Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Nazara Technologies Q3 FY26 earnings conference call, hosted by Choice Equity Broking Private Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Kunal Bajaj from Choice Equity Broking Private Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Shubham. Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome to all of you. On behalf of Choice Equity Broking, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the Q3 FY 26 post-results conference call of Nazara Technologies Limited. I would like to take this opportunity and welcome the senior management team joining us on the call today. Today, we are pleased to have with us Mr. Nitish Mittersain, CEO and Joint MD, Nazara Technologies; Mr. Rohit Sharma, Executive Director, Nazara Technologies; Mr. Rakesh Shah, CFO, Nazara Technologies; Ms. Anupriya Sinha Das, Head of Corporate Development, Nazara Technologies; Mr. Terry Li, CEO of Fusebox Games; Mr. Jeff Ammons, Co-founder and CEO, WildWorks; Mr. Stuart Dempsey, CEO, Curve Games; Mr. Shreyas Menon, Head of Offline Gaming at Nazara Technologies; Mr. Akshat Rathee, Founder, NODWIN Gaming Private Limited; Mr. Ajay Pratap Singh, CEO, Absolute Sports Private Limited; Mr.
Senthil Govindan, CEO of Datawrkz Business Solutions Private Limited. Mr. Chris Jones, CEO, Space and Time. I now hand over the call to Mr. Nitish for the opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi, everyone. Good morning, and thank you for joining us this morning. In Q3 FY 2026, Nazara delivered revenues of INR 406 crores, which were lower by 24.1%, primarily due to the deconsolidation of our NODWIN Esports business. However, our EBITDA came in at INR 67.8 crores, which was up 29.4% during the same period. Our margins expanded to 16.7% as the company refocused on its higher-margin IP-based gaming business. For nine months FY 2026 revenue grew by 29.7% year-on-year to INR 1,431.2 crores, while EBITDA increased 73% year-on-year to INR 177.2 crores, with our overall margins expanding to 12.4%.
Kiddopia achieved a much-awaited resumption in subscriber growth in this quarter, driven by the hard work of the team, as well as Nazara's Centers of Excellence in user acquisition, data analytics, growth, and product. In parallel, the company continued to explore new platforms, and in this quarter soft-launched Animal Jam on the Roblox platform, and we believe these new platforms can unlock growth for us going forward. Also, in this quarter, our associate company, NODWIN, which is the leader in esports space in India, delivered strong operational performance and profitability. Nazara continues to make strong progress in building a global gaming company focused on creating scalable world-class IP and franchises. This quarter was driven by disciplined execution, improving operating efficiencies and multiple growth engines across new launches, live content expansion, and platform extensions.
I must say, we are also doing a lot of work on AI and, introducing, these components into some of our games, which I believe will have positive benefit for us going forward. We remain focused on disciplined capital allocation, including through strategic M&A, and our Centers of Excellence that we have created will bring a lot more synergy in the acquisitions that we do going forward. With that, I will now hand over to Anupriya to discuss, a little bit more details, in the segmental performance. Over to you, Anupriya.
Thank you, Nitish. Good morning, everyone. In Q3 FY 2026, our gaming segment revenue grew to INR 257 crores, growing 66% year-over-year, and EBITDA grew to INR 64.2 crores, growing 87% year-over-year, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 25% for the segment. In nine-month FY 2026, on a year-over-year basis, our core gaming segment revenue grew by 119% to INR 793.8 crores, and EBITDA grew by 172% to INR 188 crores, with an EBITDA margin of 23.8%. In mobile gaming, the momentum remains strong, with revenues rising to INR 534.7 crores, up 48% year-over-year, and EBITDA increasing to INR 99.2 crores, up 43% year-over-year.
