Thanks. Thanks, Anand. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Our sincere apologies for being late on the call. We welcome everyone to Info Edge, Q4 and full year, financial year 2023 results conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines, will be on listen-only mode, there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need any assistance during the call, please raise your hand on the screen. Please note that this call is being recorded. From the management side, we have Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Vice Chairman; Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter and Managing Director; and Mr. Chintan Thakkar, our CFO. Before we begin today, I would like to remind you that some of the statement made in today's conference call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve some risk and uncertainties.
Kindly refer to slide two of investor presentation for detailed disclaimer. I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Hitesh for his opening remarks. Thanks, and over to you, Hitesh.
Thank you, Vivek, and apologies once again for starting a little late. Good evening, everyone, welcome to our Q4 and full year earnings call. We will start with an update on standalone financials, then cover the financials of each business in more detail. The audited financial statements and other schedules on segmental billing, revenues, et cetera, along with our data sheet, have been uploaded on our website, infoedge.in. Overall billings in Q4 stood at INR 748.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 15.3%. For FY 2023, billings stood at INR 2,366.3 crores, a year-on-year growth of 26.8%. Revenue in Q4 stood at INR 564 crores, a year-on-year growth of 23.8%.
For FY 2023, revenue stood at INR 2,158.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 38.2%. Billing and revenues, along with acquired businesses, Zwayam and DoSelect, for the quarter stood at INR 770.4 crores and INR 586 crores respectively. For FY 2023, billing with acquired businesses stood at INR 2,433.4 crores, a year-on-year growth of 28.7%. Operating expenses for the quarter, excluding depreciation and amortization, were INR 343.7 crores, a year-on-year growth of 5%. For FY 2023, operating expenses were INR 1,374.4 crores, a year-on-year growth of 25.1%.
Operating EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 220.3 crores versus INR 128 crores reported last year, a year-on-year growth of 72%. For FY23, operating EBITDA grew 69% year-on-year to INR 784 crores from INR 464.3 crores last year. Operating EBITDA margins for the quarter stood at 39.1% compared to last year when the margins were compared to last year. For FY23, EBITDA margins stood at 36.3% compared to 29.7% for last year. Operating EBITDA, including acquired businesses, stood at INR 231.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 70.9%.
For FY 23, operating EBITDA, including acquired businesses, stood at INR 807 crores, a year-on-year growth of 73.3%. During the quarter, we impaired an amount of INR 12 crores granted as ICD to 4B Network Limited. Cash generation from operations for the quarter stood at INR 412.9 crores compared to INR 374.3 crores in Q4 FY 22, a year-on-year growth of 10%. For FY 23, cash generated from operations stood at INR 1,038.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 14.5%. Deferred sales revenue stood at INR 1,018.5 crores as of March 31, 2023, versus INR 819.6 crores as of March 31, 2022, a year-on-year growth of 24.3%.
The cash balance of Info Edge, including the wholly owned subsidiaries, stands at INR 3,490 crores as of March 31, 2023. In the recruitment market, we are witnessing a period of cautious spending from customers in IT. The Q4 JobSpeak reported a nominal growth of 1%, primarily due to the growth in the IT space. On the other hand, positive hiring patterns emerged in sectors like BFSI, real estate, auto ancillary, travel, and hospitality segments during the quarter. The Indian real estate market is, it continues to be stable, and certain micro markets are very hot.
Though the price increases have stabilized in the last quarter, the inventory levels are still lowest in the last decade. We're expecting a series of new launches in both the residential and commercial space. In the education space, we are seeing stability return to colleges and universities. The number of students going overseas for education also continues to go up. Moving on to the financials of the recruitment business. In Q4 of 2023, the recruitment segment billings were rupees 583.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 13.7%, while revenues were rupees 437.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 27.1%.
For FY23, billings stood at INR 1,858.7 crores, a year-on-year growth of 29.54%, while revenues stood at INR 1,679.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 45.5%. Operating EBITDA for the recruitment business stood at INR 271.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31.3% from. Margins stood at 62.1%, against 60.1% in Q4 of last year. For FY23, operating EBITDA stood at INR 1,030.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 51.6%, operating EBITDA margin was 61.4%, up from 58.9% last year.
Cash generated from operations in the recruitment business during the quarter stood at INR 447.3 crores, up from INR 412.1 crore in Q4 of last year. The recruitment business generated INR 1,245 crores of cash from operations in FY23, a year-on-year growth of 21.8%. Billings for Naukri India corporate business for the quarter stood at INR 494.3 crores, a year-on-year growth of 12.4%. Revenues for the quarter from Naukri India corporate business stood at INR 367.8 crores, a year-on-year growth of 27.3%.
Billings for Naukri India for the FY 2023 stood at INR 1,567.2 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31%. Recruitment segment billing, including acquired businesses for the quarter, stood at INR 605.3 crores, a year-on-year growth of 14.3%. For FY 2023, recruitment segment billing with acquired businesses stood at INR 1,925.8 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31.7%. The quarter witnessed a strong sales effort, with judicious use of discount reduction and price increases. Growth drivers in non-IT sectors helped drive billing growth in this quarter and are likely to continue the growth momentum.
