Good evening, everyone. We wait for a moment while people are joining virtual call. Vineet, we have got 50 people with us. We'll wait for another moment, and then we'll start.
Anand, you can see my screen as well, right?
I can.
The slide.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Vineet, we have 100 people with us. We can start now.
Thank you, Anand. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Info Edge (India) Limited earnings conference call for the results of the March quarter and financial year ended 31st March 2024. As a reminder, all participant lines will be on listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for Q&A after the presentation concludes. Should you need any assistance during the conference call, please raise your hand on your screen. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Joining us from management today we have Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Promoter and Vice Chairman, Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter and Managing Director, and Mr. Chintan Thakkar, Director and CFO. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the detailed disclaimer included in the presentation for good order's sake. Now I will hand over the conference call to Mr. Hitesh Oberoi for his opening remarks.
Thank you, and over to you, Hitesh.
Thank you, Vineet, and a very good evening, everyone, and welcome to Info Edge's Q4 FY 2024 earnings call. As always, we'll start with an update on the standalone financial performance, and then we'll cover every business segment in more detail. Then, of course, we'll have time for Q&A in the end. In Q4 of FY 2024, our standalone billings were INR 827 crore, a YOY growth of 10%, and revenue was INR 608 crore, a YOY growth of 8%. Billings and revenue, including Zwayam and DoSelect, were INR 856 crore and INR 637 crore, a YOY growth of 11% and 9% respectively. Operating profits at a standalone level grew 9% year-on-year to INR 225 crore, and the operating margin was 37%.
The standalone business generated cash from operations of INR 468 crore in Q4 of FY 2024, a YOY growth of 13%. For the full year FY 2024, standalone billings were INR 2,496 crore, and revenue was INR 2,381 crore, a YOY growth of 5% and 10% respectively. Billings and revenue, including Zwayam and DoSelect, were INR 2,572 crore and INR 2,457 crore, a YOY growth of 6% and 10% respectively. Operating profits at a standalone level grew 18% year-on-year to INR 871 crore, and the operating margin was 36.6%, a YOY growth of 250 basis points.
EPS before exceptional items for FY 2024 stood at INR 65.9, a YOY growth of 20%. The standalone business generated cash from operations of INR 1,135 crores for the full year, a YOY growth of 9%, year-on-year. While the recruitment business continued to be cash generative, the cash losses in non-recruitment businesses reduced significantly by 75% from a cash loss of INR 177 crores in FY 2023, to a cash loss of INR 44 crores in FY 2024. The board has proposed the cash balance of Info Edge, including wholly owned subsidiaries at the end of March 2024, stood at INR 4,191 crores. The board has proposed a final dividend of INR 12 per share, along with the interim dividend of rupees ten per share.
The total dividend for FY 2024 is INR 22 per share, a 16% year-on-year increase, and the headcount of the company as of March 2024 end was 5,750 people. Moving on to segment-wise performance and starting with the recruitment business. In Q4 of FY 2024, recruitment billings grew by 7% to INR 625 crore, and revenue grew by 3% to INR 452 crore. Operating profit was lower 2% YOY at INR 258 crore, and the operating profit margin was 57%. Cash generation from operations was at INR 458 crore, a YOY growth of 2%.
For the full year FY 2024, for the recruitment business, billings grew by 1% to INR 1,883 crore, and revenue grew by 7% to INR 1,805 crore. The operating profit growth for the full year was 4% year-over-year at INR 1,051 crore, and the operating profit margin for the full year was 58%. Our recruitment business continues to consistently deliver cash flow, with cash from operations in FY 2024 amounting to INR 1,208 crore. Key operating highlights in recruitment. FY 2024 was a challenging year for the overall recruitment business, largely because of the slowdown in IT hiring, which is approximately 45%-50% of our business, directly and indirectly, if you include the business from recruitment consultants.
The non-IT businesses, business segments, especially manufacturing, real estate, travel, tourism, healthcare, pharma, BFSI, etc., can sustain growth and helped offset the slower growth in IT to some extent. We continued our efforts of opening new branches in Tier Two and Tier Three cities to penetrate non-IT and SMB segments further. We now operate 79 branch offices all over the country. In Q4, we saw an uptick in billing numbers, driven by healthy renewal rates. The billing growth in Q4 was broad-based, with IT also growing at 11% and non-IT growing at 12%, and the consultant segment being flattish. iimjobs and Naukri Fast Forward also witnessed healthy billing growth of 32% and 29% year-over-year respectively. Naukri Gulf reported a YOY growth of 26% during the quarter, primarily led by growth in new customer count on the platform.
Our overall client base increased to 132,000 customers in FY 2024, from 127,000 customers in FY 2023. A few of our new businesses like Job Hai, AmbitionBox, et cetera, started monetizing in a small way in Q4. We believe there is significant opportunity in these businesses in the long term, and they have the potential to grow at a much faster pace going forward. We continued investing in both AI, data science and machine learning, and generative AI. And product improvements to enhance user experience and refine our recommendations and search engines. The deployment of multiple functionalities across our products has improved user engagement, experience and increased productivity and efficiency. Platform metrics continue to remain healthy.
The Naukri database now has 98 million resumes, and average daily app installs were highest in Q4, and the average number of resumes added daily grew by year-over-year by 40% to 28K. On the job seeker side, we introduced Naukri 360, a comprehensive suite for all career-related initiatives, both on and off the platform, reinforcing our position as a modern career brand. Additionally, we've integrated Coding Ninjas, making upskilling a central component of our offerings. In March, we also revitalized the Naukri brand to resonate with a newer generation of working professionals. We introduced a fresh, more vibrant brand identity that maintains our legacy and signature visuals while adopting a bolder aesthetic.