As Nitish mentioned, performance is driven by both the management teams and the COE-led initiatives, such as user acquisition and data analytics, which tighten the LTV guardrails and strengthen the live ops cadence. Kiddopia returned to subscriber growth in Q3 FY26 after several quarters, supported by the coordinated COE efforts with the management team, and unlocked multiple levers of growth. During the period, Animal Jam was also launched on Roblox, a new platform, alongside many content updates across Kiddopia, C.A.T.S., and KoT. A sharp increase in marketing spend for Love Island in December impacted EBITDA in the near term, with the benefits expected to translate into higher revenues in the subsequent months. Moving to PC and console publishing, we continue to deliver high-margin IP monetization and expanding platform reach. Curve's evergreen catalog and new platform initiatives supported durable monetization.
Human Fall Flat, with lifetime sales of 58 million units, remains a long-tail seller, while Wobbly Life showed strong early momentum on Switch, with sales of over 200,000 units. Turning to offline gaming, the portfolio reported healthy profitability, with 36% EBITDA margin in Q3 FY 2026. In Q3, Smaaash delivered INR 24.3 crores of revenue and INR 7.1 crores of EBITDA, Funky Monkeyss posted INR 6.1 crores of revenue and INR 3.7 crores of EBITDA. We also expanded footprint through 4 Funky Monkeyss centers in the quarter, and I continue to progress the Smaaash Experience 2.0 revamp as a medium-term relaunch. Moving on to other segments, in nine-month FY 2026, AdTech delivered stronger growth and improving profitability. Revenue was up 86% year-on-year, and EBITDA by 95% year-on-year.
In Q3 FY 2026, EBITDA increased 26% year-on-year, while revenue was down by 22% year-on-year, attributable to reduced focus on low-margin, non-tech managed services business. This reflects broader product mix improvement and increasing focus on tech-enabled offerings that are increasingly higher margin. Moving to NODWIN Gaming, as mentioned, our associate company, NODWIN Gaming, delivered a strong Q3 and demonstrated EBITDA profitability after the impairment and cessation of Freaks 4U Gaming. In Q3 FY 2026, revenue was up 58% year-on-year at INR 261 crores, and EBITDA reached INR 40 crores. The quarter featured marquee executions and new IPs, including DreamHack and StarLadder in Budapest. Within Absolute Sports, the portfolio has stabilized, and selective product expansion is happening. Sportskeeda executed significant cost realignment, as Q3 FY 2026 costs were down 32% year-on-year.
Other properties of Absolute Sports continue to perform well. Pro Football Network revenue is up 59% year-on-year on a year-to-date basis, while Prime Time reports a strong post-acquisition revenue gains. With this, I conclude my remarks, and we'll now open the call for Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Sachin Dixit from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, team. Thank you for the opportunity. I had three questions. The first one to start with is on Kiddopia, right? So congratulations on increasing the subscription numbers there. But how do we think of the margin dip, right? Because, are there expectations that the stickiness from these acquired customers is going to deliver leverage in the coming quarters? Or even if you can break down maybe, like, what is the ratio of monthly versus yearly subscriptions there. So just to understand something on the stickiness side so that we can anticipate a better margin in coming quarters. I hope you heard me. Hello?
Yeah, why don't you complete your questions, and then we can answer one by one?
Sure. So that was the first question was on Kiddopia. The second one is if you can explain any seasonality that we see in margins in offline gaming, right? They spiked in this quarter. Last quarter was relatively poorer. How should we expect the sort of benchmark margins for the offline business, if there is a festive quarter-related seasonality or anything? And the final question is on the couple of investments that you highlighted in the press release, nCore Games and Rusk Media. If you can shed some more light there, what's the plan there? Are these just minority investments for now? How should we look at those pieces? Thank you.
Okay, sure. So let me start with Kiddopia. This is Nish. I think, for us, you know, we have created these Centers of Excellence on user acquisition, on data analytics, on AI and growth, and we are starting to see these really add value to our existing businesses, starting with Kiddopia. We kind of focused on Kiddopia first. And what we have managed to achieve really in the last couple of quarters, which is now showing up in Q3, is, you know, that we are able to spend and acquire more users, but at, you know, good costs per trial and CAC. So if you see, in Q2, our CAC was $37.5, but in Q3, we have spent more, acquired more users, and at $35.8 USD per user.
