Q2 20/21

Nov 11, 2020

Quarterly report

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Second Quarter FY twenty twenty one Results Conference Call. As always, we will first start with the overall financials and then cover each business in more detail. And then, of course, we'll have time for q and a. The audited financial statements filed in other schedules on segmental billing, revenues, etcetera, along with the data sheet have been uploaded on our website, infos.in. Firstly, talking about the stand alone financials, billings in q two were rupees $2.49.5 crores, down 17% year on year. Revenue in q two was rupees $2.56.1 crores, down 19.1% year on year. Operating expenses excluding depreciation for the quarter were INR 204.6 crores, down 5.9% year on year. Operating EBITDA stood at INR 51.6 crores versus INR99.3 INR crores last year, a reduction of 48.1% year on year. And operating EBITDA margins for the quarter stood at 20.1% compared to 31.4% in Q2 of 'nineteen-'twenty. EBITDA readjusted for ESOP noncash charges stood at INR 58.1 crores versus INR 104.8 crores in Q2 of last year. And EBITDA margin readjusted for ESOPs for the quarter stood at 22.7% versus 33.1% in Q2 of last year. Cash EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 45.7 crores, down 44.5% year on year. And deferred sales revenue stood at INR371.9 crores as of 09/30/2020 versus INR480.7 crores as of September 3039, a decline of twenty two percent twenty two point six percent year on year. The cash balance in IEIL and all of its 100% subsidiaries stands at INR 3,003 and 73 crores as of 09/30/2020. This was INR $15.00 9 crores on September 3039. Key sort of highlights of the quarter. In Nokri, traffic has returned to pre COVID levels. Job speak index, which is a proxy for hiring activity in the country, is rising month on month. In September, October, it was down 23% compared to last year. This is a significant improvement over what we saw in Q1 when the index was down 60% on the average. Some sectors such as travel and hospitality are yet to recover, and that is reflecting in the index. In 99 acres, also, we saw traffic returning back to pre COVID levels, although builders are still exercising caution over their advertising spends. Brokers have slowly upped their spending on resale and rental segments due to increase a decrease in new launch activity and buyers' preference for ready to move homes. The new home segment continues to remain a little muted. We continue to remain aggressive in Jeevan Sathi. Our aggressive investments there have helped us grow faster than our competitors, both in terms of traffic and in terms of billing. And of course, we continue to invest in areas of strategic interest and adjacencies. Moving on to the consolidated financial highlights. At the consolidated level, the net sales for the company stood at INR260.9 crores versus INR329.5 crores from last year. For the consolidated entity at the PAT level, there is a gain of Rs. 128 crore versus a loss of Rs. 111.8 crore from the corresponding quarter of last year. Adjusted for the exceptional items, PAT stood at a loss of INR 46 crores in quarter ended September 28 versus a loss of INR 113.64 crores in the corresponding quarter of last year. Moving on to business wise results. We'll first discuss recruitment. In Q2, recruitment billings were INR 167.3 crores, down 20.2% year on year, while revenues were at INR 182.6 crores, a degrowth of 19.3% year on year. Operating EBITDA stood at INR 100.5 crores, down by 18.9% from September. Margins were at 55% versus 54.7% in Q2 of last year. EBITDA, we adjusted for ease noncash charges stood at INR103.6 crores at 56.7 versus 55.9% in Q2 of last year. And cash EBITDA for recruitment during the quarter stood at INR135.4 crores, down 20% year on year. In NOCRI, in Q2, we witnessed a good recovery a solid recovery in banking collections. From a 48 decline in Q1, we were collections in the corporate sales part of the business were down 13% in q two, with September collection down only 10% year on year. The current recovery is experienced across all industries in q two. The billing and IT and telecom service in September comprised our largest revenue base has reached comprising our largest revenue base has reached pre COVID levels. A continuous monthly improvement in direct online sales is also suggesting a revival in our sales from retail and small customers. The job seeker activity in the platform continues to recover since June, and we added on an average, we added 16,528 new CVs per day in '9 q two, and then off free database grew to 71,000,000 CVs. Average CV mods were also at about four fifty one thousand per day in Q2. Recruiter engagement on the platform has also been recovering in also recovered in Q2. So recruiters such as are still down 12% in September and 30% for Q2. The recovery is being driven primarily by the IT and ITES segment. Our traffic share in the job portal space continues to be in the nineties with nearest competition coming from Indeed. IIM Jobs reported a billing of 5.17 crores for 2021. This is a growth of INR 11.6 crores. This operated at a breakeven level during the quarter. Moving on to the real estate vertical. In 99 acres, billings in Q2 stood at 46.7 crores, a degrowth of 22.9% year on year, while revenue stood at 36.3 crores, a degrowth of 36.3% from 57 crores in '20. Operating loss for the quarter stood at rupee 7.2 crores. EBITDA adjusted for ESOP stood at a loss of rupees 5.8 crores versus a profit of rupees 5.2 crores last year in the same quarter. And cash profit for 99 acres during the quarter stood at rupees 2.9 crores against a cash profit of rupees 6.8 crores last year. In 99 acres, in Q2, the business improved sub sequentially each month from July to September, recovering to 76% of last year Q2. We exited the quarter on a much stronger momentum than where we started the quarter. While all business verticals of new home, resale, rental and commercial continued to be impacted in Q2, new homes was impacted more with lesser launches and lesser new launches than last year and a shift in buyers' preferences preference for more rate moving properties. The number of clients billed, the average billing, and average billing per customer both impacted in q two. On the average, PoloCities business recovered more than the larger metros. We reduced our ad spends on facilities and marketing. And by the end of q two, daily listings posted by owners were higher than pre COVID levels, while broker listings were recovering with some lag. Traffic on 99 acres had fully recovered in q two. By the end of q two, traffic had started growing by 10% compared to pre COVID Feb twenty Feb twenty levels. Inquiries or responses to the platform grew in a strong manner in both new homes and resale. The brand or top of the mind sort of share versus our nearest competitor cycle inched up to 59% in in q two as per Google search trends. Moving on to Jeevan Sathi. In Jeevan Sathi, billings grew 18.6% year on year in q two to rupees 24.7 crores, and revenue grew 14.4% year on year to INR23.8 crores. The operating EBITDA loss for the business stood at INR33.3 crores in '1, up from INR16.5 crores last year. EBITDA, readjusted for ESOP, stood at a loss of INR 32.9 crores for Q2 versus a loss of INR 16.3 crores last year. Cash loss for Jeevan Sathi during the quarter stood at INR 32.7 crores. In Q2, Jeevan Sathi saw further acceleration in profile growth rates and higher traffic on the platform. Aggressive marketing spends resulted in reaching pre COVID levels of sales growth. Some other features like video calling, video