We unveiled the same in the current IPL season through a couple of brand campaigns that have gained quite good traction. Overall, we are optimistic about the recent improvements in the core Naukri business and the growth of the new sort of emerging product lines and strategic businesses. We plan to monitor the overall growth over the next one or two quarters before confirming a definite recovery. Moving on to the real estate segment. In Q4 FY 2024, billings grew by 26% to INR 131 crore, and revenue grew by 23% to INR 93 crore. Operating losses reduced by 31% to INR 15 crore, and cash from operations was a positive INR 30 crore, a year-over-year growth of 121%.
For the full year, FY 2024, billings grew by 24% to INR 385 crore, and revenue grew by 23% to INR 351 crore. Operating losses reduced by 42% to INR 69 crore. Cash loss for the full year was INR 13 crore, a year-on-year improvement of 82%. FY 2024 has been a healthy year for 99acres, and supported by a favorable macro tailwinds and good execution by the team. The momentum continued in Q4 as well for both the primary and secondary parts of the business. Driven by strong demand and premiumization of supply, prices continued to rise significantly in some markets. Affordability, measured as property prices divided by annual income, also continues to be good. It's improved a lot over the last few years.
Unsold inventory levels continue to remain low in the top eight cities, and many developers continue to see good responses to their new launches. New launch sales continue to be dominated by channel partners. We are working to improve our go-to-market for this segment and grow our market share in the new launch segment. Billing growth in Q4 was driven by growth in both the number of billed customers and improvement in average billing per customer. We saw strong billing growth in metros as well as Tier Two and Tier Three cities. We continue to improve the efficiency of our digital performance marketing spending, applying using analytics and creative content and audience optimization strategies. Overall, traffic in Q4 grew at 26% year-over-year, driven by growth in new projects and resale traffic.
Our app DAU base also grew strongly by 30% year-over-year in Q4. We continue to lead in terms of the quality of traffic, time spent and brand recall. 99acres continues to focus its investments on growing its user base and delivering a superior platform experience and differentiated content to help its users make the right real estate decisions. Moving on to the matrimony business. In Q4 of FY 2024, billings grew by 26% to INR 26 crores, and revenue grew by 29% to INR 24 crores. Operating losses reduced by 59% to INR 9 crores. Cash loss was also INR 9 crores, a YOY improvement of 54%. For the full year, FY 2024, billings grew by 17% to INR 85 crores, and revenue grew by 10% to INR 85 crores.
Operating losses reduced by 44% to INR 59 crore, and cash losses were INR 55 crore, a YOY improvement of 56%. The success of the premium model we introduced a few years ago is clearly reflected in the consistent growth in revenue, organic traffic, and the increase in user profiles on the platform, all achieved alongside a continuous decrease in marketing spending. Our marketing expenses are down 50% year-on-year in Q4 of FY 2024. All platform metrics, like acceptances between users and two-way chats, continued to grow aggressively in the quarter. The team maintains its focus on exploring additional ways to monetize platform traffic. In this business, we continue to enhance revenue generation and reduce quarterly losses to achieve breakeven soon. Moving on to the education vertical, Shiksha.com.
In Q4 of FY 2024, billings grew by 9% to INR 45 crore, and revenue grew by 22% to INR 39 crore. Operating profit grew to INR 6 crore from INR 1 crore in the same quarter last year. Cash from operations was INR 15 crore, which was flattish year-on-year. For the full year, FY 2024, billings grew by 15% to INR 143 crore, and revenue grew by 19% to INR 139 crore. Operating profit was INR 3 crore. Cash from operations, INR 24 crore, a YOY growth of 15%. The registrations for MBA and PG courses peaked this year due to campus placements getting impacted, especially in IT related jobs. New private universities in India, coupled with expansion of course offerings beyond engineering by existing universities, offer an opportunity for Shiksha to expand its footprint further.
We continue to invest in making our content more comprehensive and student friendly, in building deep domain expertise in this space. But students' interest in studying abroad in the fall 2024 season was impacted by the weak external environment. We continue to make long-term investments in strengthening the Shiksha study abroad platform. Moving on to the consolidated financial highlights for the company. At the consolidated level, the net sales for the company stood at INR 656.7 crore in Q4 of FY 2024, versus INR 605 crore for Q4 FY 2023. The total comprehensive income stood at INR 7,959 crore, compared to a loss of INR 415 crore in the corresponding quarter ending March 2023.
After adjusting for exceptional items, the profit before tax in Q4 FY 2024 was INR 324 crore, compared to a loss of INR 349 crore in Q4 of FY 2023. Thank you, and we are now ready to take any questions that you have.
Thank you very much, Hitesh. I guess we can begin the questions now. Anand, we can take the questions in the queue.
Thank you so much, Hitesh. Thanks, Vineet. The first question we have from Swapnil. Swapnil from JM Financial. Swapnil, go ahead and ask your question.
Hey. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. So I will start with a clarification first, because there was a mention of some advertising spends for Naukri in the current IPL. So any qualitative or quantitative numbers you can share as to how much of the spends would be, and or will there be any impact on our margins in the Naukri business because of the spends?
We can't tell you how much we're going to be spending this quarter because, you know, the quarter is still on. But, yes, we'll be spending a lot more than what we spent in previous quarters, this quarter. Whether it'll have an impact on margins or not in the long run will depend on what kind of revenue growth we get, this quarter. So hard to say where margins will land.