At the same time, our ARPUs have been steadily increasing. In Q3, we were at $7.45 per user, compared to $7.34 in Q2. So in effect, what we are able to now do is scale our user acquisition spends, acquire more users, but at the price that we want to, and we will continue to optimize that. So this is, I would say, the drop in margins is actually a very healthy sign in this particular case, because we are acquiring more users that are profitable for us. And over the year, in the coming quarters, you will see revenue growth that will make up for the, you know, short-term margin erosion. Kiddopia usually has a 2-year, you know, LTV that we see.
... so we will continue to generate users or revenues from users over a 2-3-year period that we acquire. All along the last 2 years, we've maintained that, you know, we will maintain a very strong discipline on the cost of acquisition of the user, because we don't want to acquire users at any cost, and I think that's what we are able to achieve now. So we are feeling very positive about Kiddopia's growth and defensibility of margins going forward. So the,
Just to clarify, Nitish. Just to clarify on this, right? Obviously, margins in Kiddopia have consistently dipped from 25% in Q3 last quarter to reaching 9% this quarter, right? So should we anticipate that margins will remain in this 9-odd% range as you highlighted, like, you spent on customer acquisition?
Mm.
Without basically-
Yeah
Seeing a lot of leverage on that currently acquired cohort. Unlikely that you will see margin improvement in the near future.
No, I think, the point is, the margins have dipped because we have spent more in this quarter-
But you plan to spend, no?
Yeah, and we will continue to spend, but also you have to realize that, as we keep spending higher, the revenues will also start scaling, so they will start offsetting the higher spends in terms of margins. So margins until, unless we really get good, you know, fantastic traction, and let's say we are able to further significantly increase our spends, let's say if the spends remain as they were in Q3 and Q4, Q1, Q2 of next year, then the margins will automatically start coming back as the revenues will grow.
Just to close this, do you have any margin number in mind, FY 27, 28, I'll hit these numbers?
I think, I would say I would not hazard a guess on margins. I think we will... The only point I would like to say is that within our profitable equation of acquiring users, we usually follow a policy where we want to earn back 100% in two years period or whatever capital we invest in user acquisition. As long as we are able to achieve that, we will maximize our spends for growth.
Got it. Thank you. We can move to other questions.
Yeah. On offline business, let me give you... I have Shreyas here, who's heading our offline gaming business. But let me give you a quick overview of what's happening. Funky Monkeyss centers have been expanding pretty rapidly, and, you know, we're launching about 1-2 new centers per month currently. So we've seen rapid expansion. These centers have a break-even period of less than 1 year. So we can, you know, continue to see rapid growth over there. In terms of Smaaash, we are right now in the midst of relaunching an all-new imagined Smaaash. I think that will take probably a couple of quarters to launch before we start expanding. So we've kind of optimized a lot of costs in the current operations, which show up in, you know, the margins.
We've also closed down one center, which was kind of loss-making, so that loss has gone away. So I think some level of optimization has been going on, but the real growth in Smaaash will come once we relaunch the all-new Smaaash in the next couple of quarters. Do you have any specific questions on this? Otherwise, I can move-
No, no, I just wanted to comprehend, right? So for example, if I look Funky Monkeyss, we have 61% EBITDA margin, right?
Mm.
Which means that we are able to sweat our assets quite well.
Mm.
I mean, if I have a business which breaks even in a year and does 60% margins, I'll probably invest all my money there. So just to understand, like, which is why I'm asking the question: Is 61% the sustainable margin-
No
Or maybe something like a 40% the right margin, in forward?
No, I think on a steady state basis, 35%-40% is what we should project.
Understood. Yeah.
But we are doing actually that, right? We have an intent to really expand the number of centers, but, you know, because it's launching new centers is operationally heavy, we want to make sure we are well geared to do that before we really scale. But right now, this 1-2 centers a month launch is already in a way. If I were to zoom out, I think over the next couple of years, can we get to Funky Monkeyss centers in India? We surely can.
Understood. That's fair enough. Thank you.
