Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Vivek Agrawal, Moderator for the call today. Good evening and welcome to Info Edge India Limited Q4 and Financial Year 2020 results conference call. As a reminder, all participant line will be in listen-only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for you to ask question after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please raise your hand on your screen. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Joining us today from management side, we have Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Vice Chairman, Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co-promoter and Managing Director, and Mr. Chintan Thakkar, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made in today's conference call may fall and may involve risks as per detailed disclaimer.
Now I would like to hand over the conference call to Mr. Hitesh Oberoi for his opening remarks. Thank you. Over to you, Hitesh.
Thank you, Vivek, good evening, and welcome to our fourth quarter and annual results conference call for 2019/2020. We hope that you and your families are healthy and safe in these difficult and challenging times. This is the first time we're doing it on Zoom, hopefully this will go through without any glitches. Like with every other company, the pandemic and the resulting lockdown started impacting our business operations in the second half of March. The fact that we are a new-age digital company helped. We were proactive and moved our entire workforce of over 4,600 people to working from home by the third week of March, a few days before the lockdown was announced in India. After some starting trouble, things settled down pretty smoothly on this front in less than a week.
All key processes such as billings, collections, vendor payments, payroll servicing customers continued to run effectively in this new work-from-home environment. Our websites, digital platforms, and customer-facing apps have also been running smoothly without any hiccups. The internal control and financial reporting environment has also been maintained effectively. As a company, we believe that the safety and well-being of our employees is paramount. Our HR business partners and the facilities team are in constant touch with all our employees to provide support as required. Various webinars are being held to engage and motivate employees, and to enable them to stay strong and optimistic in these trying times. At the same time, our offices are prepared to be in a ready-to-move-in position as we continue to monitor the evolving situation.
Once things start improving on the COVID-19 front, we will slowly and steadily get back to working from office like earlier. As you all know, we operate in multiple categories and businesses. We expect the jobs and real estate business, which are both directly indexed to the economy, to be more impacted due to the various disruptions and the emerging economic situation compared to the matching in education verticals we are in. In a challenging and uncertain business environment like the one we are in now, we believe in conserving our resources. Accordingly, we have restrained our discretionary spending in areas like marketing, for example. At the same time, however, we are committed to investing in the various levers for our business, which help create value in the long term. This includes key tangible and intangible assets such as brand, people, platform, IP, network effect, technology, innovation, et cetera.
Our fixed and committed costs for FY 2020 were approximately in the range of INR 600 crores. This includes fixed salary, facilities, and technology running expenses. We are a zero-debt company with a negative working capital cycle in a business-as-usual environment. We have cash and cash equivalents of approximately $200 million at the overall IE group level, including our AIF and the sub-trust. We are well-positioned to fulfill our existing contracted obligations. Besides this, as you all know, we own sizable investments in various startups, which can potentially be monetized under certain circumstances. Yesterday, the board of Info Edge approved an enabling resolution to raise further capital of up to $250 million. That is up to INR 1,875 crores. This is, of course, subject to shareholder approval. We also believe that hidden in every crisis are opportunities.
We are conscious of the fact that going forward, there could be opportunities to invest more aggressively in some of our core operating businesses, including M&A activities and strategic stakes in emerging startups in adjacent and related areas. Before I move on to discussing our financial performance for the quarter, I just want to point out that Q4 is normally our best quarter with the highest billings, and the bulk of these billings are booked in the month of March, and that too in the last couple of weeks. Though the impact of the lockdown was contained in the last two weeks of the month, it significantly impacted the quarterly billing for our two large businesses, 99acres and Naukri.
Now let me walk you through the quarterly and annual financial performance of the company, post which we will cover each business in more detail, and in the end, we'll be happy to take questions. The audited financial statements file and the data sheet have been uploaded on our website, www.infoedge.in. Let's discuss the standalone financials first. Billings, this is at the company level. Billings in Q4 were INR 331.9 crores, down 8% year-on-year. FY 2019/2020 billings stood at INR 1,268.7 crores, up 7.8% year-on-year. Revenue in Q4 was INR 322.8 crores, up 10.3% year-on-year. FY 2019/2020 revenue stood at INR 1,272.7 crores, up 15.9% year-on-year. Our operating expenses, excluding depreciation for the quarter, were INR 226.3 crores, up 12.4% year-on-year.
For FY 2019/2020 as a whole, expenses stood at INR 870 crore, up 14.9% year-on-year. A major proportion out of the INR 113 crore incremental expenses were on marketing and tech enhancements of the platform. Operating EBITDA for Q4 stood at INR 96.5 crore versus INR 91.3 crore last year, an increase of 5.8% year-on-year. Operating EBITDA readjusted for Ind AS 116 stood at INR 90.3 crore versus INR 91.3 crore in Q4 of FY 2019. FY 2020 operating EBITDA stood at INR 402.7 crore, up from INR 341.3 crore last year. This was up 18%. FY 2020 operating EBITDA readjusted for Ind AS 116 stood at INR 377.4 crore, up by 10.6% compared to last financial year. Operating EBITDA margins readjusted for Ind AS 116 for the quarter stood at 28% versus 31.2% last year. For FY 2019/2020, EBITDA margins readjusted for Ind AS 116 stood at 29.7% versus 31.1% last year.
EBITDA adjusted for ESOP non-cash charges and Ind AS 116 for Q4 stood at INR 97.5 crores versus INR 96.5 crores last year. FY 2020 adjusted EBITDA stood at INR 401.7 crores versus INR 356.5 crores last year. Adjusted EBITDA margins stood at 30.2% versus 33% last year. For FY 2020, adjusted EBITDA margins stood at 31.6% versus 32.5% last year. Deferred sales revenue has reduced to INR 465.6 crores as of 31st March 2020 versus INR 474.4 crores as of 31st March 2019, a decrease of 2% year-on-year. The cash balance at the Info Edge group level and AI stands at INR 1,544 crores as of 31st March 2020 versus INR 1,550 crores as of 31st March 2019. Cash flow from operations stood at INR 76 crores during the quarter versus INR 131 crores in Q4 of FY 2019 and INR 302 crores for the year FY 2019/2020 versus INR 296 crores for FY 2019.
Exceptional items in standalone financials for Q4 amounting to INR 37.2 crores include diminution in wholly owned subsidiaries such as SIHL, INR 23.8 crores, Smartweb Internet INR 3.6 crores, Allcheckdeals INR 14.4 crores and NewInc INR 3.7 crores reduced by gain in NISL INR 8.6 crores which arose primarily on account of impairment in value of investments and associates, joint venture companies and a piece of land we own in Noida. Similarly, exceptional items for FY 2020 amounting to INR 123.3 crores include diminution in wholly owned subsidiaries such as SIHL INR 100.7 crores, Smartweb Internet INR 3.6 crores, Allcheckdeals INR 14.4 crores, Meritnation INR 9.3 crores, NewInc INR 3.7 crores, reduced by gain in NISL INR 8.6 crores which arose primarily on account of impairment in value of investments in associates, joint venture companies and the piece of land in Noida.
Moving on to some of the key initiatives for the year. We've been investing, as you know, in multiple areas. During the year, some of these efforts have started making an impact on our business operations. During the year, we pushed the pedal on investment in the Jeevansathi business especially on the acquisition front, profile acquisition front and the iimjobs brand. This has started showing up in our billing numbers. We are experimenting with launching some niche and some new marketplaces like Job Hai and BigShyft. These are businesses that are very early, but these could be large opportunities over a 10 year-15-year period. We also invested in a few startups that are strategic to our core operating businesses like greytHR, an HR sort of payroll and operations provider for small and medium enterprises.