Okay. And if I were to, you know, extrapolate a few things, you know, your Naukri billing seems to have bottomed out. A few IT are also now moving into double-digit growth. Consultant business may also start improving in the next one or two quarters. Assuming that happens, how much time do you think will it take for your Naukri business margins to move to 60% kind of levels? You know, which historically used to be the trend, and now they are closer to 57%. I mean, you can, if you can quantify in terms of, you know, quarters or some, that would be really helpful.
It is very hard to say, because we don't know how demand will pan out. See, but what we've said in the past is that if we are able to grow our revenue, grow our billing by 15-16% year-over-year, we should be able to maintain margin. If we are able to grow at 20%, we'll, that will help us improve our margins. And if we grow at 9-10%, then we might, our margins might take a dip in the short term. And we, and so that, that will continue to hold.
Okay. And, with respect to the, revenue or billings contribution from JobHai and AmbitionBox, can you give a sense, first on the, revenue model? How much has been the contribution in Q4? And, how quickly do you expect these businesses to ramp up, to meaningful levels, such that they contribute, to the recruitment segment in a meaningful way?
No, no. So we just started monetizing in Q4. And, you know, right now, contribution is tiny, you know, in the, you know, the overall sort of number is, I mean, it's minuscule. How fast will this revenue ramp up? Hard for us to say. Well, all we're saying is that we've started monetizing and the response in Q4 is encouraging, but for the revenue to become meaningful, too, and to start impacting our numbers, will take several years, in my view.
Okay. And just a last one. Your billings growth in the matrimony business seems to be much faster than the competition. What do you think is working for you? And this is despite the fact that your marketing spends have come down meaningfully, whereas the competition seems to be still spending and not able to grow. So any specific thing you want to call out or, you know, those qualitative view as well is fine.
So if you recall, we changed our model some time back. We started giving a lot of services for free, which we used to charge for earlier, and that hit our revenue for some time. In fact, revenue billings were -30% for a while. But we believe that this model change was, you know, important for us. We are number 3 player, and for us to sort of stand out and make an impact and get noticed, and, you know, this was required. Now, and, you know, what's happened over the last 4, 5 quarters as a result, or 7, 8 quarters, as a result of this change, is that our traffic share has grown. We are getting more profiles than earlier. Our market share, you know, our engagement is also a lot better.
We are seeing a lot more acceptances on the platform. And now we are slowly pushing the pedal on monetizing, right? And we've introduced new products and services to help us monetize this engaged audience better, right? And that's why you saw this bump in revenue in Q4, bump in billings in Q4. So, I, you know, we are still tiny in the grand scheme of things. But in the markets where we operate, we have significant share. We are a strong number two player in the Hindi belt, and we are perhaps as big as the number one player when it comes to traffic in the Hindi belt now. And let's see how this pans out going forward, yeah.
If I were to just to add on to that and ask you, as assuming you break even in the next few quarters in this business, what will you focus on? Will you focus on growth at 20-25% that which has happened in this particular quarter? Or would you want to ensure that the profitability also continues to improve in a straight line manner, and maybe you will accept, you know, market growth kind of a scenario?
So in the matrimony business, our goal is to break even as quickly as possible.
No, once you break even. Yeah, my question was, like, once you break even, how will—what will be the strategy thereafter? Will you want to operate at 0% margin or, like, for some time and, and focus on growth? Or will you be expanding your margins, growth might be slightly slower?
We'll cross the bridge when we get to it. But, you know, we, we say we are under no pressure to, you know, make money in the matrimony business. We would rather focus on gaining share, but we would want to break even.
Got it. Thanks a lot for the opportunity.
Thank you, Swapnil. The next question is from Nitin Jain, from UTI AMC. Nitin, go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah, am I on?
Yeah, you are.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. And, congratulations on the good performance. So, my first question is on the recruitment business. So the margins have dropped by about 3%, three percentage points, year-on-year in this quarter. So would you be able to throw some light here, like, is it because of an increased ad spend, or is there something else that we're missing?
No, no, margins have fallen because, you know, billing growth was almost flattish last year. You know, of course, costs went up. You know, manpower costs, I don't have the details, must have gone up by 10%, marketing costs must have gone up, overhead must have gone up. We continue to invest in a few areas. We think growth will come back at some point in time, and we don't want to delay investing in those areas which are important for the long run. So we continue to invest in data science, machine learning, we're expanding our sales team. We are focusing more on growing our non-IT business because IT hiring has been slow. So that's the reason margins look like they are.
Okay. Like, you've indicated that JobHai and AmbitionBox have started monetizing. So can you elaborate what, how we are monetizing and, you know, what kind of growth we can expect here?
So right now, you know, I mean, we just started monetizing last quarter. You know, and we were able to get some customers, on both, both AmbitionBox and, and JobHai. These are very early days. This model, the model will evolve as, as, you know, with time. You know, so right now it's hard for us to predict what's going to happen in these two verticals. It's, it's only been a month or two since we took them to market here.
No, so, JobHai, the model is similar to Naukri, is it? Monetizing model.
Yeah, I mean, basically, we're monetizing job listings and response.
Okay. And for AmbitionBox?
AmbitionBox, we are selling a few branding solutions on AmbitionBox right now.
Okay. Okay, great. And, yeah, so... Yeah, so for the full year, the difference between billing and revenue growth is notable, like, it's around 5%. So how do we reconcile this? Like, is there a timing difference, or like, is there any leakage happening here? This is for the recruitment business.
Chintan, you want to answer that?