Yeah. On core gaming, the last question you asked was on investments, the minority investments we have made. I think this point here really is twofold. One is what is the strategic Indian opportunity? As you know, Indian gaming today, if you look globally, in terms of number of downloads on mobile phones, is number one on Google Play, number one on Apple Store, one or two sometimes. So there's a lot of consumption. However, we are not even in the top ten on monetization. But slowly and steadily, I am very confident that we will, you know, inch up and get there, and India will eventually become a very large monetizable gaming market, going forward.
So our intent is that while today Nazara's revenues are largely coming from international markets, and in the near term, I believe that will continue to grow in the, you know, faster in the international markets. It's very important for us as, you know, our home base being India, we kind of continue to invest very aggressively in this market. So I think some of these investments you've seen in the past also, like STAN, Rusk, in this time, nCore, are with an intent to invest in the local gaming ecosystem and create a network and ecosystem for Nazara that we can continue to exploit as the market grows. Specifically for nCore. They are makers of the FAU-G game, which is made in India, a competitor to many of the, you know, international games like PUBG in India.
So I believe, that's a game that Nazara is already publishing. The game is on, you know, a good track in terms of the KPIs. Early KPIs we are seeing with the quality and the feedback of customers we are getting. So we've taken this call to have a minority position. These investments are all minority at this point of time. We will continue to engage with the respective companies, and at some point, we may either monetize these investments or we could, you know, take larger stakes, or we could acquire. So we've kept all the options open for ourselves.
Great, Ritesh. Thanks for the detailed answer, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question, may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. A request to all participants, please restrict your questions to two per participant. For more questions, please rejoin the queue. The next question comes from the line of Jinesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Sir, in the NODWIN business, the turnaround that we have seen, I mean, in the PPP, we have mentioned that it is primarily attributable to breakeven in some of the IPs like Comic Con. But given the swing that we have seen in this quarter on the EBITDA side, can you talk a bit more about which all IPs broke even? And also the fact that it appears multiple IPs seem to have done well in this quarter. So what led to turnaround in most of them in this quarter? Yeah, your thoughts on that.
Why don't I get Akshat, who's the CEO of NODWIN, to answer this. Akshat?
Yeah. Thanks so much. I appreciate the question. Look, you know, I think the core business of NODWIN was always doing well, has always been doing well for a very long time. Which there is the reason why we are such a dominant force in the world and one of the top three companies in the world. What clouded us in the last one year was this attempt that we had done to go ahead and build a European business in Germany specifically. That didn't work out, and that was a drag on everything, there, right? So even if we were making natural profitability in the business for around 20, 25, 30% margins, that was all eaten away. And not only was that eaten away, it prevented an RV investment in growth, which we typically do over the business.
So NODWIN actually likes going and making profit, building IPs, and IPs typically have a three-year build-out cycle for us. Year one is what we call an experiment. We typically expense this out. Year two is when it starts going and generating traction, and we know it's a success, it's successful. We have a 50% culling rate in IPs that you would test in the first year to second year gestation. And in second year, once they are good enough to go ahead and do, and they scale up in a way, and we believe they will go ahead and have payback periods that are viable, IPs start being called IPs, really in year three for us. And that takes time, right?
So if you've looked at some of the things that we've been building over a certain number of years, most of our IPs in the large businesses are over 10 years old, whether it be NH7, All That Matters, DreamHack, Comic Con, large ones are BGMS, et cetera. Even the domestic ones that we have are hitting 5-year cycles. So all of those cycles that are now sustainable cycles start going and generating, farming revenue for us, which is sustainable, long-term, repeatable, sustain, for us. The first 3 years are always the chaotic period, for us, and those are the ones that are also going to start showing some off, offshoots in the next 1 to 3 years. Even StarLadder, for example, we won the award, for the world's best esports tournament.
Literally, the Grammys and the Oscars, the way you think of them, we won the Tournament of the Year award. This is a team that has total staff size of 18 people. When we acquired them, we then ingested them into the NODWIN ecosystem. We supported them, which is there. And then with Indian hard work and StarLadder's finesse, we were able to go ahead and do this, and the profitability in that business is what you see that comes out of it. So sustainably, on a long-term basis, this is our roadmap. The other thing that we've done is we also rationalize the certain costs, as all the organizations go through.