Coding Ninjas, which is an e-learning business and TEAL, which is a property analytics and intelligence business. These investments give us deep insights and learnings in adjacent businesses and the different operating models being experimented in the market. We continue to invest aggressively in areas of technology, product design, AI and data science to improve the user experience and develop new products in all our businesses. We have started building a healthy pipeline of innovation, new products and features keeping in mind the long-term emergence of opportunities in the recruitment and other verticals and we would in fact accelerate its pace into FY 2021. Such investments are mostly in the form of people costs and IT infrastructure and hence likely to pass through P&L as incremental operating expenses. Moving to the consolidated financial highlights for the year.
At the consolidated level, the net sales for the company stood at INR 1,311.9 crores versus INR 1,150.9 crores for the last financial year. For the consolidated entity at the total comprehensive income level there is a loss of INR 248.6 crores versus a profit of INR 589.1 crores for the last financial year. Adjusted for the exceptional items, PAT stood at a loss of INR 427.8 crores in FY 2019/2020 versus a loss of INR 24.4 crores in the last financial year. The aggregate top line of the investing companies in FY 2019/2020 grew to INR 3,877.6 crores versus INR 2,030 crores in the last year, an increase of 91%. We'll get on with discussing business results by segment and we'll first take the recruitment segment.
In Q4 in the recruitment business, on account of lockdowns in the last fortnight of March 2019/20, our recruitment segment billings closed at INR 244 crores down by 6% compared to Q4 of 2019 while revenues were INR 230.6 crores, growth of 11.2% year-on-year. The operating EBITDA margins in the recruitment segment were 56.9% versus 52.9% in Q4 FY 2019. EBITDA margins readjusted for Ind AS 116 stood at 55.5% versus 52.9% in Q4 of the last financial year. EBITDA margins readjusted for Ind AS 116 and ESOP non-cash charges stood at 57%, up from 54% in Q4 of last year. For the full year FY 2019/2020, recruitment billings grew 8% to INR 915.6 crores while revenue grew for 15.4% to INR 906.8 crores. EBITDA margins stood at 55.6% compared to 54.7% in FY 2019. Margins readjusted for Ind AS stood at 54.2%, in line with margins of FY 2019 at 54.7%.
We booked a 14% year-on-year growth in our billing numbers until Feb 2020, but due to the lockdown, the growth of billing in the last seven days was to the extent of -43% year-on-year, resulting in a degrowth of 6% year-on-year in Q4 of FY 2020. The billing for Q1 2021 up to May 2020 was also short by INR 69 crores year-on-year. All sectors of the economy were hit because of the lockdown. Some were impacted more than others. Manufacturing, construction, auto, travel, hospitality, retail were more impacted, than IT, healthcare, and pharma. SMEs were impacted more than large businesses. In Naukri, in Q4 of FY 2020, we added an average of 13,000 fresh CVs every day, and the Naukri database grew to about 69 million CVs. Average CV modifications were at 415,000 per day in Q4.
Our traffic share in the job portal space continues to be in the nineties. We are speeding up our product investments in RMS, recruitment management system, as automation and technology will play a critical role in work from home, remote collaboration, and high productivity expectations post-COVID. We also recently launched our Naukri Fast Forward transition services as a product offering to companies who are laying off people and want to help them with their career transition. Naukri.com has also launched a StepUp initiative to support job seekers who have lost their jobs in the pandemic. Support is also being provided to various customers. We are prioritizing access and discovery of recently laid-off and immediately available to join job seekers by recruiters to facilitate their hiring during this time of crisis.
The StepUp microsite also provides a live tracker highlighting active jobs from companies and industries that are currently hiring, as well as a host of resources around hiring insights, webinars with industry experts, upskilling courses, and curated content on work from home productivity, job search, resume and interview preparation tips, et cetera. We have an update on iimjobs.com as well. iimjobs reported a revenue of INR 21.8 crores for FY 2019/2020. The business has been growing at 20%+ for the last three financial years. We successfully integrated the sales team of Naukri and iimjobs in Q4 and were on track to deliver a record sort of quarter for iimjobs, till COVID hit us in March. All in all, we are hopeful that this integration will pay off in the long run for both iimjobs and Naukri. Moving on to the other verticals.
Starting in 99acres, as stated earlier in the call, the real estate segment has been impacted by the long period of lockdown, and accordingly, the billings in Q4 decreased by 24% YoY to INR 50.7 crores, down from INR 66.7 crores. This was largely due to the impact of lockdown in the month of March. Revenue for the quarter grew 3.6% year-on-year to INR 56.4 crores, up from INR 54.4 crores. For FY 2019/2020, billing and revenue grew by 3.5% and 18.8% to INR 213.9 crores and INR 228 crores respectively. Q4 EBITDA stood at INR 2.2 crores against a loss of INR 2.9 crores last year. Q4 EBITDA readjusted for Ind AS 116 stood at INR 0.3 crores compared to a loss of INR 2.9 crore last year.
EBITDA for FY 2020 stood at INR 8.4 crores against a full year loss of INR 22 crores booked for the last financial year. EBITDA readjusted for Ind AS 116 impact stood at INR 88 lakhs. For Q4, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted for ESOP expenses and Ind AS 116 impact stood at INR 1.8 crores versus a loss of INR 2.2 crore last year. For FY 2019/2020 as a whole, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted for ESOP expenses and Ind AS 116 impact stood at INR 5.17 crores versus a loss of INR 19.56 crores last year. The key business highlights for 99acres, all business verticals of new home, resale, and rental were impacted in Q4 due to the lockdown in March. In FY 2020, resale and rental businesses grew slightly faster than the new home business in the year.
The number of broker clients grew at a healthy rate, 15% year-on-year. Broker billings formed 53% of the overall billings in FY 2019/2020, while builder billings stood at 41% of the billings. Owner billings contributed to about 6% of the overall billings for the business. We continue to experience the growth of owner listings and broker listings on the platform, making the platform more comprehensive and vibrant in Q4. Traffic growth slowed to single digits in Q4 due to the lockdown in the month of March compared to mid-teens growth in January and February. Brand, which is our top-of-mind share versus our nearest competitor, MB, continued to be stable at the 56%-57% levels in Q4 in spite of TV spends by competition.
The extended lockdown has worsened the sentiment in the industry, which was already reeling under the liquidity issues prior to March, and buyer demand is likely to remain muted in both the new home and resale segments for the next three to six months. Billing for Q1 2021 up to May has declined by INR 20 crore year-on-year. We are seeing some revival of traffic and demand on our platforms as the lockdown restrictions are being eased in various parts of the country. Emerging markets have been the first to bounce back. Traffic is also slowly bouncing back in places like Bangalore. Markets like Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi continue to be impacted because of the lockdown and because of the rising number of COVID-19 cases in these cities.
We continue to invest aggressively on improving our core platform experience in this downturn in all our business verticals to come out stronger post the downturn. We are also looking to make appropriate operating costs of the business without impacting our platform experience or client experiences given the slowdown. Moving on to the Matrimony business or the Jeevansathi business. Billings for Quarter Four stood at INR 23.8 crores and year-over-year growth of 20.4% on INR 19.8 crores for Q4 of 2019. FY 2020 billing grew by 18.4% year-over-year to INR 87 crores from INR 73.5 crores in FY 2019, and revenue grew to INR 84.7 crores from INR 72.3 crores in FY 2019, an increase of 17%. Aggressive marketing spends during the quarter, along with improved realizations, helped higher sales growth during the year. We are thus looking to consolidate our position as we penetrate deeper into our core markets.