Global concerns impacting prospects of clients in the IT service are likely to impact prospects of clients in the IT services companies in India, but we are optimistic of hiring by captives and global GCCs. The Naukri site got around 20,000 new CVs per day, new registrations per day during the quarter, a year-on-year growth of 2%. Daily active user account is up 10% year-on-year as well. We increased our marketing spend by 150% during the year with the view to enhance our brand salience amongst existing users and focus on increasing reach of our digital-led engagement and social media campaigns targeting the Gen Z audience. Traffic on AmbitionBox also continued to grow at a healthy rate during the year.
Moving on to the 99acres business. Billings in Q4 in 99acres grew 30.8% year-on-year and stood at INR 103.7 crores, while revenue grew from INR 61.3 crores in Q4 of 2022 to INR 75.5 crores in Q4 of 2023, a year-on-year growth of 23.1%. For FY 2023, billings stood at INR 311.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 35%, while revenues stood at INR 284.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31%. The operating loss for the quarter for 99acres stood at INR 19.1 crores, as against a loss of INR 33.8 crores in Q4 of last year.
For full year 2023, operating loss stood at INR 107 crores, against a loss of INR 78 crores last year. In Q4, the 99acres business reported a cash inflow from operations of INR 13.5 crores for the quarter, against an inflow of INR 3.6 crores in the same quarter of last year. For the full year, the business reported a cash outflow of INR 72.2 crores. The 99acres business witnessed a broad-based growth across all categories in this vertical: retail, rental, commercial, and new homes. A healthy demand environment increased traffic on the platform, multiple initiatives by the business teams to improve content quality led to significant increase in inquiries and leads on the platform for our clients.
A stronger sales rigor and comprehensive go-to-market to cater to launch marketing stages was the key highlight of the quarter. We will continue to invest in platform content, client delivery, and marketing in the months to come. Moving on to the education business. In Q4, in Shiksha, billing stood at INR 40.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 42.4%, while revenue stood at INR 32 crores, a YOY growth of 31.1%. For FY23, billing stood at INR 123.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 28.4%, while revenues stood at INR 116.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 29%. The business made an EBITDA of INR 2.3 crores in the quarter, against EBITDA INR 4.8 crores in Q4 of last year.
For full year 2023, EBITDA stood at INR 7.8 crores, down from INR 19.5 crores reported last year. Cash inflow from operations for the quarter in the Shiksha business stood at INR 15 crores, against an inflow of INR 10.2 crores in Q4 of last year. For full year 2023, cash inflow from operations stood at INR 21.1 crores. The rebound in the Shiksha domestic business helped drive growth for this quarter. With many more sort of private universities and colleges in India being established, we expect this growth pattern will continue. Moving on to the Jeevansathi business. Billings in Q4 in Jeevansathi declined by 27% year-on-year to INR 20.5 crores, and revenue declined by 26% year-on-year to INR 18.8 crores.
For FY 23, billings stood at INR 72.1 crores, a year-on-year decline of 29%, while revenues stood at INR 77.6 crores, a year-on-year decline of 22.5%. The operating EBITDA losses for the quarter stood at INR 21.9 crores for the quarter, against a loss of INR 38.8 crores in Q4 of last year. Operating loss for FY 23 stood at INR 101.4 crores, against an operating loss of INR 120.4 crores reported last year. Cash outflow from operations for the quarter stood at INR 19.4 crores, against an outflow of INR 29.3 crores in Q4 of last year. Cash outflow for FY 23, stood at INR 126.2 crores.
The free chat model in Jeevansathi continues to drive profile growth and engagement on the platform. New paid products launched in December resulted in some sequential sales growth. The team continues to explore ways and means to monetize the increase in traffic on the platform. In continuing with our stated strategy, we are reducing our advertising and promotion spends during the quarter. We continue to reduce our advertising and promotion spends during the quarter. Advertising spends were down 51% year-on-year, and 6.6% sequentially. Moving on to the consolidated financials. At the consolidated levels, the net sales of the company stood at INR 604.8 crores, versus INR 402.9 crores in Q4 of last year.
For the consolidated entity at the total comprehensive income level, there is a loss of INR 414.8 crores, versus a loss of INR 6,420 crores for the corresponding previous last year. Adjusted for the exceptional items, PBT stood at a loss of INR 39.45 crores in Q4, versus a profit of INR 285.7 crores in Q4 of last year. Thank you. That's all from us, we are now happy to take questions.
Thanks, Hitesh. We'll now begin Q&A session. Anyone who wishes to ask question, we raise your hand. We'll take your name and announce your turn in the question queue. We'll wait for the question queue to build up.
Thanks, Vivek. Thanks, Hitesh. First question is from Vivekanand, Ambit Capital. Vivek, go ahead and ask your question.
Hello. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I have two questions, the first one being on the recruitment business. Hitesh, in your opening comments, you mentioned that there is obviously some pain or perhaps caution as far as IT companies are concerned. Heading into FY 2024, how are you thinking about the billing trends given that JobStreet has been fairly muted year-to-date? That's question one. Secondly, on 99acres, thanks for the opening comments. It's clear that all segments of the markets are growing. My question here is: Is the market growing much faster than what we reported as results, given that we have slipped on traffic when I look at Similarweb data?
If you could give us some sense on what you are doing, to mitigate this decline in traffic, or am I looking at it wrongly? Thank you.
Yeah. To answer your first question, IT hiring. We expect IT hiring to continue to be slow for at least a couple of quarters. you know, IT hiring, IT jobs on the platform moved into negative territory some time back. From what we are sort of seeing around us, what we hear from our customers, we don't expect. We expect things to continue to be like they are for some more time. Of course, a lot will depend on what happens to the U.S. economy. in the past, what we've seen is every time there's been a slowdown, you know, While Indian IT companies do get hit for a few quarters, after that, you will always see a sharp bounce back, because more and more jobs are outsourced to India.