Yeah. So look, we are on a subscription basis model, right? So what happens is that whatever billing that happens in a particular, you know, quarter, the recognition of revenue happens subsequent to that, depending upon the tenure of the contract, right? So there is no real question of any, you know, leakage per se, because all the invoices that gets booked, you know, in, in billing, will eventually get recognized depending upon the tenure of the contract. The contract is usually 12 months or lesser than, you know, lesser than that period. So the difference is because what happens is, let's say we had a, you know, reasonably encouraging, you know, quarter, Q4, right, in, in recruitment business, particularly.
So billing has gone up, you know, but the revenue that you are seeing in Q4, by and large, it comes from what the sales have happened in Q1, Q2, and Q3. There will be some element of Q4 as well in that revenue, but mostly it would be the Q1, Q2, Q3. That's why when there's a sharp rise or a sharp decline, the billing will tell you actually what the real, you know, impact, you know, on the business is, rather than the revenue. Revenue is more a derivative that comes from the billing. That's why we keep talking about the billing numbers.
Right. So it's more to do with timing.
Yes, it's timing, and the maximum is 12-month time, but it reconciles, you know, you know, eventually.
It's basically, it's basically about the fact that you're recognizing revenue as it accrues. Yes. So if there's a one-year subscription, you recognize 1/365, 1/365th every day.
Right.
And, you know, so the 12 months subscription, we recognize over 12 months, the revenue, even though you may have collected the money today and billed today.
Got it. Got it. What is the 12% write-off for? If you can elaborate.
Yeah. So look, you know, some of the investments that we have, right? And as you know that most of the investments in startup type of, you know, company, they have started now chasing a lot more about the profitable growth.
... rather than growth at any cost, right? Because of that, what happens is that the, whatever the initial projections were there when we invested, and what the projections now would be, there will be a kind of, you know, difference in that. And hence, you know, as per the, accounting standards that we follow, we need to revalue some of these assets. And on revaluation, if we think that, look, you know, the projections have kind of gone down, then we need to take an impairment for that. So that's the impairment cost there.
Okay, great. And last question for Hitesh. So for both 99acres.com and Jeevansathi.com, the marketing expenses have gone down notably. So... And I know that in the past you have indicated that, you know, these are usually a function of competitive intensity, like if competition spends, you need to spend, too.
Mm.
How do you see, is this an indication of competitive intensity coming down? Or like you think the brands are strong enough to, you know, generate good organic traffic?
Well, I think it's a bit of both. So in the Jeevansathi, we changed the model. We took a dip, a hit on revenue because we went free, and that helped us acquire a lot of users. And we are continuing with that model. And of course, the market has also become a little more rational because we were spending a lot of money earlier, and so were the others. Now, because we brought down our spending, maybe others are also spending a little less than what they would have spent otherwise. And in 99acres, you know, it's still very competitive, but we believe this is the optimum level of spending. Beyond this, may not help our business, and we would rather invest in other areas.
You know, and, so that seems to be the current thinking. Let's see how it goes.
Great. Well, all this is quite helpful. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you, Nitin. The next question is from Deep Shah, from BK Securities. Deep, go ahead and ask your question. Deep, you are there?
Hello.
Yeah.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. Hitesh, so one question that our IT billings have grown 11%, but that recruitment consultants is flat, and typically, we understand two-thirds of that recruitment consultant is IT. So how should we marry these two aspects? Is it that IT is a lot more because of GCCs or captives, or any such color commentary that is there?
See, my sense of what's happening is that a lot of the IT companies had, you know, overhired, right? Because, you know, actually, after COVID, there was a lot of digitalization worldwide, and there was a lot of demand for IT services. And, you know, our business also grew like a hockey stick for a while at that time, and attrition rates were high, and people were hard to get, salaries went through the roof. And as a result, when demand suddenly disappeared, you know, the, you know, companies realized that they were overhired. And utilization rates at these companies, which used to average, maybe, say, let's say 85%, pre-COVID, you know, utilization rates fell.
For a long time, therefore, many of these companies did not hire or did not replace the people who were leaving. Headcount, in fact, went down at some of the IT services. I think we are now perhaps at a stage where some of these companies are, you know, the bench utilization rates are back to near pre-COVID levels, and they have started replacing some people who are leaving. Maybe that is the reason why our IT sort of revenue started to look up a little bit. Of course, there's a base element as well, right? So, you know, our bases are much lower than what they were last year.
Right. So it's not wholly attributable to GCCs or captives. Obviously, there will be a good part of it there-
Yeah.
but not wholly attributable.
No.
And then-
Yeah.
Right. And then, the trend that you highlighted, we've also... I mean, IT companies haven't been giving very rosy commentary, but the fact is that what you've said is visible. So then, fair, I know I'm not even asking for a number or guidance, but fair to say that with some hiring at IT companies already there, it's very comfortable to say that we've actually bottomed out, and therefore the recruitment side should also pick up maybe one, two quarters later or what's your thought process there?
Well, I hope that is the case. I really don't know. I mean, because a lot will depend on... See, IT services, demand for IT services is more sort of indexed to what happens in the U.S., okay, than to what happens in India. So while a lot of Indian companies also hire IT talent, you know, startups also hire a lot of IT talent, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, that hiring is tiny, right? Of course, if GCCs grow, that will also help our business. So it's not just a function of what happens to IT services companies, it's also a function of what happens to GCC hiring, what happens to startup hiring, what happens to Indian companies who hire IT professionals.
But the IT companies continue to be a big part of the puzzle, and maybe we bottomed out, maybe we haven't. I can't say for sure. I mean, all I can say is that on our website, more IT jobs are being posted every day than was the case three months ago. On our website, more CVs are being viewed by IT companies than was the case maybe three, four months ago. Let's hope it sustains there.