We plan to spend considerably more on marketing across all our core markets as we move into FY 2021 to strengthen our brand presence and increase our profile acquisition rates. Aggressive marketing spends during the year led to an operating EBITDA loss of INR 63.2 crore for FY 2020. This was an increase from the INR 33.8 crore loss we booked in FY 2019. Losses in Q4 FY 2020 stood at INR 18.8 crore compared to the loss of INR 5.9 crore in Q4 of FY 2019. EBITDA readjusted for Ind AS 116 and ESOP expenses stood at a loss of INR 19.2 crore for Q4 of FY 2020 versus a loss of INR 5.6 crore for Q4. For FY 2020 operating loss adjusted for Ind AS 116 and ESOP expenses stood at INR 65 crore versus INR 33.22 crore in FY 2019. Moving on to the education vertical, Shiksha.
We made significant traffic share gains during the quarter in Shiksha. Shiksha continues to gain traffic share despite heightened competition from different players in this segment. In Q4, billings de-grew by 8.5% year-on-year to INR 13.4 crores from INR 14.6 crores reported in Q4 of FY 2019, while revenue grew 2.8% year-on-year and reached INR 13.2 crores. FY 2020 billings and revenue grew 5.8% and 10.8% respectively and stood at INR 52.1 crores and INR 53.3 crores. Q4, we made an operating loss of INR 1.5 crores against a profit of INR 60 lakhs in Q4 of 2019. EBITDA readjusted for Ind AS 116 stood at a loss of INR 2 crores. FY 2020 operating profit for Shiksha stood at INR 1.2 crores versus a profit of INR 90 lakhs in FY 2019. EBITDA readjusted for Ind AS 116 stood at a loss of INR 90 lakhs.
Adjusted EBITDA for Ind AS 116 and ESOP charges loss for the quarter stood at INR 1.4 crore against a profit of INR 90 lakh in the last financial year. Adjusted EBITDA for Ind AS 116 and ESOP charges for FY 2020 stood at INR 86 lakh, down from INR 1.9 crore last year. We continue to invest in making content comprehensive and more student-friendly, and continue to invest in building deep domain expertise in this vertical. This will help us in generating more response from our users going forward. Moving on to our strategic investments. COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdowns had a significant impact on the operations of our investee companies like Zomato, ShopClues, Gramophone. ShopClues had a temporary dislocation but has since bounced back. Zomato has faced disruption but is now bouncing back on top line and has also reduced its burn considerably.
It has suction money and has some inbound investor interest as well. Gramophone has faced an initial dislocation but has since bounced back. Policybazaar, on the other hand, continues to benefit from the growing digital penetration. This is also helping them to improve the overall profitability of the business. However, Paisabazaar has been impacted by moratorium extensions. They are exploring expanding business into non-lending categories. They have reduced their headcount substantially to meet their profitability targets for the year. During the quarter, we also announced the launch of Category 2 SEBI approved alternate investment fund, the Info Edge Venture Fund. Since launch, we have already made four investments in Qyuki, DotPe, FanClash, and Truemeds through the fund. We also did follow-on rounds in some of our earlier investee companies, MedCords and Univariety in Q4 of FY 2020.
We continue to evaluate new investment opportunities in the light of changes brought in by COVID-19. That's all from me today. Thank you. Now we are ready to take any questions that you may have.
Vivek, are you on the call? Are you logged out? Anand, you can hear me? Anand, you are on mute. Anand, you are on mute.
Anand?
Yeah. Question queue is building up. We'll start taking questions one by one. The first question is from [Ritesh Wadhwani ]. [Ritesh], please go ahead and ask your question.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question pertains to core business. How do we see our Q1 and Q2 business shaping, given the current situation in the economy? If you can roughly quantify on YoY basis. Will it be 30%, 40% down, or can we expect mid-teens on a ballpark basis? That's my first question. Secondly, my second question pertains to our investments portfolio. During this quarter, basically, have you done any write-offs or are there any write-offs in current or upcoming quarter? These are my questions. Thank you.
Q1 has been terribly impacted by the lockdown. For most of April and May, India was shut for business, and even now things are opening up slowly. We saw our traffic dip by almost 80% in the month of April in both 99acres, and 60%, 70% dip in Naukri. Traffic has since then started recovering. We are back to -20%, -15% levels in both Naukri and 99acres. In emerging markets, we are seeing growth as well. In Jeevansathi, there's been no impact. Traffic has been growing and revenues have been growing even through the lockdown. It's a digital good, was not impacted at all. Shiksha, what's happened is that the education season, the admission season has got delayed by three to four months. That's impacting ad spend in that category.
Hopefully, business will come back in Shiksha sooner than later as colleges start opening up. In jobs and real estate, there are two big verticals. Revenue will follow with a lag. Traffic has started bouncing back. Like I said, we are down -15%, -20% from where we were before the lockdown and from the same time last year. Revenue will take some time to come back. In the month of April, for example, our Jobs Peak Index was down 60%. In the month of May also, it was down 60%. Right now, all chances are that the Naukri and the 99acres business will de-grow in terms of billings by close to 50% in the quarter. In 99acres, we saw our billings decline by 86% in the month of April. We saw a 72% decline in the month of May.
June will be hopefully better. Again, it's not as if business is going to bounce back immediately once the market starts to open up. Q1 will be quite bad. Q2, very hard to say because a lot will depend on how much India opens up. Chennai, for example, opened up, but there was a second lockdown. Suddenly, now there's a second lockdown and things are shut again. In Delhi and Bombay, it's a wait and watch situation. Let's see what happens. All chances are that things will open up, but if the number of COVID-19 cases go through the roof, who knows, the government may lockdown things once again, or may slow the pace at which things are opening up. Q2 is very hard to say what will happen. Fingers crossed. Q1, of course, has been terribly impacted.
On the investments?
Revenues may look a little different because there's some deferred revenue which will come in Q1. What I was talking about are billings.
My question pertaining to investments portfolio, have you taken any write-offs or are we going to take any write-offs in current or coming quarter?
Chintan, you want to take that or?
Yeah.
Chintan, you want to answer?
Yeah. There are some small write-offs that have happened, and that may have happened through our subsidiary companies, but ultimately would have impacted our standalone financial results as well. Nothing really as a major item. There are three or four companies. There's three companies where we have kind of completely written off, and there's one small company where we have taken a part kind of a write-off. These are all the companies which we had invested at least two or three years back. There's nothing which is of a near future that we invested that we have written it off. We also have written off a little bit of, there's a piece of land that we have in Noida, and obviously, some of the valuations would have changed in the recent events. We have kind of taken a little bit hit over there as well.
Other than that, there is nothing significant. We are evaluating and we are assessing the situation as we go, and if there is anything that's happening in this quarter and next quarter, we will constantly look at what the projections are. We'll get the valuation reports, and if there is any requirement for write-offs, then we would take this kind of provisional write-offs.
Last question, if I can squeeze in. We have a good cash and equivalents on our balance sheet. What is the reason for raising QIP of INR 1,800 crores?
You want me to go first?
Chintan, you can answer, you can [afterward].