If then companies want to cut costs in the U.S., they end up by outsourcing more jobs to India over time. Whether that will happen this time around or not, is hard to say. But yeah, I mean, IT companies are sort of slow right now when it comes to hiring. The non-IT market continues to be rock solid. Many sectors are doing very well. Sectors like BFSI, sectors like travel, retail, hospitality. Sectors like auto ancillary, sectors like construction, real estate. These sectors are sort of growing well, and they continue to hire a lot of people. Could there be a further slowdown in IT hiring over the next few months? Possible. 99acres, see, we don't think we've lost share in...
You know, we, you know, we haven't seen a reduction in traffic. In fact, our traffic has grown over time. We've done a lot of changes, made a lot of changes to the platform, which has resulted in the platform generating many more inquiries and many more leads for our clients than was the case earlier. That's reflecting in our numbers as well. Q4, you know, billing growth was 31%. Year, full year billing growth was 35%. The business generated cash actually in Q4. We made a INR 13 crore cash profit in 99acres in Q4. This has happened despite us, you know, reducing marketing spends in Q4, and despite heightened competitive activity as well.
It's not as if competition is not spending a lot of money. Some of our competitors are very aggressive in the market. Are we growing at faster than the market? The market, some markets are, some real estate markets are doing well. Real estate is very sort of local, and there's a lot of. For example, you know, real estate is doing really well in Gurgaon, and Noida, but maybe not in many parts of Delhi. Real estate is very local, some hotspots are doing very well. Because there were very few launches during COVID, the amount of unsold inventory in the market has gone down, which has led to, which is leading to higher prices.
A lot of the growth that we are seeing in real estate is price-driven. While we didn't really aggressively take up prices last year, our growth is mostly volume-driven in 99acres.
Okay, this is helpful. Just one clarification on the outlook as far as IT hiring and your monetization is concerned? Understand that IT hiring, there could be more slowdown, but are you taking any initiatives, maybe on the product side, or on the pricing side or any other such initiative that is helping you perhaps buck the trend as far as, you know, your billing trends versus, say, perhaps the headcount addition by IT services companies?
See, there's little that we can do on IT hiring right now because, see, hiring has slowed down. Of course, we are trying to sell more and more new products we to our customers. What we are working on actually a little more right now is the non-IT side, because that's where the opportunity is. We are seeing. We are fine-tuning our product offerings for non-IT customers because they are still hiring, and they are hiring in large numbers, and there is scope to monetize them better. That's likely to be the focus for the next few months. On the IT hiring side, it's a wait-and-watch game. We, of course, continue to work on our product. We continue to grow our platform.
We continue to invest in some of the long-term projects that we've been pursuing. It's unlikely that we can do anything in the short term which will move the needle on IT monetization for us.
Okay. Thank you, and all the best.
Thanks.
Thanks, Vivek. Next question is from Abhishek Bhandari, from Nomura. Abhishek, go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Hitesh, Chintan. You know, despite sounding cautious on IT hiring for last two, three quarters consistently, you know, we have been able to do a billing growth in double digit. Given the momentum ex of IT, do you think, you know, we could still look at these kind of numbers, you know, notwithstanding the problem what we're seeing in IT, at least in FY 2024?
Uh, see, 50% of our, uh, billing comes from non-IT, and about 50% is IT, at a very macro level. Now, if the non-IT. If the economy does well, uh, you know, if the economy starts to grow at 6%, 7% per annum, for example, the non-IT hiring piece could grow at 25% , 30% per annum, right? Uh, on the other hand, if the economy were to slow down, then even non-IT hiring could take a hit. IT hiring, uh, you know, has been very, very slow for about three, four, five months now and, uh, could, uh, continue to be slow for the next three, four, five months. We don't know when the IT hiring market will turn. And have we, have we hit the bottom? I don't know, right? Uh, we will know only in a couple of months.
We are hoping and banking on the fact that IT hiring will turn around by H2, in H2 sometime, and the non-IT market will continue to be solid. If the non-IT market continues to be solid, and if IT hiring turns around in the second half of this year, then we may still end up with, you know, growth with Naukri growing in the teens somewhere. If IT hiring were to slow down further, and the economy were to also sort of move sideways, then, you know, then it could be a challenge.
Got it. That's helpful, Hitesh. Hitesh, my second and last question is, you know, any thinking around now lifting the dividend payout for the shareholders? You know, we are generating such a handsome amount of cash from our, you know, core business. The business does not need too much of investments. We have, you know, almost INR 3,500 crore cash lying. But yet, you know, our dividend payouts are, like, very, very low. You know, we are just paying INR 9 in Q4. Do you think, you would want to increase the payout ratios, you know, from the current level?
Chintan, you want to take that?
Sure. This INR 9, you know, first of all, it's more as a factual clarification. This INR 9 is the final dividend. We already gave INR 10 as an interim dividend as well, so it's INR 19.