We have a synergy team whose entire job is to go and integrate every company that we acquire into a more holistic method. So typically, those would be six months to nine months after acquisitions, we would have layoffs that would happen on the adjustments, or some of those people would be put into newer projects. So both cost-cutting exercise and IP maturing has gone and helped. And hopefully, this goes and sustains as we go forward. Understood. So basically, just to sum it up, the consolidation of Freaks 4U Gaming 4U and some of the legacy IPs did well in this quarter, and that is the reason why we see the outperformance, right? Correct. So Freaks 4U Gaming 4U was always a—like, it was something that we made a mistake, right?
Like, it's not the only mistake we have made. We also had the Wings, which are there. So we do. We keep trying, and we've also done four other investments during this time, which is Comic Con, Trinity, AFK Gaming, others, which have done phenomenally well for us, so there. And that's the reason NODWIN's going out and raising a new round, and, in that part of the raising the round, it. Look, the world loves what we do. It just makes me a little gray more and more often when things don't work out. But, the world does like what we do. So, yeah. Understood. Two small bookkeeping questions from my side.
First is that, if I look at, look at our depreciation expense on a sequential basis, it has basically remained flat despite the deconsolidation of NODWIN. Ideally, amortization figure from Freaks 4U Gaming 4U should have been eliminated, and to that extent, the expense should have been lower. So any, any reason why we have not seen a decline over there? That is one. And secondly, I mean, in response to previous participants' question, you mentioned about the EBITDA margin profile of the offline business. I just wanted to check because I believe most of these centers would be on lease. So whatever margins you are seeing, whether these are pre-indebted EBITDA margins or post-indebted EBITDA margins?
Sure. I think, on the depreciation question, while you know, some of the Freaks 4U Gaming depreciation has gone out, you have Smaaash and other depreciations that have got added. So I think, Curve depreciation is also added. So I think, it's kind of got balanced out in terms of the other acquisitions we have done. In terms of the other question on the offline business, this is the 40%-45% elevated margin we are seeing is because of also the Ind AS accounting, as you rightly point out, where the-
Uh.
Lease comes below EBITDA.
Right. So what will be the pre-EBITDA margin? Any, any color you can share on that?
I think, on a steady state, what I said earlier, between 25%-35% is where we should land up at.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. The next question comes from the line of Pranav Mashruwala from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, Pranav.
Yeah, yeah. Yes, I hear you.
Yeah. Yeah, hi. Thank you for giving me an opportunity. Just, doubling down on NODWIN, just again. So, this is again, largely, which were some of the key IPs that, you know, drove this, outperformance almost, you know, 60% year-on-year growth, and despite Freaks 4U Gaming 4U deconsolidation? That is one, and,
The question. So, NODWIN, as it's expanded into its global role, just as a matter of record, NODWIN is among the top two esports companies and gaming companies in the world now, both by revenue. We are the only profitable one, which is the, we are the largest emerging market one. So we've been able to go out and build this. What it does is, I'm gonna take a little longer, maybe two minutes, to explain this. What it does is when we acquire assets and then we go ahead and build the IPs. For example, when I say this Counter-Strike, it just sounds like a normal another event that we do, right? So the Counter-Strike Major is like the World Cup that we hosted. It's the world championship of Counter-Strike. That was in Budapest.
The best teams in the world come in. The $ millions of prize pools are coming in. And when you build something like this and go ahead and do this, it goes and does multi-tens of $ millions for a one-time exercise. But what it does, really, the reason it is there, that's one time, right? And it's not really sustainable. The next time you'll do this is 2-3 years later, something as large. But what it does is it builds credibility for someone like NODWIN, which is coming from India, and the world doesn't think that India is the best place to go out and do it, but that reputation is changing really fast with what we do.
