out of working. It is not working. How do we guys contact?
Gaurav, we receive a lot of emails on a very regular basis. Just drop in an email.
But somebody should pick up the call. Nobody is picking up the call also.
Gaurav, would you be kind enough to put in an email?
I will do that, Piyush. If you give me your email ID, I will put directly to you.
My email ID is very simple. It is piyush.gupta@hindustantimes.com. Why don't you write a mail to me?
Yeah, I will do that. Thanks a lot, Piyush. Yeah.
A reminder to all participants that you may use the Raise Hand option on your screen if you wish to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Yash R. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi, Piyush. Hi, Anna. Good evening.
Hi, Yash. Good evening.
Could you please let us know the verticals that have helped to achieve the growth in the print segment, particularly the English part, HT? I know I can read in the comments that there has been a higher government revenue versus last year. First of all, we must have been having a good amount of revenue this year. Is it normalized or is that any exceptional revenue that you received? What are the other-
Yeah. If I may take it up. See, last year, same quarter, if you remember, we had the national elections. There was a code of conduct which was in play because of which government revenue was substantially lower.
Right.
Therefore, this year there is no such restriction, so government spending has been improved and therefore that helped. Of course, last year, therefore in quarter one, the results had fallen. This year is getting the upside. But apart from the government revenue, commercial revenue also has fired for us.
Which sectors have contributed the most to it apart from the government?
Education is a big segment of quarter one, so that would be one of the segments which has fired . Whereas, across English and Hindi, it would be education. Among the top five segments, two, three of them have been fire.
Sorry, I did not get any of the verticals or the segments.
Segment is education.
Education is one that has performed well, right?
Yes.
And?
Real estate and BFSI and the others.
BFSI. Okay. What percentage of contribution is by education to the overall-
I wouldn't be able to disclose it. But education is a pretty sizable advertiser in the quarter one, I think mainly in-
Okay. And growth percentage, if you can just let us know, government and education.
We don't give split by segments.
Well, Yash, let me try to give you a context. I mean, education in the first quarter is a big segment. It's in the top five to seven segments that we have for which the advertising comes in the English newspaper, because your question is specifically to English. The growth has been reasonably good on the commercial side, but we wouldn't like to give the exact numbers because it's a competitive number we don't want to share. But that's one sector which has fired.
Okay. What about on the circulation front? What are the copies? Are we stagnant or are we growing or have those numbers gone down? Because in the investor presentation, I can see that the discounting is still continuing, right?
Hold on. Before Anna comes. Well, discounting, as I highlighted earlier, we are currently hooking a lot of new readers on the Hindustan side. So all the discounting which has happened is primarily happening there, which is a short-term trend, but Anna can give the exact specifics. Anna Abraham, would you like to comment?
Yeah. So in the English segment, whatever the decline that you see is largely on account of pricing only. Copies, as you can see, sequentially also we are flat. So there is no change in copies. In the Hindi business, we are actually growing in copies vis-à-vis last year. Sequential numbers are again pretty much in play.
Sorry. On the English front, I can see a drop of 22% in the revenue. That is on account of?
As also mentioned in the Investor Day.
No. I mean, so it's lower realization per copy, so I'm not able to make a sense of it as to what it means.
That means the pricing to the customer is discounted as we were liquidating, and therefore this decline in revenue is linked by pricing and not by copies.
Okay. So copies are the same, but then we are continuing with giving discounts, right? On the cover price. Hello? Hello?
Can you hear us?
Hello.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Can you hear us?
I can now.
We said, yes, you are absolutely right. We are giving those discounts and hence it is saying on the circulation revenue, the copies are pretty constant, but our endeavor is to recruit more copies and increase the number of copies as we go forward from hereon.
I mean, what is the plan right now?
Dear participant, sorry to interrupt here, but may we request you to fall back in queue for any follow-up questions, please.
Sure. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Deepak Sharma. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Yeah, hi. Good evening. This is Deepak. My question is that we have signed a couple of AFE agreements in the last six months and w e see an uptick in the revenue. Would you be able to give a segregation between the AFE revenue growth vis-à-vis the normal revenue growth?
We don't exactly give that number, but suffice to say that AFE revenue has been a substantial part of the overall print revenue. It remains to be seen, but it doesn't have much bearing on the new agreements that we would have signed because all the existing agreements that we have also have a life of three to five years. So those agreements are also into play, but AFE revenue is a substantial part of the overall revenue.
Sure. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Meera Ruparel. Please introduce yourself and ask your question. Participant, you will have to unmute yourself. Meera Ruparel, please unmute yourself and ask your question. Yes, please unmute yourself.
No, Meera Ruparel is not available. She has not asked a question.
Sorry, we could not hear you.
No, I am Sharad Ruparel, her father. Meera Ruparel is not available. She has not asked a question. Neither I have asked a question.
Okay. We will move on. No problem. The follow-up question is from the line of Deepak Sharma. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yeah. So follow-up question again. In my earlier discussion with Aaditya, one of our discussions, we did mention that the AFE declaration happens when we do the conversion of the warrants into equity. There are signing agreements which happen prior to that as well. Do we have a split of those saying that, okay, these are in the pipeline and out of these, X number of them, we want to convert the warrants into equity? Do we have some ratios onto that?