We continue to, like I said, see opportunities and invest in all our verticals. There are some operating businesses we run inside the company. We see some opportunities to aggressively invest in them once the market starts to recover. Two, we continue to make investments in some strategic startups. In the last few months alone, we've invested in Coding Ninjas, TEAL. We did Univariety before that. greytHR. These are some adjacent areas where we see a long-term opportunity. We continue to invest in these areas. Inside the company, like I mentioned, we're also sort of piloting BigShyft and Blue Collar Job Board. Very, very early. Pre-revenue. Test marketing in one or two cities right now.
If these businesses show potential, then we would like to scale them up also at an appropriate time. We are also conscious of the fact, like I said in my talk earlier, that there could be a crisis. In every crisis, there are opportunities. Who knows, there could be some M&A opportunities which come our way in the months and quarters to come. If there are such opportunities, we would like to be ready to grab them as when they come our way. That's really the reason more than anything else. Chintan? Sanjeev, you want to add anything?
Yeah. I just want to clarify that this is an enabling kind of a resolution that we have taken from the board. It says that it is up to whatever INR 1,800 and odd figure that we will raise. It's not necessarily that we are going to raise the entire amount. We will see as we go. I believe that this resolution, once shareholders approve, will remain valid for a year. We'll look into it once we get the approval.
Having said both these things, what we do believe in this changed environment, post-COVID-19, I think the funding environment has changed, I think with Chinese investments being constrained. I do believe we will get enough inorganic opportunities to expand, if we see a good one, we'd like to be prepared and ready for it. We are expecting some of this in the months ahead.
Thanks for the valuable inputs. Highly appreciate. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Next question is from Mukul Garg, Haitong Securities. Mukul, go ahead and ask your question. Mukul, you are there?
Mukul, are you on mute [or what happening] ?
Okay.
I think he was on mute. Yes, Mukul?
Yeah. Sorry. I think, Sanjeev, I would probably follow up with the first question on the QIP. While we understand that this is an enabling resolution, if you look historically, you generally don't do late-stage investments and in areas which are very unrelated to what you guys are doing. The amount for which you guys are taking the approval is meaningfully large with very few outlets where you can expense it out. Is it possible to give some color on areas where you see opportunities and where you think this kind of cash can be invested?
First of all, this is not for investments or minority stakes. I mean, this kind of raise, if it's used, will probably be used for acquisitions or at least majority stakes. Right? The way we look at it is, we look at it in concentric circles. Right? The first concentric circle is that we got to do stuff in the four verticals where we already operate business, which is jobs, real estate, matrimony, and education classifieds. Here, we call these strategic investments because they are in the four verticals where we already operate adjacencies or even possibly acquisitions. Right? The second concentric circle is going to be, do we want to diversify into a fifth vertical and make an acquisition there? That is a bigger decision and is less likely to happen because these are businesses we have to run ourselves, right?
We have to be clear we can run it before we acquire something there. Right? The third will be stuff we want to do, which is not in the four verticals that we are in or not even in classifieds maybe. Those are financial investments, usually, and they will be through the AIF. The AIF, we're not raising money for the AIF. We are raising money mostly for the concentric circle number one. Are we going to acquire meaningful businesses in the four verticals that we operate in?
Sanjeev, just to follow up on this, the first concentric circle which you mentioned, and I think that's the point I was trying to ask. If you look at the opportunities to acquire businesses there, most of the potentials out there are relatively smaller compared to the amount of money which you are trying to raise. Do you think you guys will be able to do multiple transactions if the opportunity comes up? Do you have the bandwidth to do it, or would you like to focus on just one at a time?
Well, bandwidth is something we keep on discussing. Certainly, we'll not do three at the same time. I think one at a time makes sense. You may be surprised by what opportunities there are out there or can emerge over the next six to nine months.
Got it.
When money dries up, suddenly we have less competition, and we are able to then look at acquisitions in a more serious manner.
Got it. The second question is for Hitesh. Hitesh, can you help us with the marketing expenditure on the Naukri during this quarter? Second, on the P&L levers on the cost side, which you might have for fiscal year 2021, given that top line will remain constrained, do you think it is possible to keep the fixed cost stable at current levels or do you expect them to increase given that you're still kind of investing in your team?
Yeah. We've substantially brought down our marketing spend in both 99acres and Naukri in Q1. We have in fact upped it in Jeevansathi, because we are still growing in that vertical. In both 99acres and Naukri, we've brought it down substantially over last year. Like I said, traffic was also seriously impacted in the first two months of the quarter because of the lockdown. Traffic is slowly bouncing back, but not because we are marketing, but because we are seeing people are coming back into the market. At least job seekers are coming back into the market. Buyers are coming back into the market for real estate slowly and steadily. We don't want to advertise in a hurry till the situation stabilizes. For both 99acres and Naukri, our ad spend in Q1 will be substantially lower than last year or even Q4 for that matter.
In Jeevansathi, we'll continue to invest aggressively. As far as our other costs go, we are not expanding our workforce. We're not laying off people right now either, nor have we announced any cut in salary. What we have done is we have frozen salaries. We have not announced any increment till now this year. It's not as if we have said no to doing it for the year as well. If the situation improves in the coming months, we will revisit our decision on this front. Strategic hires, there are some important positions which we would like to fill, the slowdown is actually a good time to hire people. The important positions which have been open for a while, we would like the opportunity to fill them during the slowdown. That's not going to be a substantial cost.
The workforce numbers, we have some campus offer hires, and offers we made, which we will honor over the next few months. Otherwise, we are not going to be replacing the people who are leaving right now.
Got it. Just to follow up on that, especially the Naukri business, given the condition of Q1 and early Q2, in the hypothetical scenario, if Naukri sees a decline in top line for the full year, do you think you will be able to maintain the profitability of the business? Or, based on your past experience, how much of a cut in margins can happen? What are your rough numbers indicate?
Hitesh, you're on mute. Hitesh, you're on mute.
You've gone mute.
Yeah. Sorry. Very hard to say what's going to happen this year. It's a very uncertain sort of situation. In our business, if billings fall by 5%, 10%, 7%, 15%, year-on-year, we can still maintain margins. If we see a drop of 30%, 40%, 50% this year over last year, it's going to be very hard to maintain margin. Even if we cut down all our discretionary expenditure. A lot will depend on how things play out over the next few quarters. Q1, of course, like I said, is over, and we know what happened in Q1, and we are hoping that every subsequent quarter will be better than the previous quarter. If we get back to base, at least by Q4, I think we'll be happy.
Very hard to say how things are going to play out in the next few months. Like I mentioned to you, what we are seeing, at least in the real estate business, and this may be true for India as a whole, is that the emerging markets or the smaller cities are bouncing back faster. The markets in the south are bouncing back, like Bangalore and Hyderabad are bouncing back faster. Markets like Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, which are seeing a lot of COVID cases, are still very impacted. If these markets bounce back faster, then of course, we'll be on a good wicket in the second half of the year. If it takes a few more months for the COVID situation to stabilize, then we don't know how things will play out.
Okay. The next question is from Vivek from Ambit.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you very much for the opportunity. First question is on the category of real estate. We know we actually shared one sub-segment of the business, Allcheckdeals, a few years back. Given the opening commentary on opportunities that could emerge in the strategic businesses, could you talk about the real estate category? Do you think that there are new opportunities emerging there, and how do you expand the addressable market there? We have seen that the fixed costs of the business have grown over a period of time, but monetization hasn't caught up. How should we think about the category, and are there any strategic opportunities there? That's question one. I'll ask the others after this answer.