That gives other publishers and other world championships the opportunity to go ahead and tell us, "Hey, would you like to go ahead and do our championship?" And so on the back of this acquisition and the back of the world, the world championships that we did, and the fact that we won, the tournament of the year, we've now got a order book of at least 10 other events that have come in, into our portfolio, that we would not normally have gotten. The bigger companies in the world, mostly the Europeans or the Chinese ones, would have got the opportunity to do it. So that's the reason why this has happened, and that makes it sustainable. Now, on a specific IP level, we've been able to go ahead and do the Major. We've been able to do DreamHack.
We did the Honor of Kings championship in Astana, and then we went and did a Dubai event. So all of those have now just started creating on the esports part of the business, but also the culture side of the business. When we go ahead and do something like a Comic-Con, it creates the opportunity for Disney to come to us and say, "Hey, would you like to go ahead and do something with our launch portfolio? That is interesting for us." So most of these things, when you do great things, goes and just there's a cascade effect that allows you to go ahead and do more in the future.
Okay, thanks for the detailed answer. From the bookkeeping side again, although NODWIN has reported a healthy profit, it has not quite trickled down to share of associates and JVs in the P&L statement, which is as right now just a mild INR 3 lakh loss. So what explains this?
There's, I think, Freaks 4U Gaming 4U impairment, so that would have translated into below EBITDA.
What would be the impairment timing, because-
... Sorry, you are asking for NODWIN's contribution to so earnings per share, or you're talking of Nazara's?
No, I was asking, so have the fixed asset impairment really netted off most of the proportionate gains that we recorded in NODWIN?
Hello? Yeah. Rakesh here. In associate, you are not seeing the impact of NODWIN's profit because there is a loss which is coming from the Moonshine.
Oh, okay, got it. Understood. Let me explain that.
Yeah.
So you have the share of associate of profit coming from NODWIN, but that is completely offset by incurred loss of Moonshine, which is PokerBaazi. They have a operating loss of INR 30 crore for the quarter. So, our 46% of that is offsetting the NODWIN gains. Okay, understood. So, going forward, would there be further loss to record for the real gaming business?
You know, we had impaired most of the value that we were carrying in the last quarter. There is, I think about INR 90-100 crore, exact amount maybe Rakesh can confirm, that we're still carrying on the books, of which 30 crore would have eroded in this quarter. So there, there could be some, but also they are working on, you know, different revenue streams, et cetera. So hopefully some of that will reduce going forward.
Okay. Just last one. The minority interest of about INR 9 million is attributed largely to Adtech?
Minority what?
Minority interest outflow of INR 9 million-
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Kunal Bajaj from Choice Equity. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Congratulations on good set of results. So I have two questions in particular. Firstly, we see Sportskeeda, so we have observed that there is some arrest in a quarter-on-quarter decline in top line, but on a YoY basis, it's still down. So how do we see this business growing? How are we placed in terms of initiatives post the Google update changes? This is one. And secondly, we see that Fusebox obviously has taken a hit this quarter. So do we see any seasonality effect because of absence of an on-air show or-
Yeah.
Or you have any trend on this front? Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the question.
Sure. Let me answer the second one. I think we have Terry here on the call, right?
Yeah, Terry.
Yeah, I'm here.
Okay, so I think, maybe Terry can answer this.
Yeah, sure. Thank you for the question. So yes, with Fusebox Games being all linked to TV show IPs, we definitely do see seasonality effects, but more specifically, somewhat in the organic, but more specifically in our user acquisitions. So when the TV shows are on and also depending on how well the TV shows do, whether or not there's a virality effect, similar to what we saw in the summer, in Q2 with like explosions on TikTok and Instagram about particular storylines and celebrities, then user acquisition becomes a lot cheaper for us because it's a lot easier to find our players, and so we end up spending very aggressively, still within profitability, but we're not spending very aggressively.
So what you'll see is over the year, our, you know, our UA is kind of very stable, but we do have, kind of, you know, quarterly and even monthly spikes. But as I think the presentation states is, while we spend aggressively where we can, which is what you're seeing, we will then see that profit come back, and we normally have a 60-day payback period for our, for our user acquisition.
Okay. Thank you-
Sure, thanks.
Terry. And can we have Ajay, who's the CEO-
Yeah.
Of Sportskeeda, respond?
Sure. Thanks, Nitish, and thanks for the question. See, when we look at the ASPL level, right now, we have a portfolio approach. Along with Sportskeeda, we have seven, eight other domains that we've acquired and managed. Yes, there has been a decline in Sportskeeda pertaining to the March core update that came in FY 25, and since then, we've seen a decline in traffic. Now, this is a normal phenomena, to be honest, which happens across all the publishers. We've been lucky over the last five years that we've been able to manage it so well that never once was Sportskeeda impacted. But unfortunately, we were wrongly caught in the crossfire last March. Now, to address that, we have significantly decreased cost.
If you look at the YOY quarter cost comparisons, we are down by 32% in terms of cost. However, we are also seeing and witnessing good growth on the other domains that we have. For example, Pro Football Network. Now, Pro Football Network, YOY, has seen an increase in revenue of 36%, with a decrease in expense of 11%. At a YTD level or nine months level, this has been the best year for Pro Football Network. 58% increase in revenue-
Got it.
While expenses just growing 3%. So we believe, Sportskeeda will also come back. Now, when it comes back, we don't know. Till then, we want to run it lean. Just to add one more point, Pro Football Network also saw this Google core impact update last year... and it took them around 2.5 to 3 quarters to come back. So we believe in the next couple of updates, we should see some of that. The other thing is that while Google and relying on Google gives us high volume, we have now also started focusing a lot on other initiatives. One such initiative, if I could mention here, is CricRocket, which is a live scoring app. We have a well built direct sales team here in India.
We've been working CricRocket app for the last one, one and a half years, and come this World Cup and IPL, we will be spending a little higher on that. So on one end, we would still want to come back on Google for volume, and on the other hand, we would also want to, you know, kind of akin ourselves to the Google volatility and build more towards the new initiatives.
Sure, that's helpful. And one last question to Nitish, sir. So, sir, we obviously see that margins have expanded because of the non-Indian subsidiaries. So are we seeing this trend to continue going forward for the next quarters?
Yeah, I think you will see higher margins. I think as our businesses, you know, focuses on the core gaming business, which is IP-driven games that we make, eventually the margin should rise to, you know, beyond 20%, is what we are working towards.
Okay. Any timeline for that?
I think in the coming year, maybe in 2, 3 quarters, we should get there.
Sure. That's helpful. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Bhavik from Invicta Capital LLP. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
So when I see the presentation and the numbers, I just fail to understand, like, where exactly our growth will come from, say, in FY 2027. Could you just point out some specific divisions or IPs or, like, things which will actually drive growth in terms of numbers, one, and what will lead to improvement in margins? We say we are doing IP-related work, but-
Hmm.
I'm just not able to understand how that will translate to numbers in, say, FY 27. So if you could provide some color or some guidance, that would be really helpful. And then what, how much is the net cash in the books, and how do we plan to utilize it going ahead?
Yeah. So, you know, while we have many growth drivers and many things happening, maybe I'll give you a couple of specific examples on where we see tangible growth coming in FY 2027. One is our portfolio of Fusebox games, where we are doing IP licensing, right? Most of the revenues that you see in the current year, FY 2026, have come from only one game, which is Love Island. However, in the last 6, 9 months after we've acquired the business, we worked closely with the team to launch many more well-known games, including Bigg Boss in India, Big Brother globally. And we have a very large launch for The Traitors license, which is again, a global launch, which is, and that IP is even more popular than Love Island.
So we've got multiple products out there, which we believe will drive meaningful growth in the coming year. That's one example. The second is Kiddopia. As you can see in this quarter, we've got the right traction in terms of the user acquisition in the range of spends or costs we want to do. So we are going to continue to step on the pedal there, and I believe you will see Kiddopia growing well again in FY 2027. Another example is our offline gaming businesses, which are driving growth, Funky Monkeyss, which continues to expand very actively. So I would say by and large, most of our businesses are on a growth curve. We've got good growth plans and new IP launches for the PC and console space to go.