Can you just repeat the question? I think I missed your point there. You are saying, when we convert a warrant into equity, what happens?
Under the LODR declarations we publish on the bourses that these are the AFE agreements which have been converted into equity. The warrants are getting converted into equity. But my discussion with Aaditya earlier mentioned that we keep on scouting for potential partnership opportunities and-
Yes.
Keep on shortlisting them. Then out of those, if we find a long-term strategic value, then only we convert into that. So what is the split of those businesses where we say that we form a partnership with 100 people and only 30% qualify to go to the next round?
Well, okay, let me try to kind of attempt your question in a very high level. We have no specific number here. First of all, you have to understand the reason that we invest through the warrant structure rather than paying equity is a risk mitigation strategy. Of course, there are a lot of instruments that we are using and not just the warrant. The warrant also is a risk mitigation strategy. We do pay in equity, we do convertible debentures into optionally convertible debentures. We do warrants and so on so forth. The reason that we would convert a warrant into equity is if we basically see that equity can give us a substantial upside.
That will happen because based on all the information rights that we have in our invested companies, if we see that a certain company is on a certain track where we believe that there can be a lot of upside, and that is the time that we convert our warrant into equity. As per the contractual document, there is a time period in many cases that we have up till which we can exercise this right, and within that time period, we keep on looking at the financial performance of the company and base that we take. There is no straight answer as to what percentage of warrants will be converted into equity, but the simple answer is, depending on the conviction that we have on the company's performance and therefore go forward perspective of the company, we would exercise that option. Otherwise, we will not.
Sure. Understood. Thank you. Historically, what would have been the ratio in the past?
Look, historically, quite a few of our companies which have gone to the public markets and we were sitting in warrants. Before the public markets, we did exercise that option. There are quite a few companies which have shown a lot of traction on both the top line and the bottom line. In that case, we would have done the same. But I don't have a readymade number for you. But those are the decision cases which we look at the information, and if the information is giving us a green signal, we will go ahead and exercise the option. Otherwise, we will not.
No, absolutely. I was talking to Aaditya earlier and said that MobiKwik was a quick win for us last December itself. So it boosted our numbers as well. My question was more on the misses. What happens if most of the companies don't qualify? What happens? Is there a loss there?
Let me flip the question. MobiKwik was a win. As per our operating thesis at this point in time, whilst we are tracking our investing companies, in the next two to three years, we think that there will be many such opportunities in our invested companies where we will get this opportunity. Now, whether the markets will reward them very nicely or not, only time will tell. But at this point in time, we see a lot of opportunity over the next two or three years.
Got it. Got it. Thank you.
A reminder to all participants that you may use the Raise Hand option on your screen if you wish to ask a question. Follow-on question from Yash R. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yeah. Hi. The question that I wanted to ask earlier was that how long are we looking to see to continue the discounts on the circulation front?
At this point in time, I'll just do a long-form answer. As you are aware, post-COVID, most of the copies for most of the publishers came down. Now, very selectively, depending on which market is showing a promise and there's competitive activity, we are addressing market by market. There's a full impetus we are doing in the Hindi market and also in the English market, Delhi, Bombay, and Chandigarh. We are selectively increasing our copies. Now, I don't think that this is a cocktail launch that we are doing across all our print locations and all our markets. But this is a selective market where we see that we have to shore up the copies. There are two routes that we take. One is, as you said, price off. Second is the gifts that we give to our readers.
We keep on checking them on a monthly basis, but at this point in time, the strategy is paying fruits. Of course, it's a little costly because the RPCs tend to depress in the short term, whereas the benefit comes over the long term. At this point in time, we are continuing, but suffice to say that we keep on looking at our performance on a monthly basis and take a real-time call on that.
Also, Yash, to add, there is a competitive environment on this as well. It also depends on the competitive environment as to what is the kind of offers that is [audio distortion] .
We'll continue with it for foreseeable future?
I am saying at least for the next month we are, and we will take a call at the end of next month. If we think that we should continue, we are taking one month at a time at this point in time. But looks like currently we are continuing because this will give us fruits in the long term.
Yeah. What about the newsprint prices now?
The newsprint prices are flat for at least the last two quarters, and we don't see any reason for them to spike up. I understand there's a lot of anxiety around the geopolitical events.
Yes.
But we believe that the newsprint prices will remain in a very tight band, which is currently give or take $500 a metric ton, and we are currently tracking those prices.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you all. With this, we come to the end of the Q&A session.
Thank you, Aaditya.
Thanks.
As you can see, we have clocked a pretty decent growth on the top line, but from a long-term business viability, we keep on investing behind our copies in our print businesses and our other various businesses like OTTplay. We are setting up a target, and we have seen 100% growth on a YoY basis, and we hope to repeat the performance forward. Our radio business is undergoing a bit of a tough environment right now where the pricing is under pressure, but we are doing all the efforts in our end to endure the current situation. Our cash position remains very firm, and our AFE book is only growing. We hope to get some more equipment in the next two or three days. With that, we appreciate your time, and we look forward to seeing you in the next quarter. Thank you. Back to you.
Thank you.