Yeah. Real estate, at a very macro level, is a very vast category. I think in any country, maybe 10%-12% of GDP is based on real estate. What has unfortunately happened in India over the last few years is that the real estate sector has been through a terrible slump. That has been compounded by stuff like GST era, demonetization, the NBFC crisis, and now, of course, COVID-19 and the lockdown. In fact, the lockdown hurt the sector the most in April and May because how do you buy a house without even visiting it? How do you rent a house without visiting it? Almost all activity came to a halt for a couple of months. Long term, of course, there's a lot of opportunity in real estate. It's not as if all the advertising spend has moved online.
Only a fraction of the ad spend in real estate is on portals. There is enough money being spent on Facebook and Google as well, which we think can migrate to online portals over a period of time. Number one. Number two, within real estate, the online portals today companies like ours, portals like ours and Magicbricks, mostly operate in the buy segment. We play a little bit in new homes, we play a little bit in resale. Entire segments like rental, for example, we don't really have a big play in. Segments like commercial real estate, we don't really have a big play in. Over time, as we get more and more data on our platforms, there could be plays that are possible in real estate information services. Right?
Unfortunately, the sector has been through so much that all the companies in the sector, the builders and the developers and the brokers, have been very badly hit for the last few years. Many of them have shut down shop. Many of them have restructured. Many of them are short of capital. Many of them are struggling. We are hoping and waiting for the market to stabilize a bit. Only once you have a stable market is when people start investing more. Even buyers sort of quit the market a few years ago because of all these. Investors and buyers quit the market for these very reasons. Real estate in India was expensive, it was unaffordable, projects were delayed. A lot of people lost a lot of money. The quality of real estate was also not great. Interest rates were high.
What we are seeing now is that, one, interest rates have started falling. Real estate, because prices haven't gone up for the last 10 years, has become more affordable than it was five years ago or seven years ago. RERA has brought some stability into the market. Builders are consolidating. The ones who are left are sufficiently capitalized and so on. Our sense is that the real estate sector may slowly start bouncing back. Real estate is deeply cyclical, so the cycles are long, and we've been through a terrible cycle for the last few years. Hopefully, once things stabilize, we will be in an up cycle for the next few years.
Once that happens, buyer interest will be back, new projects will get launched, real estate spending will go up, and hopefully by then, the portals would have also established themselves well, and they'll be able to capitalize on the surge in demand for real estate. That's the long-term view. In the short term, the business is impacted, like I said, especially in markets like Bombay and Delhi and Pune, Chennai, which are still shut for business.
Okay. The second question is on the work-from-home and business continuity plan. You mentioned that you were quite fast in adapting to this. Secondly, we've also seen that businesses seem to be more willing to renew or invest in mission-critical services like connectivity. Do you think this applies to your business also? For example, companies being very dependent on the database product. Does that have any implication on the number of accounts that your current salespeople can service or possibly give you opportunities to retool some of these sales staff to other projects or improve productivity? Maybe thoughts on hiring also in this new work-from-home world for your own business.
Yeah. It's early days, very difficult to say, of course. All of us have been reading about various articles in various publications about how the new world could be different. As far as our business is concerned, we are mission-critical if companies want to hire. If companies don't want to hire, we are not so essential. What tends to happen in a slowdown like this is that attrition rates fall and companies postpone hiring plans, and that's why our business has been hit. Once the market starts to open up once again, I think attrition rates will start going up. Job seekers will look for new opportunities, and companies will start expanding and start spending on new projects. That's when hiring will go through the roof once again, and we become even more critical.
Which is why in a slowdown like this of the nature we are seeing right now, the database product most companies continue to use because it's the most essential application for them when it comes to hiring. Our branding products, for example, take a hit because it's not as if building a job seeker brand is important to companies at this point in time. Once the market bounces back, we'll come back, hopefully. Come back stronger. In 2008, 2009, we saw a 25% decline [in for about three] and the subsequent year, we saw a 45% growth in billings because once companies started hiring again, business came back fast. I don't know how this pandemic or this crisis pan out, but that is what happened in 2008, 2009, 2010.
To your other question on, was it around work from home and what you think is going to happen?
I think for your own business, how do you look at productivity of your own sales staff? Does work from home have any implications on your future tech hiring also, given that you no longer have any NCR constraint, possibly?
Like I said, we were able to successfully migrate 4,600 people to working from home almost overnight. It's now been almost three months. When I talk to people in the various verticals we have, what I hear from them is that the product and tech and data science and UX guys are saying, "Listen, we are probably even more productive than we were when we were in office." As far as they're concerned. Of course, they miss office, they miss the benefits of working together. They're saying that at least they're claiming to be more productive than they were when they used to work from office. We have all kinds of people in the company. There are, for example, a lot of people in telesales and operations. Many of these people don't have access to the best connectivity at their home.
Many of them don't have big houses, they're forced to operate out of small rooms. There, I suspect productivity has been hit to the extent of 5%-10%. This is a large part of our workforce. You have the field sales people. Now, the field sales people love going out and meeting customers. For them, to sit at home and make Zoom calls is maybe not what they love to do, but they've been fast to adapt to how the scene has changed. Clearly, there are some long-term opportunities here because if this becomes a new normal, sitting today, on our previous investor calls, on analyst calls, we used to have maybe 100 analysts. Today, we have more than 300 analyst people that are sitting everywhere, are able to log in.
This experience is far better than the experience maybe on the voice sort of system. Similarly, when it comes to making sales calls, previously, for example, if I wanted to meet a customer in Bangalore, I would think twice and thrice about traveling to Bangalore for one meeting, or a sales head would think twice about going to Bangalore for one meeting. Today, sitting in Delhi, you can talk to virtually any customer anywhere on Zoom and have a very productive meeting. What would have otherwise taken two days can now be done in maybe two hours, right? There are long-term sort of implications of this. Now a lot will depend on how long this crisis lasts. If things come back in a hurry, then people have a very short memory. They may go back to working like they used to work earlier.
On the other hand, if this crisis continues for a while, we'll all be forced to innovate in terms of the way we work. We're already training, for example, our sales team on how to make Zoom calls, how to present through Zoom, how to conduct client meetings, how to engage more sort of on Zoom meetings, and so on and so forth. Clearly, if the Zoom calls become the new normal, then you don't need branch offices everywhere. You can pretty much operate from anywhere and make calls on customers. Hiring also could, in many ways, become both more local and more global at the same time. Global because today, and for so many years, we thought of opening an office in Bangalore to set up a second development center. We've never done it.
Today, we don't mind hiring sort of a lot of people in Bangalore and making them all work out of Bangalore because we've got used to the idea of working from home. At the same time, the low-end jobs will become more local because, if this COVID-19 sort of thing continues for a long time, people may not want to commute for long to get to their place of work. In the jobs which don't pay a lot, people would rather hire even more locally than they do today, right? Many things could change, but a lot will depend on how long this crisis lasts, in my view.
That was very useful. Thanks a lot. All the best.
Thanks, Vivek. The next question is from Kunal Sanghavi. Please go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah, thanks. Hi, Sanjeev. Hi, Hitesh. My question is with regards to the in-house vertical, Shiksha education vertical. There is always a change environment in the new change environment. Basically, what kind of opportunity do you see within this vertical that currently would present? There is always a trigger for the change. Do you think the current crisis presents some acceleration? In terms of the product investments, what do you think would be the adjacencies that we would like to expand into over here?