Right. Right. Thanks. Thanks, Hitesh. The second is on this Naukri 360 that you alluded to in your opening remarks. So, is it something like the RMS thing which we had launched, I think 4-5 years ago? Or is this something different, more comprehensive? You know, if you could just explain a bit more.
...No, no, these are—see, basically, you know, you know, we have a candidate service business called Fast Forward, where we write resumes for people, we help them fast forward their job search. So Naukri 360 is basically, you know, a suite of services which we've launched for job seekers to help them, navigate the career market a little better. We've—for example, we have some interview prep services. We have, you know, so we are experimenting with a bunch of new offerings. And the whole idea is to sort of, in the long term, position Naukri more as a career brand, not just as a job board. So that's really what Naukri 360 is all about.
this is sold as a separate license, separate subscription, or it's a value add to, say, someone who's using your career database? Like-
No, these are for job seekers. These are for job seekers.
Oh, these are for job seekers. Okay, sorry. Okay, understood. Thanks, Hitesh.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's all from my side.
Thank you, Deep. Thank you so much. Next question is from Vivek Anand, from Ambit Capital. Vivek, go ahead and ask your question.
Hello. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So on recruitment, again, extending what Deep was asking related to a recovery, you did highlight that the activity on the portal is improving, and we see that in the job seeker database as well. Month-on-month, there is an improvement. Do you think that now as we enter fiscal 2025, since the first nine months of fiscal 2024 had a decline in billing, is the base quite favorable, and perhaps the growth could accelerate from this low base? Or am I reading it wrongly and it's still very unclear? That's question one. Second one, on the recruitment side, now that you've started monetizing these products, have you thought through what the market size could be for some of these segments?
If you could help us understand, that'd be great. Thank you.
So your... Sorry, your first question was around...
So around the base that
Yeah, yeah. So the base, of course.
Because the first nine months of fiscal 2024, you had a recruitment billing decline.
Yeah, you're right. So the base is a lot lower, and therefore it should be possible to grow faster on this base if the market remains reasonable, right? You know, so see, if the economy continues to grow at 7% per annum, if demand for IT services starts coming back, even moderately, you know, I think that should certainly help us grow a lot faster. I mean, in Q4, you saw that, right? Our billing growth was much higher than what it was in the first three quarters of the last financial year.
So, if attrition rates start to pick up a little bit, if demand starts to come back a little bit, if the economy continues to be buoyant, you know, I mean, we should target higher growth in the core business. Then, of course, there are these newer sort of verticals, right? We've been investing in, like iimjobs, like Hirist, like DoSelect, you know, these verticals, we would want them to grow even faster because, you know, there we have an opportunity to penetrate more customers. So penetration, there's a penetration opportunity as well, in addition to...
So if Naukri has, you know, 120,000 customers, and maybe 20,000 large customers or 15,000 large customers or 30,000 large customers, then the number of customers who use some of these offerings are a fraction of that number. So there's an opportunity to grow these products and services faster than the main Naukri business. So we, you know, I'd be investing behind that. And like I said, we've also opened new offices because there are many more cities where we think we can get some business from.
Now, of course, you know, it's not as if any one of them is going to move the needle substantially, but they will hopefully all add up, over time and help us grow, you know, a few percentage points faster, in the medium term.
Okay, understood. Very helpful. Just, on, on recruitment itself, trying to understand the cost associated with some of the branch expansions. Is that now fully in the base, or will there be any meaningful pickup in costs? I understand you don't want to comment on the IPL spends, but other than that, is the fixed cost for the new infrastructure already in place?
Well, so, you know, we are expanding our sales team, so we're hiring more salespeople. Now, some of them have been hired, but some are yet to be hired. So, Naukri headcount will grow next year over last year. But a lot of the hiring, and then we're also going to be investing a little more in data science and machine learning, so that headcount will also grow. So yeah, so some of these costs, you know, some of these people have already been hired, but some more will be hired over the next couple of quarters.
Okay, got it. Last one, on the ad spends, you did you highlighted about the optimization of programmatic advertising on 99acres. Is it possible for you to, like, walk us through the nature of ad spend that you currently have? How much of the, two seventy odd crore is brand advertising? How much is programmatic? And, and how does it look like across the various, verticals that you're presented? Thank you.
So we don't give out, give out those details, and I really don't have the numbers with me right now either. But for competitive reasons, we would not want to give out that information.
Sure. Okay. Since you didn't answer this question, I'll slip in one more. So, Sanjeev, you can discuss a little bit about the investment that you announced in Gramophone. This was one of the five odd promising businesses that you had articulated or discussed in 2022, when you expanded the AIF to new funds. Any comments here in terms of how it's scaling up? I can see that the revenue has declined in Gramophone, so-
So, so look, 2021, 2022 was a different environment. Since then the company has faced some headwinds. It is still early stage, still carrying early stage risk, but, we continue to support it because we believe it has potential. You know, this is an internal round, where current investors are putting in money, although we are putting in, the bulk of the money. And, you know, with this, they're gonna follow a break even plan, and let's see how far they go with this.
Understood. Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you, Vivek. Next question is from Nikhil Choudhary, from Nuvama. Nikhil, go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, Hitesh. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a strong quarter. So, Hitesh, first question is, on recruitment side. We have seen, IT and, non-IT, now growing in double digit, while third-party consultants still in, single digit or flattish. Generally, even third-party consultant indirectly are impacted by IT and non-IT hiring, right? So based on your experience, how much time it takes for, consultant to start, delivering growth?
How much time before consultant market starts to recover?