Maybe I'll just ask, after I stop talking, I'll ask Stuart, who's the CEO of Curve, to throw some light on that. So I think, broadly, we feel quite confident that our existing businesses will deliver good growth in the coming year. In terms of,
Hi there, yeah, thanks, Nitish.
In, yeah, in terms of the cash question that you have, we have a net cash of approximately INR 700 crore in our books at this point of time, including our subsidiaries. In terms of usage, we will deploy in organic growth where we require the capital, and we will also undertake additional M&A, especially of gaming studios, going forward. If I can just ask Stuart to throw a little light on what's happening on Curve and the IPs that we are adding to the portfolio, it will be helpful. Stuart, are you there?
Yep, yep. Thanks, Nitish.
All fine here.
Yeah, hi, everybody. As Anatri mentioned earlier, we are performing in line with our expectations with a relatively high margin business, and we've been maximizing our catalog, and we've also had a number of new platform initiatives. Going forward with the help of Nazara, being part of the Nazara Group, we are investing in new titles, and really growth for us comes from the release of new games. And we have signed five or six new titles since we were acquired, and they will start to appear through FY 2027 and FY 2028. So for us, it's really about increasing the pipeline while retaining the relatively low cost base of running a traditional games formats publisher.
...with a comparatively high margin outlook on the performance.
Right. Right. So just to understand, when we say we will expand an offline business, like, how many stores do we plan to open? And how much will be the investment we require generally, and what is the time we take to break even at the stores?
Look, like I said in our earlier question-
Uh.
Sorry, this is toward on offline, so I'll take it up. Shreyas, are you there?
Yeah.
Yes, I'm there.
Shreyas, why don't you answer that question?
Well, as this was explained before as well, so in a steady state, we are looking at 25%-30% EBITDA margin coming in, with a typical break-even point at 18-24 months in the offline business, both for Smaaash and Funky Monkeyss.
Yeah, and what is generally your economics for to open a new outlet or a store?
So, right now, given that, Funky Monkeyss, the growth sector that we are looking at, this is a typical investment from INR 1-2 crore per store. At Smaaash, like how we had earlier also spoken, Smaaash 2.0, which will open in H1 next year, post that we'll be able to give you more clarity on the economics for Smaaash.
Understood. Thank you.
I just, I just want to step in and add one more, you know, to your earlier question on the growth for FY 2027. I think one more area that we are quite excited about, growth into FY 2027 is our Animal Jam business of WildWorks. Because there are multiple things we have done there in terms of the existing product, launching it on Roblox, and for the first time, that studio, WildWorks, is launching a new game called Go Slinky. So a lot of activity happening there, and if I may just call Jeff, who is the CEO of WildWorks, to give us a quick overview, it'll be helpful. Jeff, over to you.
Thanks, Nitish, and thanks... Yeah, thanks for the question. I hope you can hear me okay.
Yes.
We are very excited about an alpha release of Go Slinky. This is Go Slinky Go, which is a hyper casual game in the likes of Monopoly Go. It has been received so well by those that we've done some beta and alpha testing with so far. We'll go to a public release by the end of the first quarter of FY 2027. And we really are advocates that growth within WildWorks is gonna principally come from new games, and we're thrilled over the last several months of development of this new game that we get to launch in the coming months. Animal Jam is noted on Roblox now.
It will, it'll gestate there for a little bit before we're gonna see the performance increase, and we will be patient with it. But our core game, both on desktop and mobile, for Animal Jam, continues to hold steady, and we're thrilled with opportunities that are coming up to monetize even better as we now have validating our data appropriately after a massive migration away from Amazon or AWS to Google Cloud Platform. And with the COE at-
The line has been disconnected.
Okay. Anyway, I think we got the points. We can carry on.
Any numerical guidance which you can provide?
Not at this point.
Understood. All the best. Thank you, so.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you everyone for the detailed questions. Thank you for all the Nazara management to be on the call, many of them at very early mornings, all over the world. Wish you all a very good day.
Thank you. On behalf of Choice Equity Broking Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line. Thank you.