Yeah. The education vertical, we see a lot of opportunity in the long run. If there are two sectors that benefited because of COVID-19, they are edtech and health tech, as you all know. Inside the company, we continue to sort of focus on our Shiksha business, which is like a marketplace for discovering colleges and courses. Of course, what is likely to happen going forward is that online courses will also become very big. All our surveys are showing that job seekers in this pandemic are spending a lot of time and money in upskilling themselves and by doing courses online. Inside the company, we are actually working on building a Shiksha type of platform for online courses as well. That's the next thing as far as Shiksha or the education business is concerned. A lot of Indians are also going overseas for education.
Of course, things keep changing, but the general trend is that more and more people go overseas every year for education. We've also started sort of building a small study abroad business in shiksha.com, where we're playing the role of an online counselor. Everything's being done online. We are using technology to sort of counsel and coach people and get them to apply to colleges and universities overseas. It's a very tiny sort of business. Again, baby steps, but that's something we are sort of doing right now inside the company. Outside, as you know, we have made a lot of strategic investments in a lot of education businesses. NoPaperForms, they're building software for colleges and universities to make the admission process paperless. We have Univariety. We are focused more on schools, careers counseling and coaching and careers, and alumni sort of stuff through the school network.
We just invested in Coding Ninjas as well, which is IT sort of courses online, teaching stuff to students and working professionals. Let's see how this evolves. It's very early. We are sort of still figuring things out. Internally, like I said, we are focused on more discovery and study abroad and courses and colleges and counseling and stuff like that. Outside, we are sort of investing in more areas which have to do with education as well.
Sure. Thanks. Second question is with regards to the QIP potentially. Sanjeev, you did mention the restriction because of the Chinese investment probably. There could be opportunity. Would that also include defending our percentage stake in some of the invested companies also? Would that be a major percentage?
Sanjeev, you're on mute.
You're on mute.
Sorry. The two big ones, Zomato and Policybazaar, they both are well-funded enough, and they've got enough investor interest. We are unlikely to be required or called to invest there. The others, we will take it on case-by-case basis, but we don't need to do a QIP for that. It's not large sums of money. Right?
The QIP is because we sense strategic opportunities, which emerge over the next six to nine months. We want to be ready to raise, whenever we want to.
Sure. Great. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thanks, Kunal. Next question is from Salil Desai. Please go ahead and ask your question.
Thank you. Sir, two questions. One is on 99acres. We have seen traffic share rather, dip through the whole of last year and all way up to May 2020. The overall market is bad is one thing, how do you view market share difference in this?
A lot of the changes that you see in market share are often because of the changes in the way Similarweb reports traffic share. Periodically, they revise their algorithms, and the data starts looking very different. If we look at brand share, which is searches on Google for our brand name versus, let's say, our closest competitors, then we have been averaging 55%-56%. I do agree that we lost a few percentage points in the last three, four, five months because we were not aggressive on the advertising front. Our competition is very aggressive. Both Housing and Magic are very aggressive for the last three, four months on advertising. Since then they've cut back on that spend. We are hoping now that they've cut back on advertising spend, our share will come back.
These gains of three, four, five, these sort of changes of three, four, five % we can get back anytime when we start advertising. I would not worry too much into them.
All right. Secondly, one clarification. You're saying Zomato has sufficient interest from investors who are not currently invested. Even if-
It's got interest from both internal investors and from external investors.
Okay. If there are any restrictions on internal investments, investors upping their stakes, you'll have opportunities from external also, right? Thank you.
I'm not talking about those who have restrictions. I'm talking about internal investors who don't have restrictions also.
Oh, perfect. Great. Thank you very much.
Yeah. The next question is from [Sagar Dhawan]. Please go ahead and ask your question. [Sagar], you are-
[Sagar], you are there? [Sagar] is on mute.
May I just, Desai, just add on, sorry, to the last answer I gave. Look, what overseas investors, international investors are seeing in Zomato is that delivery has really picked up post-COVID-19. In India, there were logistical issues, where delivery boys were not allowed to travel, restaurants, many of them are still shut. Once those are over, delivery, I think they expect it to be a big business. Now, that's what people are saying, but we don't know until it happens, and India could be different logistically. Now, having said that, this is a view that some investors have.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sanjeev. [Sagar], you are there? We move to the next question? While [Sagar] is able to connect back, we move to the next question. Next question is from [Abhishek] [Jain]. Please go ahead and ask your question.
I think [Abhishek] is also on mute. Abhishek, could you hear us?
Abhishek is on mute. [Sagar] is on mute.
Okay, we move to next question then.
Hello.
I think [Abhishek] has returned, let's go ahead.
Abhishek is back, yeah.
Yeah.
Ask your question, Abhishek.
Yeah, I have two questions. First question is, now we are seeing NRAI is coming up with their own delivery platform, and I have read in newspaper. What kind of competition do you see from NRAI coming up with own platform first thing? Second question, what kind of volumes you have seen in current quarter, in last three months? If you should throw some light on, especially on the Zomato platform. Third question, what is the liquor business now? The liquor business is, we have got the platform is there right now. Liquor, what kind of opportunity we are seeing, sir? Because now Zomato and other players are also coming.
Zomato is focusing on food delivery from restaurants and cloud kitchens. They did do groceries for a while, they stopped after the crisis was over. They were trying to help out. Liquor hasn't really been done yet. Liquor is a tricky business or the alcohol segment, it's a tricky business given the nature of the business. We'll deal with that as and when it should happen. It's highly regulated, requires government clearances. It's got a different kind of distribution and trade. We don't know what will happen there. Really it is a food delivery company. Food from restaurants and cloud kitchens. There was immediately substantial hit because restaurants were closed. Delivery boys were not allowed to travel out. Some delivery boys had gone home to their hometowns.
As restaurants come back and enough of them come back, there has been a bit of a bounce back. It's still way below what it was, let's say, a year ago or what it was in February. Not a year ago, what it was in February. Having said that, the burn is substantially down and that people are moving to a better unit economics model. Discounts are less, we are making a positive money after accounting all variable costs on each order. Right? Specific numbers the company has not disclosed to the public, we can't give it to you. The company is hoping next two, three, four months, every month it'll come back more and more. Of course, if COVID makes a comeback, a strong comeback, then there might be some stop-start. Right now it's been coming back steadily.
What is your view on NRAI coming up its own?
We have yet to see what that effort will be, but it's going to be hard to have 10 or 20 some restaurants collaborate for a delivery platform that is owned by NRAI. NRAI is an industry association, and they're allies of Zomato, and Zomato depends on them. They depend on Zomato, all these restaurants, the restaurant partners. Having said that, what they will be able to do with their own delivery platform remains to be seen. I'm a little skeptical.
Sir, have you paid larger amount, larger incentives or salaries to the delivery boy during COVID period last two months?
Wherever there's been delivery boy in short supply, it has happened. Zomato has passed those extra costs on to customers. The margins have actually improved a lot.
Okay. Thank you, sir. My questions have been asked. Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Anand, you're on mute.
Yeah. The next question is from [Deep Singla]. [Deep], go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Thank you, sir, for this opportunity. My first question is for Hitesh. Basically, before this quarter, Naukri always had an overdependence on IT. In 2007-2008, we saw billing cycle drop by 25%-30% because of this overdependence. What is your view going forward that we will able to diversify our dependence from IT to different industry, and how do you see this playing out?
Well, our dependence on IT is high because a lot of the white-collar jobs are in IT. If the other industries start, for example, the infrastructure sector, we publish this Jobs Peak Index, which we've been publishing for the last 12 years. Jobs in sectors like infrastructure, real estate, construction, mining, oil and gas, these sectors have not been adding jobs. These companies have not been adding jobs for years now. Telecom was also very badly hit for a long time. If these parts of the economy start to recover, manufacturing, nothing much to talk about in India as far as manufacturing is concerned. Because 70% or 65% of the Indian economy is services, most of our revenue came from services, and of that, IT services is a very large part.