Yeah. So, like, IT growing in double digit, non-IT growing in double digit. What will it take for, you know, consultant to start, let's say, growing in double digit?
Hmm. So, you know, I think, see, a lot of this is a function of attrition, one, at IT companies. And two, you know, whether they want to grow their headcount over the previous year. So if attrition numbers start to look up, you know, at IT services companies, then... And there is at the same time, normally that happens when there is demand, and, you know, then they come under pressure to hire people faster, okay? And that's when they sort of, you know, they try whatever can help at that stage. So that's when they start going to consultants.
If, you know, if, they're under no pressure to hire, they would rather use, portals and, you know, be done with it, because they can take their own sweet time to hire. They're under no pressure. They're not losing business. So, recruitment business, recruitment consultant, hiring through recruitment consultants start looking up, then, you know, demand starts looking up, for IT services.
Sure, Hitesh.
Yeah.
Second is, follow-up on that. You know, with IT, non-IT in double digit, that too, quarter four last year had, higher base compared to, next 12 month. Your Naukri jobs peak has shown even further improvement. IT, for the first time, has grown, after 15 months on YOY basis, and that too, with the IT company reporting negative headcount, right? So is it fair to assume now the billing should be heading towards double digit, especially in, Naukri?
I hope so. I mean, you know, many are still putting the cup in the lip and hard to predict the future. Like I said, you know, we are seeing more activity on our platform. We are seeing more jobs being posted every day. Of course, the base also has also corrected, right? So when I say more jobs are being posted, it's compared to a year ago, right? We are seeing more recruiter activity in terms of CVs being viewed. So and like I said, anecdotally, at least we are hearing from a lot of companies that their utilization rates have moved up.
But at the same time, there is this whole overhang of the U.S. election and of generative AI and what it could do and so many other things, that it's very hard for us to call what the next few months are going to look like, yeah.
Understood.
There's also demand for, you know, certain skills, right? Like new age skills, you know, like data science and machine learning, data engineering and AI, but they are a small part of the overall,
Yes, decision.
Demand right now.
Yeah. May I just add one little nuance here? You see, a lot of our billing is indexed to how many clients we have. To some extent, it's how much they use it and what products they buy, but it is also the number of clients we have. And what jobs peak measures is total activity, which could be coming from fewer clients, more activity. So the correlation between jobs peak and our billing growth is not perfect.
Understood. Understood. That's it from my side. Thank you so much. Good luck for coming here.
Thank you, Nikhil. The next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi. Vijit, go ahead and ask your question.
Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is, you know, the non-IT side billing, Hitesh. So obviously, last year, if I look at my notes, you had started to call out IT billings growth was challenging. It was still a decent growth year, and you'd attributed that to non-IT. So is it fair to say that-
... here, non-IT is moderate because of low base, or do you see the non-IT thing actually moderating? Because 11%-12% is probably lower than what you've seen in the non-IT side in the last few quarters before, right?
Yeah, you're right. So non-IT growth has also slowed down from maybe a year, year and a half back. Some sectors continue to sort of do well. Growth in other sectors seem to have moderated a little bit. I also feel it's just because there is so much more talent supply in the market because IT companies are not hiring, you know, and ITES companies are also not hiring, which are actually, you know, also which also do a lot of non-IT hiring. There's just more talent supply and it's easier to hire, you know, even for non-IT companies. So somewhere, you know, you know the if IT hiring starts to pick up, then perhaps that will also impact, you know, non-IT hiring somewhere.
Mm.
Because attrition rates may start going up for those companies as well. So it's, you know, they're connected in some ways. But you're right. I mean, IT hiring, non-IT hiring has slowed down, has slowed a bit from perhaps a year back. Growth in non-IT.
Fair enough. So, thanks for, you know, adding that color earlier about, you know, the way IT companies are looking at hiring again. I think what you mentioned, that they are now beginning to replace people who are leaving versus maybe not doing that earlier. So it looks like, as you said, hopefully early stages of recovery here. I'm just wondering, in terms of the kind of people they're hiring, is there a different pattern to it now versus maybe two, three years back in terms of, you know, are they hiring more in the more experienced end of the spectrum or in new skill sets? Any color you can give on what the hiring recovery is and any color on that, that will be helpful.
Well, we haven't done a very detailed analysis, but clearly demand for certain skills is higher than it was maybe three, four years ago. So all these new wave skills are in more demand. You know, AI, machine learning, data engineering, data science, modeling, analytics, these kind of skill sets are in, you know, in more demand than you know, the regular skill sets like Java and, you know, Python and others. But we haven't done a very deep analysis of this yet.
Sure. No problem. My last question, Hitesh, just looking at the non-recruitment verticals, right? Obviously, if I look at year-on-year, combined, all three businesses have shown a pretty sharp decline in losses. And you've said already that in both, property and the matrimonial business, your aim is to get to breakeven, right? And education is almost, kind of trends towards breakeven in any case. So do you think, you have a pretty clear line of sight to actually, you know, getting these non-recruitment businesses to, zero and above overall?
Yes.
Is that how you would look at it? Or would it simply, would it still be just, you know, three different pieces?
We have a plan, and the team is working on a plan, but a lot will depend on how they execute. A lot will also depend on whether the market is supportive or not, and a lot will also depend on whether competition continues to be rational or not. So, if all these things fall in place, then of course, we would want to sort of target breakeven in all... in our non-recruitment businesses.
Hitesh, if I can just ask a quick follow-up to that. So I mean, if I just look at the property business, right, and given how your costs in that segment have grown, maybe if your revenues are about 25-30% higher versus now, which could be next year or maybe in 6 quarters, you could breakeven. Is that, is that a fair assumption to make here?