Yeah
You know, overall. I understand, you know, the overall question that, look, it's in comparison to the amount of cash that we have, this may look, you know, small, you know. Our policy, if you look at dividend policy, which is there on our website as well, that we usually we distribute certain portion of, you know, cash PAT, and that's what we have done. So if you look at it this year, it's, like, 35% of PAT. So it's like
Mm-hmm
one third of the cash that we earn, we have kind of, you know, at a high level, it's that what we have given, right? Now, there's a case for any special dividend? I think that's a very separate consideration. We still think that there could be an opportunity for us to invest, you know, this money, you know, in investing, and we continue to look for good opportunities for the same. Right now, you know, we would like to hold on to the same, but, you know, should an opportunity arise, should that occasion arise where we think that this cash is in excess of what we think we require, certainly, you know, we can look at special dividend or buyback or something. Right now there is no thinking on those lines.
Yeah.
May I add to that? Sanjeev here. Look, I think we have customer advances. That money doesn't belong to us. What is the amount of customer advances we have, Chintan, right now?
should be around INR 1,800. I could be wrong, but I
30th, it was around INR 1,100 crores.
INR 1,100.
That is not our money, right? That is, bank for. You know, and tomorrow, in case customer asks for it back, you know, something goes wrong, and they want it back, that goes back to customers. You remove INR 1,100 crores from INR 3,400 crores, INR 3,500 crores, you're left with INR 2,300 crores, right? You want to keep some rainy day money. You want to keep some money for acquisitions. You want to keep some money, you know, in case there's a serious downturn, and cash goes down, you know, surpluses go down, right? It's not that much money. You know, I'll give you a couple of examples of situations where.
A seemingly high cash balance has helped us, the most latest one being COVID. In March 24, 2000, there was a lockdown enforced by the Government of India. April, June 2000, Naukri billing growth, I think, was -44%. Nobody had a clue as to what was going to happen, how long the lockdown will continue, how severe the pandemic was going to be. Is there a vaccine? Is there a cure? What was going to happen to hospital capacity? Everybody was at home, right?
At that time, we asked Chintan, that and we gave him a simple sort of thing to solve, which is: Okay, assuming sales revenue goes to zero, and marketing expenditure goes to zero, and increments go to zero, how long can we run on the current cash balance? He came back with the answer of three years, right? That emboldened us to take a call that we will not sack anybody, right? There were very few companies in the digital space that did not sack people in India, right? We were one of them. You know, it is, in our opinion, at a time like when the pandemic had just begun, people were anyway tense about their own lives and their health. We...
You know, that if you start downsizing them, and they won't get a job for many months, it'll get very, very tense for them, and we can't do that because company has been built by people. We were able to take that call simply because we had this cash balance, right? This has happened earlier as well. When Lehman went down, we had the cash balance to not sack people, right? Therefore, I personally believe that this is the right thing to do, and therefore we do it.
Got it. Thank you for the detailed answers, Sanjeev, Hitesh, and Chintan, and all the best for next year.
Thanks, Abhishek. Next question is from Pradyut Ganeshan of ICICI. Pradyut, go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, this is Abhishek here. On the Jeevansathi business, right, there has been a lot of competitive action there. If you could give us some clarity on how the competitive landscape is looking there, what is your outlook on monetization going forward?
In Jeevansathi?
Yes, Jeevansathi.
Well, it's a very hotly contested market, so, you know, we have two big players in that market, Jeevansathi and BharatMatrimony, and they've been spending a ton of money on marketing. You know, the pricing has also been very aggressive. We changed our strategy a while back. We moved to a freemium model. We made chat free on the platform. Some of the stuff we were charging for earlier is now free. In line with that strategy, we've also fine-tuned our marketing sort of strategy. We are not spending as much money on marketing as earlier because the proposition in itself is helping us acquire users cheaper than we proposition. That's been our approach. We've,
you know, brought down our marketing spend substantially in the last two quarters. Despite that, our user growth is solid, and there's a lot of engagement, and we are enabling many more matches on the platform than earlier. Now, of course, this has also resulted, this strategy has also resulted in our revenue crashing. Our revenue is down 27% year-on-year. Now the team is sort of working on, you know, ways and means to monetize better. Now, that is still work in process, still early stages of that, so we don't know how things will pan out. Traffic growth is healthy, engagement is healthy, there's much more matchmaking happening than earlier. We have cut marketing spend, and it still seems to be okay.
Okay, I don't know how competition will react going forward. At the same time, we're also seeing a lot more activity in the dating sort of space, right? There are lots of players who are active in that space, but that's not a market in which Jeevansathi competes in. We are, of course, seeing a lot more activity in that market as well, compared to earlier.
Understood. In terms of market shares, would you say that you have gained share? I mean, how is your position vis-a-vis, say, one year back?
We have lost revenue share, okay. We have gained traffic share. We have gained share of user share over, you know, compare vis-a-vis Shaadi.com, for example, in the North and West, which is where we are sort of mostly present. So, we have, of course, cut burn.
Got it. Got it. Would you give us some, you know, some flavor of what you are thinking about in terms of investment opportunities? What kind of businesses you are looking at, whether it is B2C or B2B? Because B2B has suddenly become a very, you know, hard space. Would like to hear your thought process on what would be the best investment opportunities that you are trying to, you know, assess.
Financial? Financial or strategic, which ones are you?
Financial. Yes.
Financial. Okay. Sanjeev, you want to take that?
Yes. Sorry, could you repeat that?
Which of which spaces are we looking at for financial?
No, look.
Yes.
In financial investment, we look at every sort of tech space other than jobs and careers, education classifieds, and, you know, matrimony and dating, okay, and real estate, right? Other than that, all is open in the tech space, we've got a whole wide range. We typically don't do it top-down, we do it bottom-up. We assess about 1,000 startups a quarter
either through meetings or through, you know, or on phone calls, or even just looking at the decks that come to us. Maybe we invest in a few. It's bottom-up, good founders chasing good ideas or seemingly good ideas.
Mm.
We might go in.
Understood. Thank you so much, sir.
Thanks, Abhishek . Next question is from Ankur Rudra from JP Morgan. Ankur, go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. The first one is on IT. Did you say that the mix is still 50% IT versus non-IT on a billing basis?
Approximately.
Approximately.
Okay. Given the difference in growth rates and the difference in how the growth is trending out, do you think that, the balance of growth, whatever you see the weakness in IT, will be more than made up by the strong momentum you're seeing at the moment in non-IT over the course of this year?
It'll depend.
It'll depend on how
How much the Indian economy grows at going forward, and it'll depend on when IT recovers. Right now it looks okay, you know, because the non-IT companies are doing well. Of course, if the Indian economy starts growing faster, then they may do even better. In the past, we've seen that when growth starts to hit 6%, 7% domestic growth, you know, it's possible to grow at 25%, 30%, at least in the non-IT space. As far as the IT hiring piece goes, a lot will depend on when IT starts to recover, and how bad the slowdown is, right? You know, have we hit rock bottom? I don't know. Okay, will things get better from here on? I don't know. It's hard for me to predict at this stage.
Sure. Can you give me some more color, Hitesh, on the IT billings trajectory? I think you said it hit negative on a billings basis few months ago. Was that in the March quarter, or was that in the current quarter?
You know, it's been trending south for the last few months. The job index, I said
Okay
hit negative territory, has been in negative territory for the last, at least two, three, four months now. I don't have the exact. You know, it was -27% for software services. The Naukri JobSpeak index we publish, right?
Right.
Which basically captures volume more than anything else. In April, it's not as if March, May is looking any better. The IT hiring has been sort of very, very slow for at least four, five months, six months now.
On a billing basis, could you give us a sense, how is IT billing growth momentum right now? If that trajectory has gotten worse, because you've obviously seen two more months of the current quarter, how is that trending in the June versus the March quarter?
Let me put it this way: It's not getting any better.
Okay. Is this, is it already negative on a billings basis also? Is what we're seeing on Naukri JobSpeak, you know, representative?
Chintan, do we give out that data? I mean.
I mean, it's hard for us, you know, Ankur, you know, because the quarter is still going on, and most of the billing also happens in the third, you know, in the last month of the quarter. It would probably be wrong and also even if you have to give some estimate too.
Okay. it, you can clarify that it didn't hit negative on a billings basis, at least in the March quarter, right? IT part of the whole thing.
No, I think in, you know, we are talking about Q4, you know.
Q4
Yes, you know, Q4.
Q4.
Yes, Q4. Q4, you know, even Q3 in that sense, you know, it actually the growth rate was more reflected because of the non-IT rather than IT. Our original question whether is non-IT growth will compensate for IT, so far the trend has been, you know, that in Q3 as well as in Q4. What Hitesh is saying is that will it happen, will it remain the same in Q1 or not? I think we are yet to see, and, you know, we'll have to see till we complete the quarter and come out with the results.
No, no, I totally understand. I was wondering if you can share with us any color for if IT billings hit a negative trajectory for any of the months of the March quarter?
I don't have the exact number right now, but as I said that, look, I think it's the, you know, the growth trajectory, you know, of non-IT was more than enough to
Of course.
compensate for the, you know, reduction in the IT.
Okay, maybe changing tracks a little bit. You know, Q4's always been your strongest quarter, and, you know, many deals close. Has there been any increase in discounts given out this time, given the weakness in half your portfolio?
Sure, yeah. I'm sure. See, this is always the case. Whenever markets slow, whenever the market slows down, you know, you end up getting more discount because that's the, that's the nature of the beast. I'm sure that's happened in a lot of cases with a lot of clients in IT. That must have happened.
Is this something you're concerned about from a pricing perspective for the next year?
No, see, this is standard stuff. Yeah, this is what happens in every slowdown. Once the market starts to recover, then, you know, pricing will go back to normal.
Last question on this side. Do you think there's ability to sustain margins, given where the momentum is right now?
In Naukri, we continue to invest in many areas, which are, we think, important for the long run. We are hoping that this slowdown will not last for more than a couple of quarters. If we are able to grow billings at 14, 15, at 14%-15% this year, then I don't think our margins will be impacted. On the other hand, if billing growth slows down and, you know, we start growing in low single digits, then of course, margins will be impacted this year in Naukri. Because we don't want to cut our investments in areas like data science and the blue-collar job where we're working on some of the other stuff that we're doing, which we think is strategic and important from a long-term standpoint.
Can we maintain margins? If we want to, we can, but I don't think it's necessary at this stage. you know, We are hopeful and confident that we are hopeful, hoping that, you know, the market will come back. IT hiring market will also come back by Q3 or Q4 of this year.
Okay. One question on 99acres. Any changes in thought process about monetization besides the classified model that you've thought about over the last one year? I know you've written off for B, but in general, for 99acres.
See, we have. See, the resale in the resale business, the rental market, we sort of have a classified model at work. Increasingly, for some of the large customers in the new home, sort of, category, we run a lot of CPL, cost per lead campaigns. Our billing is indexed to how many leads we are able to generate for them, and it's not just a listing fee which we charge them. The business
Mm-hmm.
has slowly been moving in that direction as far as new homes, as far as, new home monetization goes. We currently follow this model with a lot of large clients.
How big would.
Small customers, we have a listing model.
Understood. How big would this be in terms of volumes or revenues, Hitesh? Could this be a significant part going forward?
It could be a significant part of the new home business, going forward.
Okay. Understood. Thank you, and best of luck.
Thanks.
Thanks, Ankur. Next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi. Vijit, go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Thank you, Anand. Hitesh, my question is just going back to the recruitment side. You mentioned earlier that in the non-IT side, you see scope to monetize better, and you also singled out certain sectors where you're seeing good growth. I guess I'm just wondering, you know, in the non-IT space, are all sectors looking similar broadly in terms of how you monetize them, or are you further ahead in certain sectors, still lagging in certain other sectors? If you can just throw more color on, you know, non-IT, segment-wise, it'll be great.
Let me just rewind to about 15 years ago. 15 years ago, when infrastructure was hot, clutch of sectors like infrastructure, construction, real estate, heavy engineering, auto, these energy, these sectors together were almost 25% to 27% of our business. Till last year, these sectors were down. The revenue from these sort of segments was down to 14% to 15% of our business. Because these sectors didn't grow for a long time. After a long time, we are seeing a lot of action in real estate, we are seeing a lot of action in construction, we are seeing a lot of action in similar sectors, these sort of infra sectors.
If this action continues for a long time, there is no reason why we should not be able to build a lot more from companies in these sort of spaces going forward. That's one thing we are seeing in non-IT. The services piece continues to be solid. You know, banking, financial services, insurance companies, travel, hospitality, retail, sectors which are impacted by COVID, they are bouncing back. There's a lot more action in these sectors when it comes to hiring. We are seeing a slight slowdown in sectors like consumer durables, in sectors like fast-moving consumer goods, in sectors like, you know, healthcare and education, which were super hot till some time back.
There's been a slight slowdown, which we've seen in some of these sector, in these sectors in the last few months. By and large, you know, the non-IT market continues to be strong. Hiring market continues to be strong. At our end, see, our product works reasonably well for non-IT companies also. You know, a lot of companies hire sales people, customer service professionals, finance professionals, HR professionals, marketing folks through Naukri. But there is an opportunity for us to sort of, you know, expand our business to more cities, for example. Right now, we operate in about 40 to 45 cities. There's no reason why we can't take our business to over 100 cities in the next two or three years, right? If the markets are supportive.
Because we are seeing a lot more growth in small towns than earlier. Of course, it may not result in a lot of revenue in the short term, but long term, you know, these can become interesting markets for us to operate in. They are mostly all non-IT driven, services-led, and so on. We are fine-tuning our search and recommendation engines so that they work better for non-IT hiring. You know, a lot of our focus for the last few years or two, three years was on IT hiring, because the IT hiring market was very hard.
Now that we're seeing, we are seeing a, you know, a bigger opportunity in non-IT, we are going to work on fine-tuning our sort of search and recommendation engines to ensure that companies are able to hire more people through our platform in some of these segments as well. That's just to sort of help you understand the nature. See, where we are seeing the biggest slowdown right now is in our recruitment consultants business, right? Because, you know, about 30% of our business comes from recruitment firms, and these recruitment firms hire a lot of them hire for IT companies.
They are the ones which are hit first, because, you know, they are, in some ways, a more expensive way to hire. When companies cut, sort of budgets, they are the ones who get impacted first, and therefore, their spend on Naukri gets impacted as well. That's just to give you a sense of how the market is panning out right now. I hope I was able to answer your question.
Yeah, Hitesh, that was super helpful. My second question is just on the 99acres business, the property segment. You mentioned some of your competitors have been super aggressive spending on marketing and everything. In revenue terms as well, it does look like some of them, at least, especially, say, a Housing.com, which REA has already disclosed numbers for, has grown faster than you guys. Is that something that is happening, you think, because there are more products on their end, which is still work in progress at your side? Because you monetize a little bit differently, do you think that is driving that difference, or is it something else?
Well, we have to sort of lift the veil. You know, we still believe that we are the largest in the space, we are growing reasonably well. Q4 was great. We think we are sort of in some sort of markets, we have gained share. We don't do a lot of stuff which other companies do. We don't do any barter barters. We don't do combo deals with newspapers. We don't have any pass-through revenue through our platform. We don't, you know, monetize other services. We sell only real estate advertising, we don't make money from packers and movers. We don't make money from home loans.
We don't make money from a lot of other ancillary services, which a lot of these companies do. We don't have any transaction revenue, which a lot of these companies have. We are, relatively speaking, a purer play, than some of our competitors. It's important to compare apples, to apples.
Yeah. Got it. Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure. Thanks, Hitesh. Those were my questions.
Thanks, Vijit. Next question is from Nikhil Chaudhary. He's from Nomura. Nikhil, go ahead and ask your question.
Hey, hi, Hitesh. First question is regarding your comment on discount and pricing. You mentioned that you have cut some discount, and there is some increase in pricing. Just wanted to understand how much of the billing growth basically came from this initiative, and how much further tailroom you have to increase it further going ahead?
See, you know, it's unlikely that we will up pricing in IT, given that the IT hiring market is very slow. Where we may be able to realize more is in the non-IT, sort of from our non-IT customers going forward, because they are hiring large numbers. You know, going forward, see, last year, first six months, we were very aggressive on pricing. A lot of our revenue growth was pricing-led. Of course, there was a lot of volume growth as well, because the market was really hot. If you look, maybe in the second half, our growth was mostly pricing-led and not so much volume-led. Going forward, this year, in non-IT, our growth is likely to be volume-led, to a large extent, and also pricing-led.
In IT, we are unlikely to see any growth because of either volume or pricing.
Sure, sure. Second question, Hitesh, is on the impairment of ShopConnect. Just if you can give color, what happened, and basically what led to the impairment, and one of the thing which is mentioned in the filing about unspecified buyback liability. just a few
Yeah. Can I address that?
Sure. Sure.
Thank you. It's like you see in all our SHAs, we have a waterfall drag along clause. You know, in three years' time, you'll give an exit or five years' time, you'll give an exit. The exit could be a listing, it could be a strategic sale, it could be a buyback, all investors together. If you fail to honor that, we can drag you along for a sale, right? These are standard clauses in VC investment agreements. All VCs do it. This clause, you know, was construed to be a liability, not a contingent liability, right?
Now, if there's a liability on FMV, I mean, FMV of, you know, business is what it is, given the last round of valuation, then it was construed that the company may not have enough money to pay off the investor should they ask for the money, right? Therefore, we were forced to write it off. It's a technical write-off, in my view. It does not reflect the business prospects of the company, but it has to be done for principle of conservatism, that's what it is.
Sure, Sanjeev. Just one follow-up here. Do you see any possibility of such scenario happening in any other portfolio companies, any large portfolio companies?
I don't think so. There's nothing to announce here. Chintan, any comment, observation there?
I think, you know, every case is a bit different because the agreement and the language of the agreement could be different. You know, the investors' insistence on whether they want it or they can dilute this also is different. I'll tell you, one of the big differences is that because we are a listed entity, we are, you know, we are expected to follow LODR, while some of the other PE and VC firms may not be under obligation to follow that, you know. That's why the certain standards that the auditors want to apply on to know how, you know, the assets are being valued, you know, for us, could be very different than what the standards that might get followed by, you know, by some of the PE and VC firms.
Like Sanjeev said, that, you know, this is not a reflection on what their growth and what the potential or the business model of that company, but this is more arising because of the how the shareholders' agreement is being interpreted, you know, you know.
You know, let me explain. If this had been construed to be a contingent liability, there would be no problem. Because it was construed to be a liability, and not a contingent liability, we had to write it off. That's a big difference.
Sure, Sanjeev. Thanks a lot, Hitesh, Chintan, Sanjeev, very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks, Nikhil. Next question we have from Zennia Gar from Nivah Investmart. Zennia, go ahead and ask your question.
Good evening, all. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I just have one question, which is considering the current slowdown in the start-up funding and the decline in valuations of many start-ups, what are your perspectives on when the start-up funding pipeline is likely to be normalized?
Sanjeev, you want to take that?
Sorry, apologies, could you repeat? I'm really sorry about that.
No problem, sir. Sir, like, considering the current slowdown in the start-up funding, and there are many decline in valuations of many start-ups, what are your perspectives of the funding pipeline is likely to normalize?
Look, it's hard to predict, in general, you know, we are finding that there is still enough entrepreneurial activity. There are a lot of number of start-ups. It's actually a good time to invest. If you look back, if I look back, our best investments for Zomato were made in just around the global financial crisis or just after it, or just maybe just before it, right? These are actually good times to invest if you have a 7, 8, 10-year perspective, which is what we do have. For us, actually, it's quite good.
Okay, sir. Thank you.
There's one question in the chat box for you, Hitesh. The question is from Sanjay Ladha. I'll just, I'll read the question for you. "How should we think the business will move going forward? Which business to drive growth going forward? What is your focus area in each of the business segment, and how should we think business growth in next two to three years?
I mean, see, the Naukri business has done really well in the last, for the last two years. I mean, I think we managed to almost triple our cash flows from operation. we more than doubled our revenue in the last two years. we are seeing, hopefully, a temporary slowdown in IT hiring. hopefully, the AI boom will actually end up creating more sort of opportunities for Indian IT services going forward. That's what's always happened with at least in the past, and hopefully India is part of the solution. If companies in the U.S. want to cut costs, they'll end up outsourcing more and more jobs to India. To me, it looks like, you know, infrastructure is back.
In, you know, government is investing a lot of money in infrastructure, and that is also going to lead to a lot of job creation in the short term and in the medium term. In general, the economy seems to be in good shape. It's perhaps in better shape than it was when we went into COVID. So if the economy continues to sort of do well and IT hiring bounces back, then we are able to grow the, at 6%, 7% per annum, then the Naukri business can grow very, you know, at a very healthy rate, you know, at more than 20%. It's a very high margin business.
It's not as if we will have to invest a lot of money to get this growth, right? We already have offices, we already have salespeople, the platform is already built. We've also been acquisitive. Over the last three, four years, we've invested, we've acquired a few start-ups. Our plan is also to sort of grow these businesses that we acquired over time. Businesses like Zwayam, businesses like IIMjobs, businesses like DoSelect. We are working, hopefully these businesses will start scaling once we put the Naukri might behind them.
And then, of course, some more opportunities we've identified, which I don't want to talk about right now, which, like I mentioned small towns, so we will expand into more and more cities going forward. You know, we've invested in a platform, in an edtech platform, Coding Ninjas, right? We own 51% of that company, and we intend to work closely with them to help them grow their business faster and to also improve our offering for candidates, for job seekers on Naukri. So there are a bunch of things we are working on as a platform, which and these are we will continue to invest behind these sort of initiatives. Some of them are short term, some are more medium term.
We have been working on a blue-collar job board for the last three, four years. We'll try and start monetizing this sort of product sometime this year. This is more a long-term play. We don't expect any significant revenue from this business in over the next two, three years. Long term, you know, we think it's a good bet, and it's important that we sort of have a foothold in this space. These are some of the things we're doing in Naukri, which will hopefully drive growth going forward. Similarly, in 99acres, we've done well in the resale and rental categories. If you ask me, that part of the business has done quite well. Commercial part of the business has also done well.
We see a lot of opportunity in new home monetization. There are lots of new developments being constructed everywhere. There are lots of satellite towns emerging. Inventory is down to an all-time low. There is a lot of interest in real estate once again from buyers and investors. Now we need to crack open this market. It's not a done deal. We are a very small part of this market. Over a few thousand crores are spent on new home marketing. We gotta get a small fraction of that. If we can somehow, solve for, you know, do a better job of executing in the new home space, then that can drive growth in 99acres for the next few years.
Of course, if the team executes well, of course, there will also be an opportunity to gain more market share over time in 99acres, and that could again drive growth, even higher growth in 99acres going forward. In Shiksha, we are investing, you know, we have the domestic business, which is growing at 20% to 25% per annum. A few years ago, we have also entered the study abroad space. That is today a small business for us. We sent over 1,500 kids overseas last year. This year, we are targeting to send more than 2,000 kids overseas. If we get a good handle on this business, this business can also become a large business over time.
In Jeevansathi, we are working on a new model, and if we are able to get our act together on monetization, if, and if we're able to cut burn, you know, the Jeevansathi business could sort of get to a decent place. We also acquired a 76% stake in Aisle, which is a dating platform. Again, early days, but we are investing in that business, and if we see good traction, then we will double down on the dating category as well. These are some of the areas where we're investing. All of them are work in process, but hopefully some will work out over the next two to three years for us.
The next question is from Vivek from Ambit Capital. Vivek, go ahead and ask your question.
Hello. Thank you so much for the follow-up opportunity. How much of the committed AIF money has been deployed already? Sanjeev, if you could give us an update on the four AIFs that we currently have.
Well, there's Fund 1 and the follow-on fund. That has been a significant chunk of that has been deployed. Fund 2 and Capital 2B, it's comparatively less because we've been going slow and careful, and there's still enough time left to do our first checks. We typically do not announce the exact numbers on this.
Okay. The reason why it's taking you longer to deploy in the Fund 2 and Capital 2B is?
It's, it's-
You've just called for new names, is it?
No, no, no. It's like this, those are more recent funds. After the final close, typically, we have, I think there's a rule. I think it's the final close, I'm not sure. We've got three years to write the first checks, right? We want to take our time and be very, very selective, given the state of the market. We want to be particularly careful about the valuation of the enterprise. We want to be particularly careful about, you know, going after capital-efficient companies and entrepreneurs, given this tight funding environment. We're taking our time. That's all. Yes, we do not invest from Fund 2 into Fund 1 companies or from Capital 2B into Fund 1 companies. Those are watertight compartments.
Okay. My last question is on the financial investments that sit on the balance sheet, not included in the AIFs.
Yes.
Did you make any major investments in the current fiscal year, as follow-on rounds in, say, Ustraa or ShopClues or some other.
We have done some. I'm not sure it's major, but we've done some. I mean, Chintan, can you?
I don't have the numbers right now, but yes, we would have made some follow-on rounds and some small investments even in companies like-
The big tickets are done. The big tickets are done there.
Yeah, nothing, you know, major.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thanks, Vivek. The next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi. Vijit, go ahead and ask your question. Yeah, Vijit, go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Hi, thanks. Sanjeev, my question is to you. I guess, if you look at, what's been trending in the startup space in India and globally, more recently in India, it's ONDC, specifically, I guess, AI, obviously globally. My question is, are you seeing any opportunities?
Yeah, what's the question?
Sorry. My question is, are you seeing any opportunities in those two, that you're excited about? Are, are these focus areas or any interest areas for you in terms of how you look to deploy?
Like I said, we do it bottom up, not top down. Yes, of course, you know, some of the, some of the deals we have looked at and possibly even done have components of AI, machine learning, right? You know, there are a number of people trying. We typically have. Now, ONDC is. We don't do D2C, you know, typically in our fund. We prefer, you know, We don't think that's central to our mandate. We... Therefore, ONDC may or may not work for us. Now, having said that, if we see a really great deal, great entrepreneur, will we do it? We might. I'm not ruling anything out.
Mm-hmm.
it's less likely.
Got it. Thanks, Sanjeev.
Sanjeev, there's a question in the chat box from Ishan Bagga. "On startup investment, how is our portfolio companies as a whole performing in the current macroeconomic scenario? Are there any signs of stress or markdown in some of the companies?
I think we've, you know, look, every portfolio will have some situation of stress, and we are no exception. Having said that, I think we're doing fairly all right so far. You know, tomorrow is another day. We don't know. We are waiting and watching.
No more questions on Q&A.
Yeah, that was the last question we had.
Sanjeev, there are no more questions.
Yes.
We'll conclude the call on behalf of the company.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Have a great evening. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, all.
Thanks.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.
We conclude the call.