Even as things stand today, actually, some of the domestic companies have been hit much more than the IT companies when it comes to business. If you look at our Jobs Peak for April and May, we are down 60%, but IT is down 30%, 40%. Sectors like auto, real estate, all these sectors, shopping, they're down 80%, 90%. Ultimately, we cater to anybody who wants to hire, and our product works for everybody. Where there is hiring is where we go. If more hiring happens in IT and allied industries, that's where our revenue will come from. On the other hand, if the other industries pick up faster, if they start creating jobs faster than IT companies can create jobs, then our revenue mix will change.
We are a barometer of, in some ways, of what's happening in the job market in the white-collar space more than anything else.
Makes sense. Sir, my last question is more about Naukri is always a cash cow for us as a business, and we were always as a winner in this industry from last decades. Now LinkedIn has come into this space, and you look around and you see a lot of high-quality hiring where you hire a software developer for above INR 10 lakh and INR 12 lakh is going through LinkedIn or through AngelList. They have a lot of cash to burn now because Microsoft is backing them. What do you think will be the future of LinkedIn and Naukri coexisting in this space? They killed Monster.com in U.S.
That's not true. I think people think that LinkedIn killed Monster in the U.S. That's not really true. See, LinkedIn has become a big player only in the last three or four years. Monster started going down post-2008. Monster, in the U.S., lost share to CareerBuilder and then to Indeed. As Indeed became a big player in the U.S., people sort of missed out on the fact that Indeed is now very big in the U.S. Both Indeed and LinkedIn coexist in the U.S. Monster also continues to be around. We, of course, continue to see LinkedIn as competition, and we are aware of the fact that LinkedIn is now backed by Microsoft, which is probably the most valuable company in the world today. A lot of resource, a lot of technology at their disposal.
However, we believe that for a certain type of hiring, our platform works better than other platforms. We are cheaper, faster, more efficient way to hire certain types of talent. We are not saying that everybody's getting hired through Naukri.com. In most cases, companies do about 30%-50% of their hiring through Naukri. The rest they source from other platforms still. There's a lot of scope for us to improve our offering to our clients to help them up their hiring through Naukri from 30% to 40% to 50% to 60% to 70% or wherever we can get to. At the same time, we are conscious of the fact that a lot of the premium hiring does not happen through Naukri. Which is why you are seeing the efforts, one, of course, we are trying to improve our experience on our platform.
Two, we are investing in new areas, in new portals. We just acquired iimjobs.com. The premium hiring in the non-tech space, a lot of it actually, you'd be surprised, happens through iimjobs. They're a very popular brand. Internally also, we are experimenting with BigShyft. BigShyft is positioned as the platform for hiring high-end talent. Early days, but we are seeing what we can do to disrupt that space. There is some sort of hiring which will not go through us. It's a very large market of $ 1 billion, maybe $2 billion a year on hiring. We could get INR 800 crores, INR 900 crores out of that. We still have a long way to go, and I'm sure both LinkedIn and us can coexist in this market. Not just coexist, but also grow in this market for a very long time.
Thanks a lot, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, [Deep]. Yeah. The next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi. Vijit, go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Hi, can you hear me?
Yeah, please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. My question is on Jeevansathi, and in context of that comment you made on the QIP now. Within Jeevansathi, my understanding is that the market has always been quite fragmented. There are three large players. You're one of the three large players, but your market share in the revenue side on that would be probably less than 10%. My question is, A, do you think the elevated marketing would just get you higher market share in that segment, or are you also looking at making a number of acquisitions? In that context, are there smaller matrimonial businesses out there that you think you could just acquire? Could that be like a series of acquisitions here and there wherever you see a decent business? Thank you. That's my question.
Yeah, you're right. That we are the smallest of the three large players in this category. We have a market share of maybe about 12, 13% nationally, but all our revenue comes from the north and west. When you sort of let's just look at the north and west, our market share is maybe closer to 25% or so. If you look at the north, our market share is closer to 35, 40%. We are a reasonably strong player in the markets in which we compete. Nationally, we are the smallest of the three large players because we don't have anything coming from the south. Marriages in India happen within the same caste and community and linguistic groups. Therefore, it's possible to build a large business in the north and west without building a business in south, unlike jobs, for example.
We are committed to this space. We see an opportunity in the long run to build a large business. If there are companies available for acquisition, we are more than open to the idea of acquiring them, provided we think they can create value for us in the long run and help us get to the number one position or the number two position over a period of time. If that is not an option, then we are committed to investing and growing the business organically as well. That may take longer, and it's probably a more uncertain route, but will probably cost a lot less also in the long run if we are successful.
Great. Thank you. That was my question. Thank you so much.
Yeah. The next question is from Utkarsh Solapurwala from Damos Capital. Utkarsh, go ahead and ask your question.
Sorry, Anand. Which capital? What's the name of the firm again?
This is from Damos Capital.
Okay. Thank you.
Utkarsh, go ahead and ask your question.
Yes. What are your views on Amazon entering the food delivery business?
Well, it's too early to say. They just have a small operation in Bangalore. Let's see what happens there. We're waiting and watching it, but Amazon is pursuing its business plans independently. Just one thing I want to say, the nature of the logistics operation in delivering food is very different from delivering the products on Amazon and Flipkart sales. Right? Because food you have to deliver in 45 minutes, and that's it. Somebody orders, deliver in 45 minutes. Which means it's very local, the network is much more intense, and it's immediate. There are two peaks in the day. There's lunch and there's dinner. There's a much, much lower demand rest of the day. Whereas in e-commerce for other products, you could club your orders, you deliver tomorrow, day after, one day, two day, three days.
there's a route you can plan, and the guy can carry 10 packets and deliver them in sequence. The nature of the operation is different. It's not as if the current Amazon network, and therefore it will be very, very useful here. I had asked about a year ago, how many delivery bikes do we have versus, let's say, an e-commerce company like Flipkart and Amazon. He said we have about 8x more because we have to deliver only in those 45 minutes, twice a day. That's why it's different. Let's see what happens. I mean, Amazon is a big company. It's a cash-rich company. It's a good execution. It's a good logistics company. All of that is there. I think restaurants need a special focus.
The second question is, what would be the structure of the AIF you have created?
Well, it's a Cat II AIF. It was announced in January. There's an AIF, there's an AMC, there's a trust, and there's a fund. We are now looking to get an external investor into the fund. One or two. Probably one. Take it forward from there.
Do you have created a separate management team for AIF or it would be internally managed?
No, there'll be a separate management for AIF, but it's the same management team running our current investment strategy.
Oh, okay.
Thanks, Utkarsh. Next question is from Siddharth Vora, Reliance Nippon Life Insurance. Please go ahead and ask your question
Siddharth, you are there?
Seems he got logged off. Maybe we can take [Dheeraj's] question now.
Dheeraj's question, yeah.
Yeah.
[Dheeraj], go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Hitesh, you mentioned, the job market is $2 billion and our revenue is only 800. What is that $2 billion number that you mentioned?