profiles, video based online meetups continued to help the business drive growth in user engagement in the quarter. Improved payment experience across platforms also helped improve prioritizations. We continue to consolidate our position as we penetrate deeper into our core markets. We plan to spend aggressively more on considerably more on marketing across all markets to strengthen our brand presence going forward. Moving on to the Shiksha business. In q two, billings in Shiksha grew 15.2% year on year to rupees 10.8 crores, while revenue grew 7.7% year on year to rupees 13.4 crores. EBITDA stood for Shiksha stood at INR 0.9 crores versus a profit of INR 0.2 crores in Q2 of last year. EBITDA readjusted for ESOP for the quarter stood at INR 1.4 crores versus a profit of INR 0.6 crores last year. Cash loss for the quarter stood at Rs. 1.7 crores. We are continuously putting more efforts to get more and more user generated content on the website so that we can drive more leads to our customers. Finally, our strategic investments. Zomato talking about Zomato, the company is witnessing the revival of business in food delivery. Both revenues and volumes are trending towards pre COVID levels. The management is striving on its journey towards profitability, and the unit economics still remain encouraging. PolicyBazaar has resisted growth in its core businesses, that is health and term insurance. Its growth rate is higher than industry growth in these two segments. Pesa Bazaar is also witnessing a revival in its operations, and we expect significant recovery for the business in the second half of this year. Precisely, we continue to explore investment and acquisition opportunities in areas of strategic invest interest and adjacencies. These investments will be continued to be made through our balance REIT or the IEIL venture fund. Thank you. This is all from us today, and we are now ready to take any questions that you may have. Thanks, Udesh. We'll now begin the Q and A session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may raise your hand on the screen. We'll take your name and announce your turn in the question queue. You will start the questions now. The first question is from Sachin Himalani. Sachin, go ahead and ask a question. Good evening, sir. I have few questions. Listing them together. As per your Actually, sorry. Can you introduce yourself first, please? Such as learning from where? From Perfect Research. From? Perfect Research. Perfect Research. Okay. Thank you. So I have few questions. Listing them together. Number one, as per your latest presentation, Indeed seems to have lost some market share on desktop traffic share. So are we gaining the market share from the other players like Indeed, etcetera? Number second. On 99 Nacres, MagicBricks seems to have gained some market share since March 19, and our lead over them has reduced. So could you please throw some light on it? Next. With the growing number of online education players, what strategies are we taking to grow Sipsha? And the last one, also regarding our investment in Coding Ninja, now WhiteHat Jr acquired by BYJUCE, how is the competitive intensity shaping up for Coding Ninja? That's all. Okay. See, indeed, see, we are we already have a very large share of the market. The movement in market share over the last few months. I think because of this because of COVID, know, of course, we've lost the you know, we lost traffic in the first few months, but, you know, competition was impacted even more, and therefore, we ended up gaining a couple of points in terms of market share over Indeed. But I would not read too much into it. So, you know, since you already had a very large share of the market, it doesn't really move the needle for us. Yes. But, you know, we sort of did a better job than Indeed in at least in terms of share last quarter or for the in the last six months. Nigerian acres, of course, the MVC, again, I would not read too much into these independent sort of sources which give out share because a lot of these algorithms keep changing from quarter to quarter. Right? The problem really is that if the app traffic is not so easy to measure, and, you know, so that complicates a lot of things now because a lot of the traffic is on the app. So unlike a few years ago when a lot of the traffic was on the on the on the web, a lot of our customers now sort of use the app. And that is not so easy to measure for these a lot of these online sort of traffic sort of and data providers. We may have lost a couple of points to MagicBricks over the last few months. It may also see, but normally, when these are two or three points or swings which you see are are often a result of advertising spend in in that particular quarter. So in a quarter, if MagicBrick spends more, we may end up losing a few points. On the other hand, when we spend more, we may end up gaining a a few points. So I will not read too much into these things at this point in time. Your third question was around sort of sorry. What was your third question? Who's Shiksha's strategy? I do WhiteHat Jr Shiksha's coding ninja. Shiksha's strategy, and then fourth one is on on coding ninja. Okay. So, Shiksha, see, Shiksha, you know, we continue to invest in in sort of, you know, more content, you know, and that is what really what's really driving traffic to our platform. So we started as, you know, a site which listed out colleges and courses, and now we have a lot of information, exams. There's a lot of other education content, which we have on our platform as well. We have a 100 to thousands of reviews now on these courses and our platform. So, really, our strategy, Shiksha, is to, you know, provide more and more relevant content to our audiences. Okay? And we believe that if you do a good job is then, you know, we get more traffic. And as a result, we can then generate more inquiries for our customers who pay us for these inquiries. You know? So Coding Ninja, you know, and scheme of things, their model is a little different from WhiteHat Jr. They start sort of originally when we invest in that, they were basically trying to teach, you know, name the things. While coding ninja while while sorry. WhiteHat and others are sort of targeted. They're basically trying to teach students and kids in in school. So coding ninja, the the proposition is that, you know, they want to help sort of upscale, you know, you know, job seekers and and then help them get better jobs, right, over time because of the upscaling which they sort of provide to them. So and they are it's very, very early for them. And and this is the model they are sort of working on right now. So they're very different from WhiteHat and by and the others. Okay. The next question is from Vivekananda Subraman from MBIT Capital. Vivek, go ahead and ask your question. Hi. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I have two questions. One is we are seeing that the usage metrics, whether it's job seeker activity or, say, recruiter searches, they are gradually coming back on track as far as Nokri is concerned, and same is the case with 99 acres. So, Hitesh, just wanted your views on how long will it take for our monetization to follow given that we are still quite some distance away from the peak billing that we saw both in recruitment and realty? Right? We are down 36% versus four q f y nineteen in recruitment, 30% down versus 99 acres. Second question is on the monetization of of the new traffic that you are getting on 99 acres. You you said that we now have owner listings at at an all time high, and and brokers are also spending more time on the on the portal. So how do we build out these new revenue streams? Because if I understand correctly, new launches used to be the dominant portion of our revenue in 99 acres. Thank you. Yeah. So you're absolutely right. See, activity is coming back. You know, we saw job seeker activity come back about three months back. And, you know, now purchase are increasing, say, ACV form. And I think this trend continues. It's only time before we start before revenue catches up. See, we we we our billings in q two were about 80% of last year, but in September, we had 90% of what we did in September last year. Right? So, you know, on the COVID front, then it's only a matter of time. We should not compare with q four because q four is seasonally a very strong quarter for us. Right? And a lot of businesses are due for subscriptions, they're due for renewal in Q4. Of course, what COVID has also done is it's sort of resulted in a shift. A lot of businesses who did not renew in Q4 of last year or Q1 of this year may actually end up buying in Q3 and Q4 of this year. So let's see how that plays out. So some of the business we are getting actually is business from customers who did not renew when they were due for renewal in the last few quarters. So that's and the same thing is happening in aggyny. Again, you know, a lot of there, of course, the renewal part of the business is is smaller in size compared to, you three because we sell a lot of monthly and quarterly campaigns as well. But even there, you know, a lot of our clients are not renewed in in q one, especially brokers or annual customers, and and now some of them are coming back. Think it's also back in. In fact, you know, the response on the site is actually at an all time high. The number of inquiries we are generating are, like, up 60% in in on the buyer side over last year. So let's see how that plays out. But, you know, your and and to answer your second question, see see, there again, you're absolutely right. See, what we are seeing is a shift in in interest from buyers. So instead of, you know, new homes, many of them are looking for deals in the ready to move the market. Right? And therefore, interest or inquiries have shifted to that segment, which has resulted in our new launch revenue coming under pressure. And, you know, so so new homes which have almost ready to move in are still sort of in demand, but new launches for, you know, for for homes will be getting three years from now, four years from now, that sort of response has gone down, and that's impacting revenue. But my sense is that even on that front, things are now beginning to improve. You know, we are see now seeing even new home inquiries go up a little bit, and it's only a matter of time before that revenue also, you know and if the situation continues to get better on the COVID front, I think it's only a matter of time before that revenue also comes back on track. Right. Just one small follow-up on the Nocree answer. So historically, we've grown via a mix of new customer acquisition and also greater usage by our existing customers. So when I look at the unique customers that we reported, we are still down around 20 odd percent as far as the unique customers are concerned. So by when do you expect that we get back to the unique customer level that we had pre COVID and potentially then acquire new clients also? So that will take a few more quarters in my in my view to play out because, see, a lot of customers have gone out of business. A lot of companies have shut down shop. A lot of companies have scaled down operations. And many of them did not buy or renew in the last two or three quarters. We are slowly getting some of them back, right? But I think it will take a while before our numbers start hitting the kind of numbers you are getting in there. Yes. The next question is from Ashish Agrawal from Principal AMC. Ashish, go ahead and ask your question. Yeah. Thanks. Sir, just wanted to understand the increase in the advertising cost. Was this primarily driven by Jeevan Sathi and the 99 acres business? And and just wanted to understand on the Nokri side, you indicated a lot of that growth is being driven by IT ITES business. I wanted to understand, apart from IT, ITES, have you seen a growth in other segments also? I think you highlighted travel segment also remains stressed. But apart from travel, have you have you started to see growth in other segments segments also? Thanks. So so travel and and hospitality and retailing and, you know, these levels are really stressing. We've not gotten back to the COVID levels or, in fact, we are down maybe 40%, 50%, 60% from where we were a year ago in terms of activity on our platform from recruiters. In IT, we are getting close to base. So IT companies activity from IT companies is is now almost at the same level as it was, you know, pre COVID. Some other sectors are doing well. Our sectors like health care and education and telecom and insurance. So these sectors are still okay, but they're still down, you know, where there is where they were pre COVID. So that's the sort of playable animal treatment side. Now, of course, things are getting better with every passing week, and we don't know, you know, but and if the situation of the COVID trend continues to improve, hopefully, and more sort of sectors will come back to normal levels. Anecdotally, what we're also hearing from companies is that attrition rates are going up everywhere. Right? So that's something we are seeing, like, what companies are telling us. So let's see let's see how this plays out. So that sorry. What was your first question? This was on the advertising part because Thanks a lot, sir. Yeah. The next question is from from Citi. Rajit, go ahead and ask your question. Sorry. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. One is on the Nokri business. Now if we look at the commentary from the major IT companies in India, a lot of them have announced wage hikes for employees, looks like recruitment is going to be strong in the next year or so in that segment. So do so I know you mentioned that IT, ITES is almost close to base, but do you think it will meaningfully exceed pre COVID levels in the near future in the next one, two quarters? What kind of momentum are you seeing there is my first question. And my second question is on 99 acres. You know, with activity in players like nobroker.com, which are adding more services on top of the classifieds in the real estate space. Do you think there is opportunity for 99 acres in adding new services which can be monetized as well? And your thoughts on what you're going to do on that? Thank you. Yeah. Regarding your first question on IT hiring, see, it's difficult for me to say what's gonna happen going forward. You know, what I can tell you is that actually in our platform from IT company is good enough. It's not, you know, it's still, you know, where it was a few months ago, and and still not hit the COVID level is just about there. It's not as if they are hiding much more than what they were hiding earlier, at least on our platform. Very difficult for me to say what is gonna happen in next few months. I guess some to some extent, it it may depend on what happens in The US and how that sort of scene plays out. As far as, you know, no broker and the other sort of players in the real estate sector, very large sector. We are basically say, Neutzenen, it will basically be real search and, you know, classified and research kind of company. We focus primarily on on on the price side. You know, a very small proportion of our revenue comes from dental, and even smaller portion of our revenue comes from commercial. What new broker is doing, I guess, is that they're sort of they want they are a different model. They're not just a classified. They're actually an influence of a transaction platform in some sense. They provide all kinds of services to their users. They don't allow other brokers who list on their platform, for example. So they are some ways that broker right? They may call themselves no broker, but they provide all the services the broker provides. And, of course, they are also trying to get into other areas like the society management and so on and so forth. So our focus in the near term is gonna continue to be on improving the search and classified experience for our users on our platform in understanding first. Of course, we may sort of provide a lot more information to them over time to help them, you know, take a decision, to help them sort of understand the real estate market better, to help them understand what's the area of the land, and so on and so forth. So we will provide a lot more research information in the near term. We may we already provide some owner assist services to owners. So if owners want to list their properties, like, acres, we help them sell their properties. We help them end their properties to nine acres. We have a team which sort of but we don't do the transaction. We just sort of help them a little bit, which is what call assisted services, not transaction services. Do we have any plans to provide more services in the near term? Not in the near term, but definitely not do ruled out in the medium term. Alright. Thank you so much. K. So these were the questions as of now. In case there are more questions, please raise your hand so that we can take them one by one. From Ambient Capital has again raised. Reeker, do you want to discuss again? Yes. Thank you very much for the follow-up. So Okay. Pressing a bit on on the recruitment piece, you mentioned about certain sectors that are doing well. Also, could you talk a little bit about about the growth that we are seeing, especially in the GDP index in small towns? I mean, the Tier two cities seem to be holding up much better than big cities like Mumbai, Delhi. So is there any plan to increase the sales infrastructure or distribution infrastructure in these towns so that we can capitalize on the opportunity in these small towns? And the same question is applicable for reality also. Itesh, you mentioned this in the opening remarks that smaller towns seem to be doing much better than the large cities. So I guess it's a common question on whether you want to invest in creating additional infrastructure on the ground in small cities. Yeah. So, you know, smaller towns have actually, on the whole, performed a lot better than large cities. Fewer cases of COVID in in these small towns compared to cities like Bombay, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, which are locked down for a very long period of time. And in in 900 acres, also, we've seen a surge in even even even buyer activity in small towns, not just listings. Unfortunately, you know, for us, today, at least, and they are a very small part of our economy, both in Nigeria Acres and in Nocree. And we actually, we've been in these many of these small towns for a very long time now. So Nocree has offices and sales offices in over 40 cities. Has offices in over 40 cities. So it's not as if we don't cover these small towns. We've been there for a long time. They're growing, but they're growing off a very low base. Right? So so even if we continue to grow like this for a year or two, they will not really move the needle for us in a in any significant way in in in both North Korea and Nigeria. And and, of course, we will suffer we will continue. So we, you know, we don't mind going to 100 cities, 200 cities. We go wherever there is business. So that's not a problem. But it's just that there's not enough business in these small towns still. They're they're growing but of a very low risk. And and I I can understand that it would be the case in recruitment because, I guess the white collar recruitment activity and, of course, business activity would be much higher in the top cities. But why is that the case in real estate? Is it so that the sales velocity is much lower in small towns? And and is it because also a lot of, you know, construction happens by people on their own rather than sale of property by builders? No. So you're absolutely right in saying that the real estate market is a, you know, a broader market. You know? The real estate is bought and sold in maybe 200 cities, 300 cities, 500 cities. You know, it's bought and sold everywhere unlike white collar job activities. It's actually restricted to a maybe twenty, thirty, 40 cities in this country. So we are cognizant of that, and we do believe that in the long run, 99 acres will be in hundred, two hundred, 300 cities. It's just that, you know, today, you know, the the number of transactions which take place in small towns is still very low, you know, on a monthly basis. Real estate market has actually shrunk over the last few years. And even in places like Bombay and Delhi, we've seen a massive transactions. Values are also lower lower. You know, housing values are also lower in in in small towns. So while you can you know, in Bombay, an average house is maybe a crore crore or 2. And get a house for 20 lakhs, 30 lakhs very easily. So therefore, the it's just that the the, you know, the size of the market is much, much smaller. That's all. So maybe this will change over the next few years. But right now, the number of brokers and small towns, the number of transactions, the number of houses bought and sold, you know, is just tiny compared to some of the bigger cities. Together, they add up to a significant number. Maybe, you know, if you add add you know, you know, all the traffic we get for all the small towns in the country, you know, maybe it's still 25, 40% of all 99 acres traffic. But from a revenue standpoint, they are still very, very tight. Thank you. And last question is on Jeevan Sathi. So what is going right for you here? And if you could help us understand whether the growth is driven by volume? Or is it that your brand has now become strong, helping you take increases in tariffs or or reduce the discounts? And and secondly, you know, in terms of the overall market, what would our share be of the total transactions that happen volume wise and value wise? Do you have any sense on that? See, the we've gained some share in this market over the last three, four years because we've investing very aggressively in marketing and branding. You know, we've been growing at 20% per annum, In fact, for the last three, four years now, while on the other hand, the industry has been growing at maybe seven or 10% per annum for the last few years. So we've gained share, and most of our share gains have taken have sort of happened in the in the belt, in the northern and western parts of the country, which is where we are, you know, focused. So we are a strong number two player now in the North and West. You know, more volume and value growth at this point in time. We want activity on our platform. We want more handshakes to be to happen on our platform. You know, that's been our sort of focus. And therefore, on the one hand, we've after marketing expenditure. On the other hand, we dropped pricing. And that's what's been the that's been the case for the last few years now. In terms of share, naturally, share is still very small. We are still maybe you know, the market is about we are maybe about 15% of the market, but that's because we don't really have any presence in the South, which is a very large part of the overall market. In the West in the in the Hindi belt, we must be we we probably have a 35% share of the market. In the North and West together, we may probably have a a 25, 27, 28% share of the market. So yeah. And, you know, so that's what we continue to do. We we sort of con we we we continue to sort of, you know, penetrate deeper and deeper into the heartland and trying to gain share. Right. Thank you. Thanks, Vivek. Next question is from Suraj Garg from KPMG. Suraj, please go ahead and ask your question. I I just had one quick question. Could you give us a sense of how much of your marketing spend is being spent on g one s r t a role? So last quarter, our marketing spend on Jivansathi was about 43 crores, I think. Got it. And could you give us a sense of how much of your, what are the paid profile growth and free profile growth in G1, Satin? I think you'll have to refer to our data sheet. Whatever information we give you is in our data sheet. We don't reveal everything, so I can't give you all the numbers. But whatever we give is in our data sheet, which is on infos.in. Just take a look at that. Got it. Thank you. Next question is from Anmol Gul from Othila, Othila, Othila. Anmol, go ahead and ask your question. Yeah. Hi, Hite. So just wanted to get some sense that are we planning to increase our advertisement expense in to jeevan Sati? And, also, are we planning to increase any kind of a planning to do any kind of advertising in 99 acres as well? So Jeevan Sathi ad spend, we've already up substantially over the compared to Q1, we spent a lot in Q4 and Q2. We'll continue to be aggressive in Q3 as well. I can't give you the exact number for Jeevan Sathi in the future. The market has also become a lot more competitive. Our competition is also spending a lot more than they were spending earlier, so we really have no choice. And so that's Jeevan Sathi. In Nigerian acres, you know, a wait and watch. We have upped our ad spend slightly over last quarter in q three, but we were we are waiting to see how the market evolves. If the market you know, if competitor actually increases in in the real estate business, of course, we'll be forced to up our spend as well. Okay, sir. Secondly, Itesh, I just wanted to get any some outlook on some of the new initiatives within the recruitment portal that you have started off, like BigShift, and is there any potential in the blue collar job market? See, these are just start ups. We were experimenting and with BigShift, still very, very tiny. We have we have a few customers now, and we are getting some sort of revenue, but still very, very. You know, blue collar, we are test marketing. We are making good progress. We've got some traction. We've got. We are we you know, we will expand TR. So these are sort of long term for for the BlueColor job board to contribute to revenue in the near term. Okay. Sure. And just lastly, just for bookkeeping, can you repeat the EBITDA of Sitcher? I missed that. Thanks. So where do you everything? Just dig it out. I'll I'll just Yeah. It was it was 9 yeah. Yeah. It was 90 lakhs for the quarter. Okay. Thanks. Thanks. Next question is from Alankar Karhudev from Matrix. Please go ahead and ask your question, Alankar. Yes. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is, can you comment about the M and A activity in each of our four key verticals? So for example, there was a deal couple of weeks back in for one of our real estate peers. So are there any acquisition opportunities which are likely to come out about for us over the next few quarters in any of these four verticals? See, we are constantly evaluating companies. In the last quarter alone, we must have looked at about five or six sort of deals which have come out. We've said no to most of them. I can't comment on the deals, but we have a team in house, and we are continuously looking for opportunities to both invest in startups and also acquire companies in all the verticals we operate in. So, I mean, so far, we haven't. But, yes, are we talking to lots of companies? Are we evaluating lots of companies? Yes. We are. Okay. And, Hitesh, so when you say five, six deals, so that would be across these four verticals only, the key verticals, or any of our the the startups as well includes the startups as well? No. No. Those startups, that's a separate activity. That's through the InfoEdge sort of venture fund and through the. That's separate. They probably look at hundreds of companies every quarter. I'm I'm rushing to the only. Fair enough. Which one may be at the Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. Next question is from Aditya Banami from Cardi Capital. Aditya, go ahead and ask your question. No. No. I was actually with the spaces we have where we have Hello? Yeah. Go ahead and ask your question. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I think I was unmuted. Yeah. Good evening. I just wanted to mention about talk about Zomato. So Sanjeev last quarter mentioned that Zomato that half the restaurants may not survive through this year because of COVID. And today, mentioned that Zomato's unit economics are improving. So I just wanna know, is it being driven by better revenue, or has their cost rationality changed? I I don't think I could have said half of the restaurants will not survive. I probably said it is possible that half of the restaurant that are still shut may not survive. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. So there look. Some restaurant have closed out. Right? Exact one, I do not know. The delivery part of the business is going well. It's not yet come back to pre COVID levels, but it should come back to pre COVID levels pretty soon. And this, we're talking about about about revenue for Zomato and not GMV and not volume. Correct? Zomato unit economics have changed since COVID. So they are charging delivery charge. They give you lower discounts. Therefore, their revenue per order has gone up. And the average order value has also gone up as a consequence. Right? So therefore, on on revenue, they are back to pretty almost back to peak over levels. In a couple of months, it should exceed it. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah. That does. Thanks. Thanks a lot. In in July 2020. And I can't hear your question, please. Can you come close to the mic? No. No. Medico recently acquired Beardo, and Beard is the competitor for Ustra. And when I compare the financials, Beardo is doing much better as compared to Ustra. So will will Ustra be able to compete with Beardo once Marico Marico integrates the business in it business and and started start to grow the beer to business. Well, look. Obviously, Americo is a large company, and they have bustle and their distribution and all that. And therefore, it's a it's it's a significant competitor. But, you know, Ustra also sells direct to consumers. Right? Ustra has raised money from from IFL. We've announced that. Right? Beerdo sells to salon chains, a large part of their their their output. Now, of course, you know, Marathon could extend it to to to to consumers. So it's a slightly different strategy, and it's not a market. So so as long as, you know, Ustara achieves its goals and numbers, you know, we think it's alright. And second question is on ShopKirana. So the new new new companies are trying out diff different logistic logistic methods to reach out customers in during the lockdown. So how has been the performance of ShopKirana in last six months? So ShopKirana exceeded pre COVID levels within two, three months of the lockdown. It's not this essential item. Think it was initially a political disruption because their delivery vans would not go out, but it lasted about fifteen, twenty days to see. After that, they were they were able to manage. So it's doing rather well in the cities that it's operating. And they've also, you know, launched their own house brands in a couple of categories, which are also getting some traction. So, look, ShopKnana is doing well, but it's, you know, it's still making it's still still doing experiments, you know, with its own house brand with a a tweak a few tweaks to business model here and there. Let's see what happens. Thank you, sir. Vijay, you want to discuss again? Vijay Chan from Citi? Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I had two questions. So one on Zomato. I think you answered it partly, but I was just curious. When you say unit economics are improving, do you believe that they would be able to achieve similar GMV levels as pre COVID in the next year with these kinds of current economics that they have? Or is there is there Pre COVID pre COVID revenue levels, I said, the on the on the food delivery part, which is a part, which is a essential part, should be back, you know, in a month or And my second question was, you know, among the other list among the other investments you guys have, just wanted to know your thoughts on categories. Like, you know, you have a few in b to b, ecommerce. You have a few software and ecommerce, what do you mean? Which which which investment? Sorry. Yeah. Shoe Connect would be b to b kind of So, again, Shoe Connect has been done well. It has got investment from two other marquee investors. We've we've participated along with the other early investor. So I think that company is showing great traction, great growth, and has now got got access to great capital. It's and it's back to pre COVID level. How about gramophone? So my question actually was over you know, as a category, you have three or four of these. Right? You have Gramophone, Shoes and Neck, and you also have No. Gramophone is not b to b. I mean, Gramophone is b to c unless you take a a farm as a business, which is quite possible to say actually. But But go ahead. Yeah. So you see, your question was among these broader categories. Right? Okay. If I just simplify that further to, you know, ecommerce, b to b or b to c, wherever you are present, and some of these software and service businesses that you're present in. Just wondering what your thoughts are on how these things have shaped up post COVID, how the landscape for these businesses have changed post COVID? So look. We don't bother so much about the landscape and the environment as we bother about the performance of our companies, each specific company. And I'm quite pleased to say that almost all of our companies have hoped quite well with the with with the COVID crisis. Whether it's Shipsy, whether it's Gramophone, whether it's, you know, Bijnis or Shukonek, whether it is whether it's, you know, a local performance, they have all hoped very well with COVID, which was actually something we were quite worried about the first month or two. I think management team was very good. We I think we invested. We had some we're fortunate fortunate to invest. We had some really good. Thank you so much. Yeah. That was my main question. And one or two of them have got COVID also and have recovered. Okay. So it's not just a company. Even they have COVID COVID. Okay. Thank you so much. Anmol Gag from Tinang, want to discuss again? You had discussed it earlier also? No. I think all my questions are answered. Okay. Thank you so much. The next question is from Sudhir Guntapalli. Sudhir, go ahead and ask your question. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Hitesh, as you alluded to in one of your earlier comments, attrition rates across the industries seem to be increasing gradually, and multiple industries have also been talking about bottlenecks in terms of availability of the talent or manpower. So in the equation, demand actually seems to be there, but still there is a huge gap our monetizability on a year on year basis or even compared to pre COVID levels. So do you think maybe relooking at our pricing or marketing strategy in the NUPPI segment, at least for a limited period of time, may help us in bridging the gap in monetizability? See, we our product team is continuously sort of looking at ways and means to sort of get more traffic into our monetization on the platform. What we don't want to do is, you know, what we don't want to since we if this is a difficult time for our customers, we we want to be as supportive as possible. What we are trying to, of course, do is create more value for them. And if you create more value, we I'm they'll happy to pay us more. That's that's what our focus will be going forward. Sure. And secondly, on Jeevan Sathi, looks like we had run multiple flash sales during the quarter, offering up to 80% discounts on the subscription packages. So just trying to understand the rationale here. Matrimony looks like a segment which, anyways, is witnessing some shift from physical to digital in the current COVID context. So just curious on how you see the sustainability of this, let's say, aggressive pricing or marketing strategy, especially given the fact the churn of the customers in the segment is relatively higher. So this is something we've been doing for the last two, three years. It's not just us now. Everybody else is also doing the same thing, whether it's Shadi or Matrimony. You know, we sort of course started doing it because, you know, we wanted more and more paid customers on our platform. We wanted them them to spend. We were number three player in the market. Right? So in some ways, we were a challenger. And this was our strategy to get more and more people to use us and to become paid customers and because many of these customers would have otherwise gone and paid competition because we were a weak player at that time. So so and and and this worked for us. You know, we were able to grow our volumes by over 200, 300% over the last two or three years, and that's got the platform to a certain level. Is it sustainable in the long run? Clearly, you know, a three pair market where players are competing aggressively with with each other on customer acquisition and also trying to outdo each other on pricing is not sustainable sustainable for a very long time. But but, you know, that's what it is right now. Sure, Hitesh. That's helpful. Thanks, all the best. Utkash from Diamond Capital. You want to discuss again, Utkash? No. My all my questions will be answered. Okay. Your hand was raised, actually. Okay. Thank you. Next question is from Jaipal Indi. Jaipal, go ahead and ask your question. Easy and easy to answer. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So I have, you know, two questions, actually. The first question is about from our industry companies, you know, right now, we see Gemerta and policy, but they are a very, very big piece. And what is our next you know, the good call that we have taken which is emerging that we can count down in the next few years or few quarter? Sorry. Could you repeat that question? Your voice is soft. Yeah. So right now from our industry companies, we see the matter in policy buzzer, I know, are made made out to be very good calls. And what is the next one we can count on to be, you know No. No. The others are much earlier, much smaller, but many of them have received external validation by external investment from marquee investors. Okay. So Ustra has got investment from pro consumer. It's got investment from IIFL. You know, likewise, you know, business with the ShoeConnect has got investment from two marquee investors apart from other external investor. And and and, you know, Gramophone, you know, has got enough inbound interest. Nothing announced yet. So so very Shipsy has got, again, you know, you know, enough nothing nothing announced yet, but enough inbound interest. So a lot of them are about validation or getting validation in the process. And it will be announced by and by as these companies raise raise money. Yes, it'll for and we will become as valuable as policy bazaar or Zomato will take some time. So there are five or six which we are hopeful of. Now we hope all of them make it to that level. We know that it'll we'll be very fortunate if all of them make But even if two, of them make it to that level, I think we are doing very well. Great. Yeah. That's good. Have one question. Great. I understood. Yeah. So the my next question is about, you know, there is a lot of uncertainty, you know, right now in the market, right, in terms of, you know, a lot of people got, you know, a lot of small business players suffering from lot of losses and all. So what is the CSR activity, you know, that we are doing from last six months? Do we change any change in our CSR activity, you know, without you know, at the at the end of the day, we also need to be safe. Right? Did we do any investments and contribution to our society? Yes. We have. And, you know, I'll leave it to Chintan to talk about it. Chintan, are you willing to talk about it? Or, Mooji, are you? About what but we have we have we have reoriented at least a significant chunk of our CSR budget. We have had several projects or reduced CSR. Now this is a corporate level. At a personal level, also, the the founders, the the the management is also doing philanthropy, you know, to to support people in time with COVID. And Zomato has done a lot. Zomato has, you know, launched a feeding India program where they're feeding where they fed a large number of people. We were locked out. Can they all talk about what we've done? Yeah. No. I think that's that's correct, man. Just to add, you know, one point, DRS, we are continuing, you know, to support the the organizations which we were, you know, in the past were not supporting because there is a kind of a soft expectations. Those organizations also kind of dependent in some ways on, you know, on our contribution. So we have continued that. We have not, you know, diverted that, but we have we have generated additional funds, you know, from the company, from the employees, and we have also focused, you know, very specific initiatives around, you know, around COVID and helping them out. So we are, you know, far more holistic in our approach. We are adding, you know, in our our contribution to to COVID, you know, in medical on medical sites, but we are continuing to support the existing contributions as well. Next question is from together. Yeah. Right. Thanks, Jyotan. Next question is from Puja Abuja. Thank you, sir. Puja, go ahead and ask your question. Yes, sir. I just had one question with Zomato's IPO coming up maybe next year. Do we intend to pay some of our stake, or will we hold on to our stake in the company? Look. We are not in any hurry to sort of sell anything. You know, we have the ability to stay on for a long, long time because we are not running a fund where we have to return somebody else's money. At a at a a a finite period of time, we see substantial value creation going forward. Having said that, look, we'll we'll I will never say never, but but we there is no pressure on us to sell. So let me let me just elaborate on that. You see, the the challenge in India is that early stage investments take a long time to create value. So you got to be patient because strategic sales are not happening in a hurry at valuation that will give VC investors any joy. Should leave our Flipkart. Right? Another black swan. Right? Now IPOs take a long time to happen. Right? So if Zomato and Palisimuth are IPO in the next two years or three years or next year even, they've taken eleven and thirteen years to have gone from inception to IPO or first round to IPO. Most VC funds are eight year funds with two year extensions. Really to get exits, you have to be very patient. We have been in Zamato for ten years. We have been in for twelve years. And, you know, a lot of the value creation has happened in the past two years. If you would have exited and not benefited from the valuation. So we have to be to really make money in India, you have to be very, very patient and stay for a long, long time. And that's fine. Right. Right. That's it, sir. Next question is from Sapnil from JP Financial. Sapnil, go ahead and ask your question. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. So my question is regarding the employee cost. So did, like, next month, are we if you started hiring hiring again and have the appraisals which were postponed or been taken and and your comment on incentive as well? Yeah. So started replacing people in a lot of businesses. Some parts of the company, like the new newer newer businesses we are in, a and and and, you know, big ship, we are hiring a few people as well. We had put salary increases on hold for the first six months. We are revisiting that right now as we speak. We had put bonuses on hold. We are likely to sort of roll out bonuses in this quarter to our employees for last year. If if are not able to sort of some more of these things. Are the incentives back or, like because I think incentives are different than bonuses. Right? Yeah. So incentives, you know, our see, our sales team is on incentives, and we have a monthly incentive plan and a quarterly plan. So they were never withdrawn. So in in you know, it's just that the payout sort of reduced because the the sales guys were not able to meet their targets in the first quarter and the last quarter of last of last year. But q two, we had a reasonable quarter, so many sales guys made their incentives. So incentive payout also increased substantially in q two. And I'm hoping that, you know, people meet their targets and therefore, run their incentives going forward as well. Thank you. Next question is from Duresh. Duresh, go ahead and ask your question. Am I audible? Yeah. Please go ahead. Yeah. So for September, Nocti, you said the billing collection billing was down 10%. For October, what is it? So, normally, we don't give out the quarter numbers before I mean, it so let me put this way that the things are Sir, you want to switch off the video? We wanna switch off the video. Okay. Can you hear me now? Because I can hear you much better. Much better. I can see you. Yes. Can hear you. Yeah. Sorry. So see, the, you know, the October is the first month of the quarter. The first month of the quarter is not a very large month for us. A lot of our renewals are due at quarter end, and that's when we end up collecting a lot of money. Also, you know, last year, Diwali was in October. This year, Diwali is in November. So the numbers are not strictly comparable, but we are happy with what we saw in October. Is it better than September? Because it'll be like to, like right? October last year, October. Right? Yeah. But like I said, it's not strictly comparable because Diwali was in October last year, this Okay. September. Right? So hard to draw sort of inferences from it. And for real estate, you did not give September collection exit rate? Yeah. I we did not, but, you know, I'm sure it is higher than the quarter average for sure. Even October was a reasonably good month for real estate. But, again, you know, it's not strictly comparable because Diwali was in October last This year, it's in November. Mhmm. And this new home construction activity, which you said, you know, because of the customer preference is down right now, how much does that contribute in a pre COVID environment? How much was it contributing to revenue? So see, new homes are a very large part of our business. But within new homes, there is a category called new launches. Right? New launches are launched basically projects which are launched. You know, they are sort of I mean I mean, construction is, like, about to start. Right? And therefore, the project will become available to live in maybe or the property will become available to live in three or four years later. So a significant proportion of new home revenue comes from new launches, and new launches have actually been impacted the most over the last few months. Yeah. But that is, like, what? Was it, like, 30% of total 99 acres revenue, 40%? How much was it? Just a range. Home new home revenue is significant. New home as a whole is significant about, I think, 60% of our total revenue, if not more. Sixty, sixty five percent. Of that, new launches, I don't have the exact number right now, but would be maybe 40%. Okay. Understood. And what is the total cash now on the On the balance sheet? Yeah. Okay. Just Vivek, do have the number with you? 3,300 something crores in that week. Yeah. 3,003 thousand 323 crores. Yeah. And at the time of the QIP, it was sounding as if, you know, some M and A transaction is very nearby. So has that phase gone for whatever reason it is? Has it gone away and now nothing is immediately, you know, on the table just like that? No. So like I said earlier, see, we keep talking to companies, and we've been talking to some companies for a very long time. Some companies have recently come. Sometimes, you know, we don't like what they see. Sometimes, they don't like what we offer. So what is you know, so we keep talking, and we've been talking to companies in in the in the real estate space. We've been talking to the education space, job space, you know, in all the sectors we are in and even related sectors. But nothing has materialized till now. I mean, for a deed to happen, two parties have to agree, and that's not happened enough, unfortunately. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Diwali wishes to the team. Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from Atman Ajmeera. Atman, go ahead and ask your question. Hi, good evening, gents. Can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. So a bit of a big picture question from my side and slightly linked to previous question. So given your size and the liquidity in your balance sheet, you're often seen as the one to be consolidating, as a consolidator of the industry, be it real estate or matrimony. My question is, do you see a scenario where perhaps magic bricks and housing sort of merge together? And, a, do you think that is a likely event? And, b, what is the consequence for 99 acres if that were to happen? Can you sort of combat a merged housing and Magic Bricks? Yes. See, everything is possible. I mean, housing is the number three player in the market. They could merge with the with the MagicBricks. Though I think what has happened in there is that REA has up their stake significantly, and they now are majority owners of housing. So can we compete with the the Magicrix plus housing sort of combination? Of course, we can. I mean, see, there was in the past, also, see, we've had common floor. We've had India property. We've had a bunch of other players in market. Our sense is that, you know, unless and until the merged company sort of brings a strong sort of, you know, you know, value in some form to the table. You know, either, you know, they are so so you know, if they are strong in some market and you are strong in some other market and therefore the combination is stronger, then it's a different ballgame. Or if they have something which you don't have, some technology, some product, some customer base, they add with it. So mergers create value. But if, you know, it's just a number one company or a number two company acquiring number three company, you know, often at least we believe that those mergers won't create a lot of value. But but, Thi, the previous examples you mentioned, they were fragments. Right? I mean, they they were sub sub 10% traffic share. The now number two and three, they sort of have in the twenties. Right? So even they might not have sort of synergies or sorts, it's just a mere traffic. Is is that a big deterrent sort of for you? Adi, we don't think so because we believe it is it makes much more sense to invest in you know, unless they are complementary, like I said, in different brands and and they sort of operate in different segments or different markets. You know, in my view, it makes a lot more sense to strengthen one brand and and, you know, strengthen the user experience of that brand than have, you know, a multi brand strategy. Got it. Got it. That's all from me, actually. Thank you. So Puja Puja had raised hand again. Puja, you want to discuss again? Are you there, Puja? Maybe. Just another. Okay. The next question is from Sagar Goel. Sagar, go ahead and ask your question. Sir, hi. Hello, sir. Can I am I audible? Yeah. Yeah. Please go ahead. Could you just explain on those on Zomato and policy, those are IPO timelines? And second question is, could you explain on the InfoEdge venture side, what is the fund strategy and what sort of deals are you looking and what sectors? Yeah. Go ahead, No. No. What is the first question? IPO timeline? Yeah. Why don't you handle the IPO question? Yeah. So, look, I know that there are news reports you know, around policy bazaar as well as the matter intending to do IPO. And, yes, that's not true in a sense that, you know, companies have been preparing themselves. Right? You know, to do an IPO, there is you know, it's it's a point of long journey, and you need to really prepare yourself. So from the point where you are just a startup to the point where you you kind of make your company ready for IPO, it's quite a long journey. And, you know, they are both the companies are preparing themselves, you know, you know, for that journey. They are making their companies ready for it. So there is an definitely intention behind it. When will it happen? You know? I think that's a question that, you know, is a little premature to to respond to that. You know? We'll see. Right now, the focus is on make the company ready for, you know, IPO so that if we finally decide and if we finally say that, yes, you know, everything is right for us to do IPO, we'll avoid it bad. So right now, it's just about preparing the company for it. So the the strategy for the Infoy Ventures, it's the same as earlier. We are focusing on the same areas. We are growing in the same scale of companies. You know? Nothing changes. It's just that we have housed it in AIS. Okay. Thank you. So that was the last question we had. In case of any more question, we may wait for some time. Okay. Sir, there are no more questions there. Please hold. Thank you. On behalf of InfraEdge India Limited, we conclude this conference. Thank you, and wishing you and your family a very happy Diwali. And you may now disconnect the call. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Happy Diwali. Thank you. Happy Diwali. Bye bye.