Yeah. Yeah. So you're right. See, a lot of the platforms, the platform has been built. We normally, these businesses have a reasonably high operating leverage. Brand is also sort of reasonably well established. You know, we have an existing customer base, renewals, there's a renewal business. You know, so if we are able to grow the 99acres business by 25-30%, again, this year, then, you know, we should be able to generate some cash this year. But fingers crossed. Yeah, I mean, see, we've had a good four, five, six, seven quarters in 99acres. But you know, we are still-
Sure.
I mean, I don't want to go. And, you know, I'm not till we see, you know, another 2-3 quarters of solid recovery, I would not want to comment on what the next year would look like.
Sure, I understand. Thanks. Thanks, Hitesh. Thank you everyone for your time.
Thanks, Nikhil. Next question is from Abhishek from Nomura. Abhishek, go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah, thank you for the chance. So Hitesh, just one question. If you could talk about, you know, the quantitative intensity in the core recruitment business. You know, this quarter, we didn't see any slide on the traffic data, what you guys normally share. And whether this, you know, marketing spend, what you're increasing is more opportunistic, given the, you know, IPL season, or you think the intensity has changed and we need to keep it for a longer period?
So this traffic data business, see, I tell you, this traffic data, you know, the data we get from independent sources is no longer relevant because most of our traffic is on the app. App traffic is, you know, for others is hard to get. So we can release our traffic data, which is as per our sources, but it doesn't make any more sense to look at data from independent sources because mostly that data is, you know, website traffic data, and that is a very small proportion. In Jeevansathi, for example, 90%-95% of traffic is on the app. In Naukri, maybe 70-80% of the traffic is on the app. In 99acres, 60-65% of the traffic is on the app.
So, app data is, has, you know, app usage has really grown, and that's where most of the action is in all our platforms. And that data is hard to get for other players. We can give you our data, but, you know, you won't be able to compare it with others. As far as the advertising lately is concerned, like I mentioned, so we've been working on a bunch of things in Naukri. We were out of media for a long time. We have launched some new offerings. We just, you know, changed our logo. And...
So, the team really, you know, felt that. And we want to grow our non-IT business, which is, you know, so you need to reach more audiences. You need to reach more cities. So we felt that this, you know, it made sense to advertise on IPL. And, you know, and if we get a good response, then we would continue to. We will invest a little more in marketing going forward. It may, you know, if we get our 15%-17% growth, then we'll be able to maintain margin. But, you know, we might take a hit in the short term if growth continues to lag for a while. But like I said earlier, see, we don't want to compromise on...
We know that, you know, the market will come back at some point in time. You know, we don't want to compromise on what we think is important to grow the business in the long run. We continue to invest in JobHai. We've been investing in JobHai for the last three years. You know, we will continue to invest for another few years before it makes money. We continue to build our capability in data science and machine learning. We think it's important in the long run. We continue to invest in adjacent sort of verticals. Even in marketing, we, you know, since we've been out of media for a while, we just felt that it was, you know, maybe made sense for us to go back, at least for some time.
Hopefully, growth will come back. And therefore, you know, the margins again start moving up.
Thank you for that answer, Hitesh. Just one more. You know, if you could talk about, you know, your cash usage plan. You know, now we're almost at INR 4,200 crore cash. Last year was a benign year, you know, from a opportunity point of view, in the market, valuations were very subdued in private markets. You know, yet we didn't, you know, aggressively participate, maybe because there were lack of opportunities. And we are now still generating a lot of cash. So has the board thought about increasing the payout levels from here? And you have, you know, highly liquid investment like Zomato and Policybazaar, which can be sold any moment if you need, you know, cash strategically. So if you could answer that.
Chintan, you want to take a shot at it?
Yeah, sure. So look, you're right. You know, we have something around INR 4,200 crore, you know, cash on hand. But if you really kind of, you know, slice and dice, you know, the balance sheet, you know, you'll see that we also have deferred revenue of almost like INR 1,200 crore. So that's a kind of a liability, you know, in some ways that this is the, because of the negative working capital that we... So we would like, on a conservative basis, we would like to keep that as a cash balance, you know, because that's a working capital, you know, that we have received money from, you know, from the customers. Secondly, if you look at, you know, 12 months kind of an expenses for us, you know, it would be something around INR 1,500 crore.
So if you really take these two items, you know, out, then, you know, we are not really left with, you know, very high amount of cash. The third is that, look, we are always open for any opportunistic, you know, inorganic activity or any, you know, investments in the, you know, in the strategic startups. And, you know, none of the good digital assets are, you know, cheaper, you know, nowadays. So keeping all that in mind, you know, we think that, yes, we have enough, sufficient amount of cash. Cash is central to our part of our strategy. Having said that, we have increased our payout. You know, we have just announced, you know, final dividend, and we have increased a little bit of that.
Despite the fact that our profitability was kind of flattish, we have increased, you know, the dividend, which, you know, gives us a signal, you know, you know, in some ways. But, you know, we think right now we have a kind of a right size, you know, cash balance on hand.
May I just add to that? You see, what cash in the bank gives you is the confidence to take some calls that you might not have taken in times of crisis. And there have been two very specific occasions when we have done this, and the cash in the bank has helped us take those calls, given us the confidence. The most recent example is, you know, April-June 2020, when, you know, there was lockdown, there was Covid, there was no light in the tunnel, there was no, you know, cure, there was no vaccine, there was no nothing. And Naukri billings de-grew by, I think, 44% or 48% that quarter, YOY. Right? And we had cash.
You know, there were several companies who downsized and let go of people, and we were faced with that choice. You know, it was a cash in the bank. So the stress test that, you know, Chintan did, and then presented to the board and to Hitesh and me, was that, you know, the question we posed him was that, "Okay, Chintan, if revenue goes to zero. If marketing expenditure is zero and increments are zero, how long can the company last on the current cash balance?" And the answer he came back with was three years. Now, that answer gave us the confidence to not sack people.
You know, it'd be terrible, you know, apart from the fact that it'd be completely contrary to our core values that the people have built this company. And, you know, and in a time of crisis like COVID, if you let them go, as it is they're tense about COVID, and they're very stressed, and if you take their jobs away, it's doubly terrible. It's a terrible thing to do. And from a business perspective, when you know, the bounce back after a couple of quarters was so good and so great that because we hadn't sacked people, we were able to take advantage of it.
For a long, long time, Naukri really grew very fast, and we were able to get that growth because we had not let go of people. You know, cash allows you to take those calls, and, you know, we think, it's okay.
Got it. Thank you so much, Chintan, Sanjeev, and Hitesh, and all the best for fiscal 25.
Thank you so much. We have some questions in the chat box, so we'll take those now.
Yeah, maybe I can read it out. Hitesh, first question is for you. What specific initiatives have led to the growth in billings for Jeevansathi? That's a question for you, Hitesh.
I think I did answer that. See, we went free some time back, and we took a hit on our revenue, and because we were giving a lot of stuff for free. Now, we've started tightening the screws on what is free and what is not. You know, we've gained share in the last couple of years, traffic share. We've got many more people who are active on the platform than earlier. We are enabling more matches than earlier, and therefore, we've started charging for some stuff, which was perhaps free earlier. I mean, it's still free, I mean, but some stuff is not as free as it was earlier, right? And that's led to this growth in billing in Jeevansathi.
The next question is for Sanjeev. Any plan to reduce your stake in PB Fintech or Zomato in near future?
Look, I mean, the board is always open to a discussion around this, but, what we believe is that there's plenty of growth left and value creation left in both these companies. And for the moment, we would like to hold and not sell.
Sanjeev, an additional question is, can you give an update on some investee companies and also an update on performance of AIF?
So, look, the AIF performance, we don't go public with, but let me say that there's a good team managing it well, both all the AIFs. And yes, like all AIFs, you know, it's a portfolio. There will be some good companies, some middling companies, and some not so good companies. Overall, I think we are okay, but I cannot be more specific than that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sanjeev.
The next question is from Pradyut, from ICICI Securities. Pradyut, go ahead and ask your question. Pradyut, you are there? Maybe we move to the next question. The next we have Nitin Sharma from Moneycontrol Pro Research. Nitin, go ahead and ask your question. Nitin, you are-
I can hear.
He doesn't seem to-
Hello?
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, hi. So, Hitesh, real estate listings look kind of flattish in terms of YOY basis. Would you say there is a scope in terms of volume growth from here, and how you are placed versus the competition in terms of pricing?
So see, what happens in a good real estate market is that real estate sells faster. Perhaps what's happening is that one, there's not enough supply, and two, you know, whatever is put out is sort of moving faster than earlier. You know, in a bad real estate market, sometimes it can take years to sell, and sometimes it can take, you know, many months to sell. In a market which is hot, I mean, stuff tends to move faster, and supply is also sort of limited. Can we go grow supply from here? So if more supply hits the market, definitely, because we'll get our share of that. Of course, we're also working on, you know, gaining share.
You know, in some geographies we are, you know, in some markets we are very strong, in some geographies we are relatively weak. So we are also working on improving our share in certain geographies. And if that happens, then, of course, we'll end up getting more supply in those localities and geographies as well.
On the pricing side, what kind of competition you are seeing in terms of pricing? A general color would be helpful.
So, see, the real estate business actually is, you know, the... So we make money from new homes, we make money from new launches, we make money from rental, we make money from resale, we make money from commercial listings. In the new home part of the business, our real competition is actually, you know, portals like, you know, Facebook and Google, and the price is really set by them, and we are price takers, so, you know, in that market. And in the resale and rental market, we are a leader, but of course, we have competition from, you know, players like Magicbricks and Housing. And there we believe there is an opportunity to take prices up.
further, because we are, we believe that we're creating a lot of value for our customers. Of course, prices of real estate have also moved up substantially. So if you just look at the value of a lead, you know, if real estate prices are up 20%, year-on-year, for example, you know, and we are still generating the same number of leads as earlier, the value of those leads is up 20%. So but, you know, you don't take prices up in one go, so we'll slowly and steadily take up prices on the resale side of the business as we deliver more and more value to our customers.
Understood. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you, Nitin. Girish, that was the last question we had online with us.
Thank you, Arun. We can now, I guess, conclude the call. Thank you, everyone.
I think there are one or two questions on. There's one last question from Disha Patel.
Yeah, sorry, Hitesh, it's a follow-up on Jeevansathi. Did the growth in Jeevansathi driven by order value or the number of orders, and what will be the strategy going forward?
So, I suppose, you know, like I said, see, we are charging for some services we were not charging for earlier. And we've launched some new services which were not there earlier. And so there are, you know, so and, we, the number of users on the platform has also grown. So we are therefore getting both many more customers than earlier, and some customers are also buying more services than earlier. I don't have the breakup.
Thank you, Hitesh. I think, Hitesh, that was it. Maybe we can just conclude this call. Thank you, everyone, for attending.
Thank you, everyone. Have a great evening.
Thank you so much. Good night, everybody.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, everyone.