No. This is not born from any research. I took a number. Maybe it's $ 1.5 billion, maybe it's $ 2.5 billion. I don't know what the exact number is. This is basically if you look at how much companies spend on recruitment. There are, for example, 8,000 recruitment, at least there were before COVID, which were all profitable and making money. Then there is spend on us, and then there is spend on referral hiring programs, and then there is spend on recruitment automation, and then there are in-house recruitment teams companies spend. The total spend on recruitment, for a lot of companies is often a percentage of their revenue, and it's substantial. Now, what I meant to say was that, we just get INR 800 crore-INR 900 crore a year out of them.
This market will only grow over the next few years as more and more people enter, get employed in the private sector. Therefore, there is room for both us and some of our competitors also to grow for a long time. Of course, we are attempting to, like I said, get into adjacent areas, as well to enhance, to grow our share of the wallet.
Okay. a lot of this also would represent the money that the consultants keep-.
Yeah.
By using your website as a tool, a hiring tool, right? you cannot capture all of it, right? Because they're using you as a tool and still capturing bulk of that value, right?
Yeah. This includes spend on recruitment firms, this includes spend on advertising, this includes spend on recruitment automation, all the stuff over there.
Okay. earlier you said that substantially reduce the advertisement and marketing spend. in a, let's say, a scenario where COVID continues to affect the core businesses, can you quantify what do you mean by substantial reduction? Because that can help us reduce the impact on the profitability quite a lot.
Yeah. A lot will depend on how the situation develops, right? What I said was that we've cut down our spend substantially in Q1. Because there was a lockdown and the markets were shut, and there was no point in spending money. There were no customers out there. On the other hand, if the market bounces back quickly, if we get back to even 70%, 80% of normal in a hurry, then we'll start spending on marketing once again. Right now, because of the lockdown and because things are slowly getting back to normal, we have cut down our spend in both real estate and jobs by substantial amount. I don't remember the number for last year, but I know it's substantially lower than what we normally spend.
In matchmaking, on the other hand, we continue to spend aggressively because there the business is growing for us, and we don't see a slowdown.
Billings are down 60%-70%, so our spends would also be down in that magnitude?
Yeah. I'm sure. ballpark, maybe even more.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for taking my question.
Thanks, [Dheeraj]. The next question is from Sudheer Guntapalli.
Yeah.
Sudheer, go ahead and ask your question. He's from Motilal Oswal.
Yeah. Thanks, Hitesh. Thanks for taking my question. If I were to benchmark Naukri with competing platforms like Monster or Shine or TimesJobs, and if I were to look at on a per resume basis, what is the price of a resume? There's almost 8x sort of a differential. On Naukri, it works out to around INR 8 per resume, while on other platforms it works out to be more or less around INR 1 per resume. In the current kind of context, are you facing explicit or implicit pushbacks from clients in terms of a price reduction demand or request for a price reduction? That's it from my side. Thanks.
Yeah, of course. See, in every slowdown, because client requirements go down, they are not in a hurry to hire, they negotiate harder. That happens if it's a slowdown. That's got nothing to do with or anything else for that matter. Because the resumes that are available on our platform are not available on those platforms. Even if companies want to hire using those platforms, they are not able to hire. Some small customers who have maybe one requirement or half a requirement, they may try out some of the smaller players. Normally, slowdown of this sort, the number two in the company wants to hire then he still needs the other people from. You can do [all your hiring from Naukri]. [inaudible]
Sudheer, anything further?
No, no, that's it from my side. Thanks.
Thank you so much. The next question is from [Prince]. Please go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, sir. A couple of questions. First one on Naukri billings. are they-
Prince, can you speak up a bit? Just go to the mic.
Yeah. Can you hear me now, sir?
It's the same, doesn't matter. Carry on.
Okay. My first question, sir, is that, have many clients come to you back saying that, "We need a smaller duration of the billing." Is that likely to be a new normal if that is the case?
Yeah. We have all kinds of products. We have a usage-based model you can buy for something for three months, six months, one month. You can also buy something for seven days. We have all kinds of products. You can top up what you buy over time. What you're saying is to some extent right. In a good year, if clients know their business is going to be good for the next 12 months, they just buy for the year. Right? If they're uncertain, if they don't know how things are going to play out, then often sometimes they basically just buy for three months and then say, okay, once things start looking up, then we buy again. That tends to happen especially to the smaller customers. It's likely to happen this time as well.
Got it. A couple of questions on Zomato, sir. First one being, the last round which was announced, in that, if I understand correctly, all the amount from Alibaba was not yet come.
Ant Financial, not Alibaba.
Sorry. Ant Financial was yet to come. INR 100 million was yet to come. Is that amount still yet to come? What is the status of that amount?
No, the balance amount is yet to come.
Okay. Any view on, because of that government, you have to seek approval for that amount to come. Is there some issue regarding that amount or nothing?
We are still evaluating, but the company has got investor interest from other investors also who don't need permission.
Right. Okay. about that earlier question from other participant about Amazon. If I understand correctly, Amazon was not directly trying to target the food delivery business is what we understand, because they're just targeting to give extra service to their Prime customers. In fact, if we open Amazon app, you can see Swiggy, Domino's, all kinds of services over there. is that really something that Amazon is trying to-.
The problem is because of the patchy opening up of the lockdown and stop, start, people not having confidence, people not going to office, offices allowed to open but not opening. It's hard to say. We don't really know what will happen there, so we are waiting and watching.
Okay. That's all from my side. Thank you.
If anyone wishes to ask question, you may please raise your hand.
Yeah. The next question is from Nitesh Poddar. Please go ahead and ask your question.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Nitesh, you are not audible.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yeah, it is better.
I have a couple of questions. I'm listing them together. First, can you please throw some light on reviving our initiative in the past Brijj networking site, like in a new avatar, for example, multilingual feature? Second, are there any plans to enter the professional networking site like LinkedIn or blue-collar segment or any other niche segment? third, what are your thoughts on matrimony foreign allied services in marriage, and do we plan to enter something similar in Jeevansathi?
Brijj is something we stopped working on a few years ago, and there is no plan to revive Brijj at the moment. Of course, we are working on a bunch of other things, like I keep mentioning. We have AmbitionBox, we are working on content, we are working on building data products. We are working on a bunch of other things on the Naukri platform. there is no plan to revive Brijj or enter into professional networking in any form or avatar. Right? Blue collar, we have a small experiment going on inside the company. It's called jobhai.com. It's more yellow collar or gray collar or whatever. It's not exactly construction workers and it's targeted at people who are [niche ], you don't need a profile, you don't need a resume to get onto the platform. A profile is enough.
early days, we are sort of test marketing it in NCR. you can check it out. this is something which we think will play out over an eight, 10-year period. It's not as if it's going to start generating revenue from tomorrow. Of course, it'll require investments. What was your last question? I missed that. There was something on Jeevansathi.
Yeah. Allied services-.
On matrimony.
Oh. allied services matrimony. Weddings are a big market. Right now our focus is on gaining market share in the matchmaking space. Once we get to a certain size and scale, then of course, we will look at adjacent sort of areas and categories like wedding services. Right now we are focused more on acquiring profiles and gaining market share in this category because like we discussed earlier, we are number three and we need to get to a certain size and scale before we start looking at adjacent stuff.
Participants, if you have any questions, you may raise your hand on the screen. Now I hand over the conference to Mr. Hitesh Oberoi for his closing comments.
Yeah. Thank you, Vivek, and thank you, Anand, for moderating this. Thank you everyone for taking time out to be on this call with all of us. This is a tough time for everybody. Please stay safe, and have a great evening. Look forward to meeting you again in a month and a half from now.
Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Info Edge India Limited, we conclude this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may disconnect your lines now.
Thank you so much, and good night.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone.