Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Just Dial Ltd. Q4 FY25 Earnings Call. At this moment, all participants are in the listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, you may click on the raise hand icon tab to ask a live question. Please note that this conference is being recorded. We are joined by Mr. V.S.S. Mani, MD and CEO, and Mr. Abhishek Bansal, CFO from the management of Just Dial Ltd.. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Abhishek Bansal, CFO, Just Dial Ltd. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Moderator. Hi everyone. Welcome to Just Dial's earnings call for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. Our operating revenue for the quarter stood at INR 289.2 crore, witnessing 7% year-on-year growth. Operating expenses were well controlled and grew only 1.7% year-on-year. Employee expenses were only marginally up 0.9% year-on-year, and other expenses were up about 7.5% year-on-year. Consequently, we had a very healthy 29.8% EBITDA margin for the quarter, with absolute EBITDA at INR 86.1 crore, growing 21.9% year-on-year. Operating PBT stood at INR 70.9 crore, growing 26.5% year-on-year. Advertising spends for the quarter stood at about INR 7.2 crore. Other income stood at INR 108.7 crore, which was up 19% year-on-year, one due to a decline in yields during this particular year, and second, higher levels of treasury.
Effective tax rate for the quarter stood at 12.2%, which is lower in this fiscal at overall 12% due to reversal of deferred tax on part of treasury moving from short-term bucket to long-term bucket basis three-year holding period in the current fiscal year. Profit after taxes for the quarter stood at INR 157.6 crore, growing 36.3% year-on-year. For full year FY 2025, our revenue witnessed 9.5% year-on-year growth, and EBITDA grew about 55% year-on-year. EBITDA margin stood at 29.4%. Operating PBT at INR 277.6 crore had about 72% year-on-year growth, and at PAT level, we delivered INR 584.2 crore, growing 61% year-on-year. While effective tax rate was lower at 12% in fiscal 2025, as I just explained, it should go back to 20-21% levels in the current fiscal 2026.
After witnessing lower growth in the first three quarters, collection had a decent 11.3% YOY jump to INR 340 crore in the March quarter, which is a seasonally strong quarter for us. Consequently, deferred revenue stood at INR 558 crore as of March 25 and was up about 10% year-on-year. Active paid campaigns at the end of the quarter stood at about 613,290 campaigns, which was up 5.1% year-on-year. Overall, cash and investment stood at INR 5,279 crore as of 31st March, growing about 14% year-on-year. Coming to traffic, traffic trends have been healthy. We had 191.3 million quarterly unique visitors, growing 11.8% year-on-year. Mobile traffic, which forms 87% of our traffic, witnessed about 15% year-on-year growth. Total listings now stand at 48.8 million, growing 11.9% year-on-year.
Overall, as we evaluate the year, we had started the year with aspirations of growing our top line in mid-teens kind of number and EBITDA margins of 25% plus for full year. Our performance shows that while top line growth could have been better, it was still decent in the current macro environment, and we have comfortably overshot on our margin targets. Our focus last year was to ensure that we grow our operating profits heavily, which shows in our 72% operating PBT growth. In terms of our monetization strategy, we have tried to optimize on our sales team by reducing the team that works on cold-calling merchants and replacing the same with a team that works on qualified leads of interested customers. As a result, productivity is much better.
For the current year, the focus shall be to stay efficient and work towards accelerating top line growth, which we believe is very much achievable via initiatives such as, one, advertising both for users as well as merchants, which will result in more traffic, higher user engagement, and better prospects for our sales teams. Secondly, also via adequate price increases in underpriced categories and geographies. With this brief update, we shall now open the floor for questions and further discussion. Over to you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please click on the raise hand icon tab available on the toolbar, or you may click on the Q&A icon to raise hand. The operator will announce your name when it is your turn to ask a question. Please accept the prompt on your screen and unmute your microphone while proceeding with your question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We'll take our first question from Vivekanand Subbaraman from Ambit. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you so much for the opportunity. Abhishek, my question is on the collections growth. The trajectory of collections, as we saw through the year, has improved materially in the fourth quarter. You said that you have taken several initiatives to enable this. Could you elaborate a bit more and help us understand your goals for fiscal 2026, and what is achievable in terms of collections trajectory with the current cost structure? That is question one. Secondly, do you have any specific targets set for headcount addition now that you seem to be back in the hiring market to get more feet on the street and sales staff? Last question is, six months ago or about nine months back, when you had done an earnings call, you had given some guidance on potential cash return. Is there any update on that? Thank you.
Vivek, coming to your first query around collection growth in Q4, yes, collection growth has picked up from 6-7% kind of levels to 11% plus in the fourth quarter. For fiscal 2025, when we started the year, the first two to three months, we felt that collections were probably not keeping pace, partly due to maybe the impact of elections, etc. By the time we came into the third quarter, expecting material pickup, we entered into the festive season, which again tends to be a bit weak period for us. The desired pickup, due to all the initiatives that we were taking in terms of having more of our tele-sales working on qualified data rather than cold-calling customers, the productivity of a tele-salesperson working on qualified data is almost two and a half to three times of someone working simply on a cold-calling basis.
Some of those initiatives bore fruit in Q4, which is what resulted in this better growth. Coming to our goals for fiscal 2026, the way we are looking at it is that, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, like last year, we had kept targets of growing our top line by sort of mid-teens and 25% plus margins. On one parameter, we fell a bit short, and margins comfortably we were at 29% plus versus 25%. For fiscal 2026, our endeavor will be that even at a similar level of margins, we would want to accelerate our top line growth. Having said that, there is significant operating leverage that we have in our business. My gross margins are about 55%. Even by deploying additional money in advertising or maybe even manpower, if need be, I can still maintain my margins.
At the same time, try to accelerate my top line growth. Coming to your query around targets for headcount, one thing that we have realized over the last six to eight quarters is that instead of simply thinking that, okay, more number of people could fetch us better revenue, the way we are operating is that keeping our sales team optimized. A few quarters back, as we had mentioned, the bottom 10-20% of the sales team, where the productivity was much lower, we had tried to rationalize the same. In recent quarters, we have almost eliminated our cold-calling tele-sales team. The same set of merchants we are reaching firstly via advertising, trying to generate leads of those merchants who are interested, and then working on that particular data. That gives us much particular output without the increase of operating expenses.
Regarding your third question on guidance on cash return, at this point of time, this particular agenda on returning cash via a dividend has not been taken up. We expect the same to be taken up sooner, most likely by next quarter. Hopefully, we should be freezing on a proper capital allocation policy, most likely by dividend, because that is a more tax-efficient way rather than buyback at this point of time.
Hey, Abhishek, thank you so much for the detailed explanation. Just a couple of small follow-ups. You have guided for maintaining margins while accelerating top line growth. Do you still believe that you can go back to your original mid-teens aspiration, let's say 12-13% billing growth, or rather collections growth, therefore top line growth? That is one. The second one is bookkeeping, which is the mix of campaigns by top 11 and revenue mix.
Vivek, on the question around whether mid-teens is possible or not, definitely it is possible. There are multiple levers that I can use either via higher manpower or simply via higher advertising. From day one, we are very clear that growth, not just in top line, but at operating profitability level and sustainable basis kind of growth. I do not want to be in a situation that, okay, I am growing my top line at 15%, but my operating profits are growing at 5%, 10%. From that perspective, we want to be clear, like this year, as you can see in all the quarters, our EBITDA levels have grown by a very healthy 50% plus levels. For next year, also, the thought process is that margins are very much in our comfort zone. Incremental margins should be deployed to accelerate top line growth in an efficient manner.
To your query around the split of campaigns and the revenue, the top 11 cities contributed about 56.5% to revenue, and by volumes, their share was about 40%.
Okay, this is for the full year, is it, or fourth quarter?
This is for fourth quarter.
Okay. Would you have the number handy for the full year?
I have the number for the same quarter last year. 56.5% contribution was about 58%. By volume, it was, say, 50 basis points higher at about 40.5%. In the last four to six quarters, revenue share of top 11 has been coming down a bit, but volume-wise, there hasn't been that much material change.
Okay. Thank you so much for patiently answering all my questions. All the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Pratik Kothari from Unique PMS. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi Abhishek. Good evening. Sir, a couple of questions. One, these levers that we speak about, the feet on the street or ad spends, I mean, you'll have a better—I mean, in your assessment, I mean, is it a direct correlation between increasing one to seeing a better collection or more ad campaigns? Is it that people are not aware of the benefits of this, which we kind of put out via ad spends, and hence this better collection? If yes, I mean, why didn't we do this for this year?
Pratik, when I mentioned that there are levers, what I meant to say was that growing top line just via brute force in terms of either increasing operating expenses on employee expenses or advertising can be a short-term strategy. For our kind of business, it's a sustained level of advertising that tends to help in the sense that once I advertise more, my merchants realize that they get a more number of inquiries, more visibility from the platform. That helps me get more customers and even better pricing from the same customer next time. From that particular perspective, these particular levers have to be sort of looked at in a calibrated manner.
Got it. Just to clarify, you mentioned that we want to, I mean, benchmark our margins at this current 29-30% levels. Incrementally, what we make because of operating leverage will go back in spending here.
As I mentioned, see, for us, whether margin is honestly 28%, 29%, or even 31%, 32%, it does not matter that much because the idea is that overall, EBITDA should grow on a sustainable basis. As all of us know, costs can drive my EBITDA only to a certain extent. If need be, advertising anyway is a very small proportion of my spend, say, 2.2%. If need be, I will step it up to 3.5%-4%. Prior to fiscal 2020, we were even at 6%-7% kind of levels. There is no specific thought process around maintaining margins at a particular level. Yes, 25% plus, I definitely want to be. 29%-30% is what I have achieved in the past as well and in recent years. This margin level is very much in the comfort zone. The next thought process is to accelerate top line growth.
Got it. We have not ramped up the sales team, which we had expected at the start of the year. We intended to take it up to 10,500 employees, add about 7,800 employees this year, which we have not. This would be—I mean, what would you ask this to?
Okay, so within our sales teams, there are broadly two teams. One is the tele-sales team, the other is the feet on the street team. Within these two teams also, there are two teams. One is the hunting team, which gets new customers. The other is the farming team, which works on upgrading existing customers, renewing customers, and so on. Now, within the hunting team, there is a way to either do cold calling to merchants the way some of us or many of us receive calls for, say, loans or credit cards, etc. The effectiveness of that particular prospecting is much lower. Whereas if a merchant has shown interest that they want to know more about Just Dial plans because I reached out to them via other digital advertising platforms, then the productivity is two and a half, three times higher.
We have reduced our dependency on cold calling teams and increased manpower in teams that work on qualified data. As a result, we were able to manage current output without the increase of our sales force.
Got it. On the dividend, again, it's been—I mean, I take your point that we should have one by next quarter. Nine, ten months is, I mean, long time. I mean, where is this getting stuck? Just to understand.
Firstly, honestly, it's not that I have mentioned that by next quarter, we will definitely have it. The point is that we have put this up to the board as well as our parent. Yes, I acknowledge that there has been time to crystallize this particular policy. As soon as it is done, we will keep everyone posted. We expect the same to happen sooner than later.
Got it. On similar lines, I mean, anything further you would like to share in terms of strategic guidance per se from Reliance? How do they see us as part of the larger picture? Anything further from the last time we spoke?
Basically, our discussions with the parent, they see that it's a very—the operating core business is high free cash flow generating. There are optionalities possible. As things have panned out, not just in India, even globally in the last 12 to 18 months, people in general are focusing on businesses with positive unit economics, businesses with high returns on their core investments, etc. For us, the objective is to grow our top line as well as profitability for core business on a sustainable basis. Lastly, once there is a proper capital allocation policy in place, the, so to say, concern around the excess cash on balance sheet also should stand at risk sooner.
Lastly, on this con call, I mean, how should we expect the frequency going forward?
Okay, I was expecting this particular question as well. The last two quarters, no specific reason for not doing the con call. It was simply that we were focusing on plans that we had laid out at the end of—we had mentioned at the end of Q1, and there was no material shift in our strategy. Secondly, most of our data and numbers anyway were released as part of our presentations, and we are anyway very much accessible. Having said that, this is the feedback that we have received in this particular time. We will keep these con calls as a regular affair going forward.
So quarterly?
Yes, quarterly.
Great. Thanks, Abhishek. All the best.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Swapnil Potdukhe from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Abhishek. Thanks for the opportunity.
Swapnil, your voice is a little low. Can you please speak a bit louder?
Hello. Can you hear me? Is this better?
Yeah, please go ahead.
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. The first question is on your capital allocation policy. You mentioned that there could be some movement sooner than later. My question is pertaining to, will you stick to the earlier thought process of sharing 100% of whatever PAT you generate in a year? Or there could be some changes on that thought process also?
Swapnil, until the policy is actually crystallized, difficult to say that. Having said that, as we have mentioned in the past, that is our proposal even at this point of time.
Okay. Would it be fair to say that we can expect something around your AGM, or should we, or it will take some time for you to crystallize the final format?
We are expecting that probably in next quarter or around that time, this could get finalized in discussion with our parent. As I mentioned, as soon as we have clarity on the same, we will provide. Difficult for me to pinpoint and say that we have already decided that at this point of time, we will decide this. That is not the case currently.
Got it. Coming to the operational part, any change in your contribution from B2B businesses? I mean, it used to be around 26% to your total revenue. Has there been any improvement on that side of it?
B2B revenue contribution for last quarter stood at about 26.5%. Not material change. Having said that, B2B traffic definitely is gaining share. It was about 15%-16% of our overall traffic till say about three, four quarters away. That stands closer to 20% at this point of time.
Okay. Apart from, what I noticed is like your collection per campaign, if you do try to do that math, it seems to have increased materially in this particular quarter. That was partly that along with your volume growth, partly led to your double-digit growth in this particular quarter. That was a challenge in the previous three quarters. Will that be a fair assessment? Related question to that, will that be sustainable if that is the case?
From our perspective, the way we look at collections honestly is that I sell both upfront payment listings as well as monthly payment plan listings. Though the composition has not materially changed, if it were to change, then it can temporarily affect collections, though it does not affect accrued revenue. Whether INR 2,000 per month is paid in 12 installments or it is paid in one shot, the accrual remains the same. In case we adopt an aggressive monthly plan strategy, which is what our assessment is that has worked well for us in the past because it helps in better realization for customer, better retention, then even if collection grows maybe a few hundred basis points lesser, it will still result in more number of customers and better accruals.
Okay. Any particular measures that you would have taken to increase your realizations, overall realizations per se, and that would be working for you next one or two years?
One thing that we have done is, and we are in the process of doing as we speak, we have two types of listings. One is the premium listings, other is the non-premium listings. In premium listings, you basically get the top fixed positions in any search. Those were always priced at a customized to the keyword and geographies that the merchant was opting for. A spa in Malad West has a different pricing versus a spa in Mira Road, and so on. In non-premium listings, pricing was mostly customized at geography level. A price in Mumbai, the entry level would differ from a price in Hyderabad, but that entry level used to be same across keywords.
We have now made that as well dynamic because we realize it's not fair to charge the same INR 2,000 per month to a grocery store versus INR 2,000 per month to, say, a real estate agent. That customization is going to, I think, help us overall itself because non-premium revenue contributes about 50% of our revenues. The dynamic pricing there should help us in this and future years.
Okay. Just a last one on your traffic growth. Now, for the last three quarters, it has been around 12-15%. Would it be fair to say that you might want to increase some A&P spends to support this growth in the foreseeable future so that you stay at this current run rate, which ultimately helps your business from a volume growth perspective?
Traffic growth, if you see the headline number, comes to around, say, 11.8%. The most relevant component is obviously the mobile traffic, the 87% component. The 87% mobile traffic is growing at about 14.5%-15% level with, say, around INR 6.5 crore ad spend on user-related campaigns. It is in our comfort zone. If need be, yes, definitely A&P spends can be stepped up to support our traffic growth.
Where would these A&P spends be? I mean, what would be the nature of these spends just to get an idea?
Largely, we have been doing digital spends, but if need be, this year we could do certain branding-related or non-digital spends as well as we have done in the past, say, opting for multiplex advertising or any such similar mediums.
Got it. Very clear, Abhishek. Thanks a lot for taking the questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Darshil Jhaveri from Crown Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening, sir. Hopefully, I'm audible. Hello?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Firstly, sir, congratulations on a great set of results, sir. I think focusing on better margins has really helped us. Just wanted to now know that we are speaking a bit about price hikes in the underpriced category. What kind of price rise can we see for our services, and how much will that contribute for our top-line growth, sir? Is it fair to say that we could have kind of a low teen, mid-teen type of growth in revenue?
Darshil, as I mentioned earlier as well, our aspiration is to accelerate our revenue growth from current levels to mid-teens kind of number. In the past also, we have always wanted to have half of our growth materialize from volume additions and the rest half from price increase. 12%-15% traffic growth also supports that 7%-8% kind of overall blended price increase. Obviously, price increases vary by geography, by categories, but that is the endeavor, that half of the desired top-line growth to materialize from the realization increase component.
Okay, sir. That's great to know, sir. Sir, just wanted to know any kind of additional services or new vector that we are planning. A lot of these customers can maybe have a use of AI or something else. Something on those lines, are we thinking about, sir?
Yeah. We are thinking of online shopping, which is probably next quarter you'll get a flavor of it, which is pure online shopping site.
Okay. In terms of, it'll be similar to Amazon, Flipkart, right, on those terms, right?
No. Amazon, Flipkart is basically where the traffic directs to. There are about thousands of internet-enabled businesses which have a robust online presence. We are trying to marry with those sites and give you a wow experience. The experience could be slightly better than what you see in Amazon and all in terms of cataloging and all that. In terms of your buying pattern, it's you are to go and buy on the third-party website. Something like what you see on Facebook, Insta, and.
Oh, okay, okay. Got it, got it, sir. That's helpful, sir. Okay. Yeah, that's it maybe from my side, sir. All the best, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Vijit Jain from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. One, Abhishek, your earlier comment where you said the revenue spread between top 11 cities and others. If I look at that data, essentially outside the top 11 cities, your revenue grew 11% this quarter, and your traffic growth overall is 12-15%. In general, is the A&P spend in 2026 going to focus more on tier one cities outside the brand spending that you aim to do? Because there, obviously, it seems like the revenue growth in the quarter was about 4% to YOY. That is my question number one. Will that be the place where your A&P spending will go?
In terms of our A&P spend, see, our revenue base is highly diversified both in terms of geographies as well as categories. For example, top 1,000 keywords that I have cover, say, 65% of my revenue. Now, when I'm doing digital advertising, that advertising tends to be customized at each keyword level. Again, even in terms of geography, we are present in 200-plus cities. All the tier two, tier three cities put together contribute about, whatever, 43-44% of my revenues. Our A&P spends tend to be spread out both in terms of geographies as well as in terms of categories.
Right. So you're not necessarily looking at shoring up or diverting more of those spends towards the top 11 cities necessarily then?
See, tier two, even at this point of time, it's not that I will have to check what is the split of our A&P spends between tier one versus tier two, tier three. Broadly, in our overall traffic, 45% of our traffic broadly comes from tier one cities and about 55% from tier two, tier three cities. We do adequate advertising in tier one cities as well. Just that tier two, tier three cities, in terms of realization, they are half of tier one. There is significant room for tier two, tier three to catch up to tier one levels.
Got it. My second question, Abhishek, was so when you earlier said that B2B contribution was last quarter at 26.5, roughly same as earlier, but the traffic has grown. In terms of where you would add headcount in F2026 to add more paid campaigns, would it be more directed towards this B2B side where obviously you're getting the traffic and possibly headcount could help with the campaigns growth given the traffic is improving quite materially?
Improvement of traffic should help us in the first step as better realizations for our B2B campaigns. Our B2B campaigns are, say, around 15% higher realization versus our B2C campaigns. Ideally, they can be much higher. In the first step, our idea will be to get better realizations for B2B side of revenue growth.
Got it. In general, on the B2B from a sales fleet side, right, both telecalling and feet-on-street, do you need any different skill sets, any different trainings for them to get better results, or is it pretty much same as on the B2C side here?
There tends to be some difference because B2C-related categories are the ones which any entry-level salesperson can easily relate to: your dentists, real estate agents, packers and movers, etc. When it comes to B2B, say, a hydraulic crane or industrial equipment, etc., you do need some bit of knowledge that needs to be imparted, which we do as part of onboarding that we do. There is a dedicated B2B team also that exists. For employees who are, say, already one year into the system, they have met customers across categories that they broadly become aware. At the same time, the software that they use, we ensure that all the required information is very much fed into the software itself so that even if there is some particular business that they come across which they are not fully aware of, the software guides them through that.
Understood. Understood. Great. Thank you so much, Abhishek. Those were my questions, and good luck for F26.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Vedant Sarda from Nirmal Bang Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for giving the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, please go ahead.
Abhishek, in the last phone call, it was communicated about data regarding retention of customers who discontinue our services for one to two quarters or a year, and then they come back again to avail services. Any percentage numbers of those customers?
Vedant, on a one-year basis, meaning if 100 customers sign up today, then how many go into year two, say, one year down the line? Broadly, that number stands at about 60-odd %, which historically used to be closer to about 55%. The improvement has been because of higher focus on monthly payment plan campaigns. Since there hasn't been much of a shift in this particular composition over the last two-three quarters, I believe retention rates should be similar.
Okay. Like the 40% who have left, how many of them again avail services? Percentage of that figure?
The way it usually works is that out of 40%, 13% is due to business mortality itself. Secondly, in case of our subscriptions, it's not that if a customer has not renewed immediately after one year, they have churned out for life. In several cases, they might pause their campaign or not renew for a quarter. They might come back again. There are certain customers who may not have done advertising for one or two years. They come back again into the paid ecosystem. That is how typical SME behavior is.
Exactly. Like you said, they have paused their services for one year or six months. The percentage of bad customers who are continuing again for a long time, any bad data?
We will have to check that. I don't have that handy at this point of time.
Actually, in the last call, the same was asked.
You could connect with us separately and we will definitely provide.
Oh, okay.
V.S.S Mani, please go ahead.
No, I mean, this is something which keeps happening in any kind of advertising platform. People come in and get out and then come in. There is no such thing as final goodbye, never again types. Our platform is no different. Otherwise, in so many years, you would not have grown our number of paying customers from about 3,000 to now to 500,000 and above. This is not truly a churn. Like Abhishek said, mortality of companies is not in our hands. That definitely, if the business is shut, then it is shut forever. The other thing is the people who get in and get out. That is the nature of behavior. Some people are very smart in playing the season. Their business is seasonal. They will try to spend more money during the season and lie low during off-season. These are the.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Keshav Garg from Countercyclical PMS. Please go ahead.
Firstly, I wanted to share some feedback, sir, what I have understood and what I have heard from others who are using Dial. Many of the search numbers are defunct. The number either has changed or no longer exists. The search results are also very inaccurate. If I am searching for a gardener in Ranchi, it is showing me gardener in Kolkata and so on. Basically, it is imprecise and the customer gets frustrated. Whereas if the same customer goes on Google or even on your competitor, IndiaMart, the results are far more precise and the numbers which do not exist are far fewer as compared to just that. What is your reflection on this?
Keshav, on a very quarterly basis, we do our sort of user satisfaction as well as customer satisfaction audits. Our findings have been much different. In fact, in several cases, if you are unable to find a proper number at any other platform, users many times find that they are able to find it on our particular platform. As far as search results, the one specific example you mentioned, I'm not sure whether that was because you were sitting here and searching in a different city. Even then, that should ideally not be the case. We segregate our categories based on the type of business it is. If you are looking for, say, a restaurant or a general physician doctor, the search results are typically in a shorter radius because as a user, you wouldn't want to go 10 kilometers away.
In case there is a category such as, say, pest control services, where the merchant has to come to your doorstep to render the services, then in search results, sometimes you could see a relatively far-off service provider who would very well be happy to come to your doorstep to render the service. That is the nature of business. In case there are any specific search queries where results were not to your satisfaction, please do let us know, and we will definitely check the gaps and fill them.
In case of B2B categories, we do have intercity advertisers because their ability to cater to other cities is high. That is possible. If you are referring to a category like gardener, it's an error. We will look into it. If you're looking for gardeners in Ranchi, you should be getting only gardeners from Ranchi.
Sir, in fact, for this search result, I was very much in Ranchi, and I could find a gardener in IndiaMart. In fact, a couple of them I could find over there. Just keep that I'm sharing. Sir, second, I understand there's a key to success in this business is to get even the tiny, tiny businesses registered with us so that if somebody searches, he can find a more relevant and nearby and exact source of the service or good or product he's looking for. What are we doing? On one hand, we are cutting the field force and basically the whole expenditure. How do we enroll more and more people on our platform?
We do.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Yeah. Keshav, at this point of time, we have 49 million businesses already listed on the platform. In today's world, getting a merchant on the platform does not require that much field force and manual labor versus there are several automated or tech-enabled ways to get same information. For example, earlier, probably in a hospital, if there are 50 doctors practicing, we had to go to get that information. Today, all hospitals put out a particular document which tells the OPD timings of all the doctors. Via use of tech, I am able to update that information, which probably required 20 man-hours earlier. Similarly, insurance companies might be updating the list of garages where they are offering cashless service. All that information is data for me, which enables me to keep my data enriched.
Right. So what are we doing different from the competition? Like now, even Google Maps has started giving, if you search something, it will directly give you the phone number and so on. I mean, one does not even need to go to Google search. Just in Google Maps, he is able to get that. So what is our edge? How are we scoring above them?
In today's era of disruption, people have been questioning that, okay, just like you talked about Google, people are talking about whether AI-related platforms can replace even the requirement of a search, etc., etc. Our USP comes from the fact that in a diverse country like India, you need a dedicated platform which lists all the small, medium, micro, large merchants out there and provides information for any category that you can think under the sun. Secondly, for those merchants, from just the basic information, we have graduated to providing rich information pertaining to the products and services that they provide. For example, in case of a wedding photographer, no longer it is sufficient to just give their contact details, but I should be able to showcase their portfolio of services.
In fact, as we speak, we are working on using their particular portfolios to automatically create short videos or reels that will show up on their particular listing. The idea is that for anything pertaining to local search, you should quickly be able to find a merchant on the platform. For any other platform that you mentioned, their focus on commercial intent searches will just be a certain percentage of their overall business. Whereas for us, that is the only bread and butter.
Sure. Thank you very much. I hope to hear something about the dividend that you have been talking about since a long time. Thank you very much.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that management is able to answer queries from all participants, we request you to restrict to two questions at a time, please. You may join back the queue for follow-up questions. We'll take our next question from Devang Patel from Sameeksha Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Devang Patel, please unmute yourself and go ahead with your question, please.
Can you hear me now?
Yes, please go ahead.
Hi sir. QOQ, we've seen a pickup in collections growth and in the number of campaigns added. If we strip out seasonality from the quarter, how has been the trend in gross additions and in the churn rate? Basically, whatever slowdown we were seeing earlier in the revenues, is the worst of that slowdown behind us?
Devang, the best way to strip out seasonality is to look at numbers on a YOY basis. Collections sequentially might be showing 20% plus growth, but year-on-year basis, it's about 11.5%, 12%, 11.3%. That's the proper number.
What do you think can sustain the growth numbers that we've seen in Q for YOY?
As I mentioned, my priority is to ensure that my top line accelerates, which is my accrued revenue. Now, collections, in case I start selling more to upfront plan customers, it might artificially show that my collections could be higher. Or if I start selling more to monthly plan customers, for a short period, it might show some impact on collections, but there will not be any commensurate impact on accrued revenue. Y4Q has seen a pickup. Hopefully, for the entire fiscal 2026, our revenue growth will also accelerate up to catch up to collections growth.
Okay. Secondly, my question was on AI. You mentioned use of AI earlier to improve the quality of listings. Are there any other use cases where we are using AI? The sales team's strength is up 3%. You mentioned we are reducing or switching from cold calling to feet on the street. If I look at the productivity, for the sales team, it is at INR 1.2 million versus, let's say, INR 1 million pre-COVID. What is the scope to improve employee productivity further from these levels?
To your first query on use of AI, there are several use cases that we are already deploying AI for. Firstly, on the user engagement side, reviews. Today, when you go to any particular listing, earlier, the user had to skim through tens of reviews to understand what is positive or negative about a business. Today, that summary generation is completely automated. There are prompts via AI which aid a user to give quality reviews on the platform. We use AI for merchants while creating content in their listings. Whenever a merchant is actually uploading a catalog via use of AI, it helps them probably give descriptions to their particular products and services or enhance images that they are uploading. Even we are using AI to give better data to our sales team.
What I mean by that is that when I give a particular merchant ask hot data to my sales team, there is a scoring system that we do which tells my salesperson what is the expected nature of this particular business to convert into a paid listing, whether it's a high intent or a medium intent or a low intent, based on how that merchant has been engaging with the platform. If a merchant is regularly coming to my portal to update their particular listing, there is a specific score assigned. Use of all these particular ultimately use of technology enables us to give better content, improve experience for our users as well as for our merchants.
Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Nilesh Doshi from Prospero Tree AMC. Please go ahead. Mr. Doshi, can you please unmute your connection and go ahead with your question, please? Since there is no response, we'll move on to the next question from Saumil Shah from Paras Investments. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah. Abhishek, a few quarters back, I think three, four quarters back, you mentioned that we are working closely with Jio Ads team for IPL advertising for small enterprises. I want to know any positive development on the same because last year, I remember you said we were a bit late on that front. By next season, we could possibly explore synergies. Any positive development?
No. For this particular IPL, we have not engaged on monetization efforts for Jio Ads or any subscriptions.
Okay. Have they started or the small SME advertising has not started?
Honestly, we are not aware of that, whether there is SME advertising happening on IPL-related matches or not.
Okay. Okay. Similarly, I think we were going to integrate Just Dial on My Jio platform. Anything on that front? On that particular initiative, what we have realized is that in terms of our traffic, some of these initiatives may not actually move the needle that much in terms of, say, I already have 190 million users, and a good chunk of usage originates from searches that happen on Google. For a local search, any traffic that were to come to us via MyJ io , that would anyway have been minuscule. The scale has been deprioritized at this point of time.
I think one of the previous participants, we just answered that some online shopping or something by next quarter. Could you please just give a flavor? We could not understand that.
Mr. Mani, you would take the question, please?
Sorry.
The query around online shopping initiative?
Yeah, yeah. Online shopping initiative, we are just working on a beta. You will see it here more from next quarter. Probably you'll see a product. Basically, this is Just Dial traditionally supports offline establishments. The online share of the market is not there right now with us. We are launching a new product like a complete A to Z online shopping site that will give us the opportunity to tap people who are selling their products online.
Okay. Is it something similar to JioMart or is it only for B2B businesses who are selling online?
No, B2C also. It is B2C businesses, B2B businesses, whosoever has an online buying capability, online shopping capability, all of them will be included in this.
Okay. So all of them would be integrated?
Initially, all of them will be listed for free, and the sponsored ones will be listed on a priority basis. As the traction gathers, then we'll start a commission on sales or referral.
Okay. Okay. What would be our taxation rate for this year?
For current year, it should go to around 20%-21% or so. Our operating profits, they get taxed at a complete 25.2% tax rate. Within our treasury, there is a part of treasury deployed from fiscal 2024 onwards, which gets taxed at full tax rate. The one which we had deployed earlier, since that has crossed three-year holding period, that will get taxed at whatever long-term capital gains tax of around 14% or so, 14-14.3% including surcharges.
On an average, we can assume 20% tax rate?
Around blended, we expect it to be in the range of 20%-21%. The mix of how much is operating income versus treasury income will determine the final outcome.
Okay. Okay. My final question, sir, as we are guiding for a mid-teen kinds of a growth, can we assume our EBITDA margins can go north of 30%, maybe 30%-33%?
As I mentioned earlier, my last year performance has been that margins which we were targeting at 25% at year beginning, we ended at 29% plus. Top line of mid-teens, we ended at close to 9.5%-10%. For this year, in terms of margins, we are comfortable at where we are, but endeavor will be to accelerate top line growth.
Okay. Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. As we are nearing closed time, we will take the last two questions. We'll take our next question from Sanjay Mahajan from Wealthwise Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Mahajan, can you please unmute your connection and go ahead with your question, please? Mr. Mahajan, since there is no response, we'll take our next last question from Amit Agrawal, a private investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you. My question is related to an item on your balance sheet on bank balances. I see an unusually high number of INR 3.00 billion, which has not been the case in the past two financial years. Could you throw a color on that? Thank you.
Amit, all our entire treasury is invested in debt mutual funds, fixed deposits, and tax-free bonds. Simple cash in terms of, say, cash in current account is very minuscule, not more than INR 30,000,000-INR 40,000,000.
Okay.
Overall cash on the balance sheet, including investment, stands at INR 5,280 crore.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our last question from the line of Sudarshan Nachimuthu from Prosperity Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. My question is on your top line growth, actually. When we mention we are comfortable at this current margin levels and aspire for mid-teens kind of growth, does this 5% growth come from the cost of your EBITDA? Let's say last year we did 10% top line and 30% margin. Now we aspire for 15% top line. Does it come from 5% EBITDA? Yeah.
Amit, not really. As I mentioned, my gross margins are about 55% or so. Even if I consider escalation in my other expenses, non-sales related expenses, still about comfortably 40%-45% or even slightly higher percentage of incremental top line will flow to my EBITDA level. While I might deploy part of it to advertising or whatever initiatives, still it should be margin accretive.
Okay. What is our target ad spend for this year? Will it reach the peak with 5%-6% of top line levels?
At this point of time, we do not think that we would need to advertise that much because currently we are primarily focusing on digital advertising. I would budget, say, around 2.5%-3% of the top line at this point of time.
On your shopping website part, is there any addressable market size which you guys have finalized or is it too at an nascent stages to comment on?
I think once we actually have.
Go ahead.
Yes, Mr. Mani, please go ahead.
Yeah. The beta has to be ready. Addressable market is, as I said, people who are trying to sell their products online, having their own website. Is that an addressable market for us? That's constantly growing. There are two ways to sell online. One is through platforms like e-commerce platforms like Amazon or Flipkart and all that. Other is standalone websites of these companies, and they advertise in social media and in search engines to get the traffic. We are trying to have a dedicated online shopping site which will have a catalog of all the products that you see as ads or as whatever it is in different platforms, all aggregated in one place. It is easy to search by keywords, colors.
If you want to buy a brown-colored T-shirt, you can say, "Brown-colored T-shirt," and we'll get you all those sites that are selling brown-colored T-shirt. You say, "I want bamboo fabric T-shirt," whatever it is.
Understood. Understood. On the content part, I think as per our last conversation, we are trying to integrate the content of those listed entities which go into, say, other platforms into Just Dial, like your completed works, a catalog of works done by the particular SME, promotional videos. Is there any sort of update on that, or is it still in working stage?
There's a short process.
That's what we're doing.
Yeah. There in B2B listings, we already have catalogs for over a billion listings. Even on B2C listings, we are in the process of expanding our service catalogs to as many businesses as possible. Apart from that, wherever, even in service catalogs, we can have rich short videos, reels to showcase that particular merchant's products and services that we will keep adding. Total listing base of 48-49 million, the idea is to make content rich in as many listings as possible.
Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as a last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Abhishek Bansal for closing comments. Over to you.
Just one clarification on a query around INR 300 crore showing as one of the line items on the balance sheet. This year, since part of the cash we have started deploying in fixed deposits with banks, since there is no tax advantage in mutual funds, there is INR 300 crore deployed in fixed deposits, which is what is showing as a separate line item under current assets on our balance sheet. Apart from that, cash in current accounts is very minimal. I thought I'll just clarify. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. In case you have any further queries, please do reach out. We will do our best to address. That's it from our side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
On behalf of Just Dial Ltd., that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now exit the meeting.