Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected. The conference call will begin in the next few minutes. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected. The conference call for Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited , will begin in the next few minutes. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 FY 2025 earnings conference call of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited . As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the 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 Zee Investor Relations Team. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Yashasree. Hi everyone. Welcome to our Q4 FY 2025 earnings discussion. We have with us today our CEO, Mr. Punit Goenka, along with the senior management team. We will start with opening remarks from Mr. Goenka, followed by commentary on operating and financial performance by Mr. Mukund Galgali, Deputy CEO and CFO. We will subsequently open the floor for questions and answers. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements made or discussed today on today's conference call will be forward-looking in nature and must be viewed in conjunction with the risks and uncertainties we face. The company does not undertake to update any of these forward-looking statements publicly. With that, I'll now hand the call to Mr. Goenka. Thank you.
Thank you, Amit. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the company's performance during the fourth and final quarter of the financial year 2024-2025. The fiscal proved to be a mixed bag for the industry at large. While I will share the macro-level insights into the company's performance during the year, Mukund will take you through the operational metrics of the quarterly performance. Let me begin by speaking about the industry performance during the financial year. Overall, the industry displayed immense resilience during the year by taking cautious steps forward and pivoting strategies to enhance revenue generation across segments. The key steps taken by companies, including the channel's pricing revision, resulted in marginal subscription revenue recovery, contributing towards overall revenue growth. Largely the focus remained on leveraging the unique levers across businesses to drive growth.
Speaking about the company, I have indicated in the previous quarters that our focus has been firmly on enhancing profitability and building a healthy margin profile. The fiscal encompassed several action-oriented steps that led to steady growth and gains on the balance sheet. I am pleased to share that the company is witnessing considerable progress year-on-year across key aspects, including a clear margin improvement, substantial reduction in ZEE5 losses, and robust cash generation across businesses. Significant efforts were flown in to strengthen the business segments with the lens of quality content optimization and frugality. As a result, the company's performance during the financial year remained steady on the back of a sharp cost discipline exercised across the business. The new streamlined team, coupled with our focus on performance and profitability, all worked well for the company during the period.
We are capitalizing on this strengthened foundation to drive future growth by balancing investments with a healthy margin profile. Our efforts remain directed towards sharpening the content, driving reach across platforms, and enhancing monetization through existing and newer avenues. As we progress forward into the new financial year, our aim is to further build on this momentum and strengthen the business. We will also be uploading a detailed presentation on the company's corporate website, which will give you a comprehensive insight into our strategic vision to achieve the next phase of growth cycle and the company's aspirations for the near future. The year culminated on a softer note with a weak macroeconomic sentiment flowing into the fourth quarter. The momentum for rural recovery did not pick up the pace we expected, resulting in a seasonally soft quarter.
We witnessed a dip in advertising revenue growth and the aberration in the subscription revenue numbers, but we remain hopeful of regaining the growth through targeted interventions going forward. Like I mentioned, our focus has been to sharpen the content across platforms, and we remain enthused by the efforts invested in presenting quality content offerings to our consumers. During the quarter, we presented Mini Series on Zee TV, an innovative finite storytelling format to address the evolving preference of our consumers. We also implemented a groundbreaking TV and Digital strategy for the premiere of Telugu film Sankrantiki , which clocked exceptional viewership numbers across linear and digital platforms. Going forward, we will continue to enhance our offerings to create and deliver quality content to fulfill our consumers' entertainment appetite on every screen.
At a macro level, there are strong levers to drive growth in the new fiscal, and the company remains well poised for the future. I continue to be optimistic about the opportunities in the new fiscal as well, and our teams remain focused in this direction as we move forward. On that note, I would now like to hand over the session to Mukund, who will throw light on the key performance metrics reported by the company during the quarter and financial year. I look forward to interacting with all of you during the Q&A round later. Over to you, Mukund. Thank you.
Thank you, Punit. Good evening, everyone, and great to connect with all of you. I will briefly touch upon some of the key financial highlights of these results. While FY 2025 was a challenging year for the industry, broadly driven by weak consumption, despite this, our profitability has improved during the year, driven by various initiatives taken by the company. The linear ad spending environment continues to remain soft during the year, especially for general entertainment. As a result, our FY 2025 ad revenues were down by 11%. During the quarter, it declined YoY due to continued slowdown in the macro advertising environment, busy sports calendar, and a higher base in Q4 FY 2024. Despite this, going forward, we are continuing to look at ways to maximize ad revenues and will remain cautious in the near term on the pace of our ad revenue growth.
We are also coming up with new strategies such as re-entering into FTA space, new genres and markets to drive our ad revenue by further capitalizing on our content and reach. Moving to subscription revenues, the impact of NTO 3.0 implementation and growth in digital subscription revenue have paved the way for growth during the year. FY 2025 subscription revenue is up by 7%. During Q4 FY 2025, subscription revenue remained flat QoQ due to a slowdown in the linear subscription, which was partially offset by the increase in digital subscription revenue. Further, from an industry backdrop perspective, the linear industry landscape remains in a healthy range with weekly impressions above 27 billion and weekly reach above 740 million. On the linear business front, we continue to be India's strong number two TV entertainment network. Our viewership share during FY 2025 was 16.8%.
Encouragingly, our efforts to regain viewership share of Zee Marathi have shown some uptick during the year. In Q4 FY 2025, our viewership share dropped by 20 basis points YoY due to the busy sports calendar, which was absent during the same period as the last year. Now, coming to the digital side, during this quarter, we Sankrantiki Vasthunam and Mrs. surpassed many OTT viewership records, underscoring our commitment to delivering high-quality and engaging content. This also reaffirms ZEE5's healthy KPIs for usage and engagement. ZEE5 revenue for the quarter was also aided by a revised pricing strategy in language packs, driving subscriber growth. In addition to this, there was a sale of non-exclusive rights of a movie, Viduthalai Part 2, in March 2025. Further, during the year, ZEE5 EBITDA loss has reduced by INR 5.6 billion to INR 5.5 billion from INR 11.1 billion in FY 2024.
That's about a 50% reduction in the EBITDA loss YoY. This is in line with our strategic priorities, and this also reiterates that we remain sharply focused on maintaining a balanced cost structure and driving return on investment to sustain our long-term growth. That rigor also applies to how we assess and evaluate each revenue opportunity. On the music business, Zee Music Company continues to be the number two music channel, driven by its new- age music catalog and a rich library with over 18,000 songs and garnering over 164 million subscribers on YouTube and nearly 190 billion total video views during FY 2025. Further, in the music business, our profitability remains fairly healthy. Coming now to the movie business, during the year, Zee Studios released 20 movies and achieved an all-time high in syndication revenue.
During the quarter, other sales and services revenues were up, both QoQ and YoY, on the back of such a higher number of movies produced, released, and syndicated. On a full-year basis, other sales and services revenue was down, as in the previous year, we had a strong box office performance of Gadar 2, Bro, and King of Kotha. Given the nature of movie business, there is always going to be some peaks and troughs. Coming now to comment on costs and profitability, the team's effort towards effective cost management across the businesses has led to a decline of 8% in overall operating costs during the year, resulting in a 390 basis points EBITDA margin improvement to 14.4%. While in Q4 FY 2025, operating costs had increased by 14% QoQ due to a higher number of movie releases and ILT20.
Profit after tax from continued operations for FY 2025 was at INR 6,874 million, and for Q4, it was INR 1,886 million. On the balance sheet side, our focused efforts have enabled us to further strengthen our liquidity and financial position. During the quarter, we generated a strong FCF driven by optimization of working capital and tax refunds. The cash and treasury investments increased during the quarter, and as of March 2025, stood at INR 24.1 billion, which includes a cash balance of INR 4.9 billion, fixed deposits of INR 7.6 billion, and investment in liquid mutual funds of INR 11.6 billion. Our content inventory continued to decline during the year, driven by optimized acquisition. March 2025 content inventory advances and deposits were at INR 70.5 billion, lower by INR 3.7 billion on a YoY basis.
Moving to FY 2026, we remain firmly committed to our stated aspiration for the year-end, and accelerating growth, profitability, and cash generation continues to remain our priorities. With this, I would like to hand it back to you, Yashasree.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone 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 a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We'll take a first question from the line of Kavish Parekh from Batlivala & Karani Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. We have demonstrated excellent cost control over the past few quarters, with the benefits clearly reflected in our margins. However, given the current softness in advertising revenues and my expectation that ad revenues will likely remain sluggish for a couple of quarters, I believe that any further margin expansion will depend largely on growth in this area. With that in mind, I would like to understand your approach to achieving 8%-10% revenue growth and 18%-20% margins in FY 2026.
Mr. Parekh, I think there are two aspects to this. One being our re-entry into the FTA space, which did not exist last year. There is a completely new segment of free-to-air where we've re-entered. That should help us to get some part of this achieved. Also, our aspirations with, as I spoke in my opening remarks about the miniseries and what we intend to do with ZEE5, etc., will aid this growth factor that we are looking for.
Understood. Understood. Secondly, I would like to get an outlook on the movie production and distribution side of the business for the next year.
We are looking at anywhere between 18-21 films that we will do next year. These will be largely handpicked on the basis of the content that resonates with the audiences, as we have looked at in the last 1.5 year to 2 years of what's working and what's not working. In terms of additional investments, that doesn't require any further investment from our side.
Understood. Just as a follow-up to my previous question, you mentioned about initiatives that you are taking to sort of get back on the growth path on the advertising side. So far, in Q1, anything that is worth highlighting that is working well for you, something that you would like to highlight?
Mr. Parekh, which investments should be uploaded? It will be uploaded by, I think, tonight or tomorrow morning itself. That will give you an idea on what are the areas we are entering into. Quarter- on- quarter, we will be reporting as to how what is faring for us. Let's not preempt that right now. Otherwise, the call will move from Q4 to those discussions.
All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Umang Mehta from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Punit, you mentioned about FTA. Actually, would it be possible to share what was the ad revenue from FTA before you all exited say two years back?
Umang, you can look at the drop that we had when we exited in terms of our ad revenue. You'll get an idea, but we don't call out these numbers specific to channels and genres. It will be difficult for me to call that out on a public call.
Okay. Okay. In other words, if I can just ask, do you expect ad revenues to grow this year? I mean, not putting a number, but at least the decline to stop in F 2026.
I certainly expect. As I said, I am an optimist, and I do believe that audience—sorry, advertising revenue—if it does not grow significantly, but it will certainly grow in the inflationary number that we have given in a high single-digit kind of stage.
Understood. Second one was on subscription. On a sequential basis, there's a drop in linear subscription. Anything particular that happened? What is the outlook there for the next year?
No, the only thing that has changed in the linear subscription is some of the churn that the pay-TV platforms are seeing, both on cable and satellite front. We are addressing that through various of our other initiatives like OTT and some more plans that we have. It is a work- in- progress. I do not think there is an overnight formula that we can fix it on, but we are working on it.
Got it. Just the last one on ZEE5, as you had a good kind of control on costs and losses have come down significantly. Going ahead, how do we look at this business? I mean, would you look to increase investments, increase growth, or would it be further reduction in loss for next year?
I think any reduction in losses now will be on the back of revenue growth. There is not much meat left in us to try and cut costs, if you understand what I'm saying. From that perspective, we will invest adequately as required to grow subscribers, both from an advertising perspective as well as from a subscription perspective.
Understood. Thanks a lot for the helpful. I'll go back and ask you. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Sameer Gupta from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Sir, firstly, if I look at FY 2025, the EBITDA margin has improved by almost 400 bp s, but this is fully driven by moderation in losses of ZEE5. In fact, if I just exclude ZEE5 revenue and EBITDA losses, the margins are actually down from 26% to 23%. And ZEE5 revenue growth here is just 6% for this year. Going forward, would it imply that improvement you're targeting, 18%-20% by exit of FY 2026? This would come at the cost of growth in ZEE5. A follow-up here is, what are the active subscriber numbers at ZEE5, and how do they compare with, let's say, a Hotstar?
Sameer, as I said just earlier, there is no more room for cost-cutting for expansion in the EBITDA margin. Anything that has to come now has to come from revenue growth. Part of the revenue growth, even in FY 2025, has come from the subscription revenue growth that we have seen. From that perspective, please do not expect any more cost-cutting to be there on any vertical. We are pretty much at our optimal level of cost rationalization and working. Sorry, what was the second question?
The active subscriber count in ZEE5 right now?
We don't generally give that number, but we are in the top three active subscriber base compared to our competitors in the country.
Sameer, just to go back to the first point you made about your conclusion on linear, please keep in mind that the advertising and subscription revenue, the linear business fundamentally has a very high degree of operating leverage. A lot of what you've seen play out in terms of advertising macro-led compression shows there. The reverse of this is also true when the growth comes back. It's not really a structural conclusion to draw on the underlying cost structure or margin of the business. It's just that that business has a very high degree of operating leverage, and it just flows through to margins. That's why you're seeing what you're seeing. Nothing to do with underlying health of the business.
Got it. Got it. I understand that. Thanks for this clarification, though. Sir, second question, if I may squeeze in. On the Star arbitration case, now I agree that there is a lot of uncertainty, but whatever you can answer, please, it will help. Now with the merger with Jio and Star completed, and you are now dealing with a different party in this, is there a possibility for an out-of-court settlement approach here? If so, what could be the financial implications of that strategy?
Sameer, it's very early days, but we are open to all possibilities that are available to us, both legal and non-legal in terms of out-of-court settlement, etc. It is very early for us to comment there at all. Vikas, anything you want to comment?
No, that's it. Pretty much that's what PG has said, and it's still a long way to go. We will get to know the outcome. As PG said, we are definitely open, and we are working on deploying all the strategies, legal or non-legal.
Sure, sir. If my memory serves right, the outcome is expected by early next year. Is that correct?
That's correct. Yes.
Got it, sir. I'll come back in the Q4 follow-up. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Jinesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead. Jinesh?
Am I audible?
Yes, you are, but there's a lot of disturbance. Can you use your handset mode, please?
Am I audible now?
Yes, you are, Dinesh.
Please go ahead.
Yeah. Sir, my question is on the other expense run rate of this quarter. If I look at the number, it is at about INR 87 crores. Historically, the run rate has been in the band of about INR 130- INR 150 crores. I just wanted to understand whether there is an element of one-off which you would want to call out.
Just give me a second, Dinesh.
Jinesh, in respect of the other expenses, there have been certain recoveries of bad debt, which have been or provisions made earlier, which have been reversed, which were no longer required, which has resulted into this reduced other expenses line item.
Yeah. Can you call out the number? Is it possible?
We're not calling out numbers, Jinesh, but this is just a reversal which you typically have as you close the quarter when you run some provisions based on debtors and then that kind of stuff. It is not something material. We're not calling it off. You could go back and look at maybe the last three quarters and work with that run rate when you're thinking from a modeling standpoint and so on.
You were right, Jinesh, to say that yes, it's a one-off.
Sure. Sir, secondly on ZEE5 EBITDA losses, I mean that INR 75 crore number definitely, I mean, if I compare it with the previous quarters, there is a material reduction that has come through. Can you just highlight which cost areas have been realigned the most? Would it be fair to assume that the reduction is basically driven by elements except for the content cost? I mean, content is critical for growth going ahead. I just wanted to know whether there has been any reduction on that side or not.
Jinesh, you have to look at it on an annualized basis. If you look at it on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it could mislead you. There was an indication of a film that sits in the revenue or, sorry, of the EBITDA loss reduction in this quarter. That is why you are seeing the INR 75 crore number. I think Mukund called it out, a movie called Viduthalai that we had sold outside. The annualized run rate is what you should look at to give you a better sense of what ZEE5 is going to be going for.
Just to add, Jinesh, like what we've said through the course of this year and previous quarters, the same operating leverage sort of stuff works here because cost has been largely streamlined. As you get incremental revenue, that sort of flows a little bit. If you see this quarter, you've seen some lift which has come in in revenue, partly because of syndication team we spoke about, but partly also just the underlying subscription revenue growth based on the language packs Mukund spoke about and so on. That also helps in overall margin. It's a combination of both.
Perfect. Contact. Just one last question from my side. I mean, is it possible to share what was our movie business revenue in FY 2025 and what proportion of that comes from overseas territories like the U.S.? I just wanted to get some context on the tax that Trump had proposed on non-U.S. films. I know it might be slightly difficult to preempt at this point in time, but I mean, is it possible to give some kind of color on what is the contribution from overseas territories like U.S.?
Jinesh, as I've been maintaining in multiple quarters in the past as well, please look at the business as a portfolio business. The U.S. or the international territories is a fraction of what the overall revenue of any of our business is. From that perspective, any impact to that is going to be miniscule from our perspective. We continue to treat this business as a strategic business because it is largely also feeding into our own ecosystem of television as well as OTT and music. Three verticals out of the four verticals that movies business operates in is feeding into our own organization. Please look at it from that perspective. I don't think that it's going to have any material impact whatsoever.
Got it. Got it. Thank you so much, sir, and all the best.
Thank you, Jinesh.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Aditya Chandrasekhar from UBS Group. Please go ahead. Aditya, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Sorry. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can.
Please go ahead.
Yeah. Just a quick question, more of a top-down one. Post the JioStar merger, just wanted to understand what you're seeing on the ground in terms of ad rates and in terms of content costs. Are we seeing some impact of this consolidation on slightly higher ad rates or maybe a bit more rationalized content costs? Maybe not immediately, but kind of what are you looking at over the next two, three quarters as this consolidation kind of gets absorbed and settled in? Just wanted to understand how we should think about overall kind of sector synergies post this consolidation. Thank you.
I think on the first part, on the advertising front, it's still very early days, Aditya. I do expect that eventually it will have a positive impact on the overall industry. Let's hope, keep up in this course for the best. As I said in my opening remarks, I am an optimist, so I will expect this also to benefit us. We are already seeing a lot of benefit flowing in on the acquisition of content. Probably not on the production yet because production, as you know, is already a commoditized business that we operate at with multiple suppliers. On acquisition of films, whether it is on films or the OTT business, we are already starting to see a lot of benefit flowing through for the entire industry.
Got it. Sorry, one follow-up. On the ad rate side, do you think that the merged entity of JioStar, they are kind of open to let ad rates go up, or are they being a bit more competitive and aggressive, kind of keeping status quo as of now? In other words, in near term, you do think that ad rates could go up, right, based on how they've been acting so far?
I think they're all in this business for making money, right? So I'm sure they will act in the interest of what is good for the industry.
Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Priyankar Sarkar from Square 64 Capital Advisors LLP. Please go ahead. Priyanka, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi sir. Good evening. Sir, I just wanted to zoom in a bit on the Zee Music. So what has been the growth for the music segment for the entire FY 2025? That's point one. Second follow-up to that is, what is the CapEx we are planning to do in acquiring new content?
I'll take the second one, which is what I've stated publicly in the past as well. Whatever CapEx we incur for acquisition of content is on the basis of what we run through our P&L. If we run INR 100 through our P&L, then INR 100 is available to us for newer acquisitions. On the first part, Vikas, you want to take it?
Yeah. In terms of the growth overall on the music segment, we have seen growth kind of tapering in single digits. The main reason being some of the homegrown streaming platforms have shut down or they have slowed down. If you strip them out of the equation and you see on a like-to-like basis on other platforms, the growth is pretty satisfactory. We are expecting all that to get settled already, would have settled in this year. From this year onwards, again, we are looking at the growth numbers inching up again.
Okay. Sorry, just one follow-up. Sorry, to clarify my question for the second part, I wanted the CapEx number for the music division and at least an indication.
I'm a bit. Same answer.
Yeah. See, CapEx division, we do not call out the numbers separately. As we said, whatever we are investing gets flow, I mean, it is flowing through the P&L. We make sure that we add enough adequate number of songs every year so that the library is refreshed and growing year on year.
Sure. Okay. Thank you very much. Wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Pankaj Mehendiratta from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions from my side. First one on ZEE5 and Punit's commendable job on lowering EBITDA losses. What next from here? Do you have a target in mind, let's say, breakeven in four quarters, six quarters? Anything that you would want to share?
I think I had already stated that sometime back that counting 2025, we were looking at a three-year time horizon for a breakeven. Given the softness in the market, it may shift a little bit up or a little bit lower, but it's not going to be significantly different from where we had. If there is any significant change to that, we will, of course, come back to you and give you enough adequate time and guide you on that.
Understood. Punit, any thoughts about adding a couple of more disclosures on the OTT side?
We are already considering that, and you will see that in the presentation that we will be uploading very soon.
Sure. That's helpful. The last question, and while we appreciate that the focus is now on growth and revenue going ahead, when you break it down into both your advertisement and subscription, what levers does management have in place, let's say, bearing the macro uncertainty, FMCG wants to deliver or not, a busy cricketing calendar season and all? What sort of growth levers do you perceive that would lead to, let's say, an 8%-10% sort of continued growth for the next two, three or four years? How do you want to think about that?
No, we have to leverage our biggest strength, which is the language market. That is where the growth will come from for both linear as well as for digital.
Okay. Good. That's it from my side. Thank you, Punit.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Abhishek Kumar from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening and thanks for taking my question. First up, any change in our guidance that we had provided earlier? Because I did not find that in the presentation, 18%-20% EBITDA margin next year, I mean, next to 2026. I mean, are we still sticking to that guidance, or is there any change in the timelines, etc.?
Yes, Abhishek. We are sticking to that same guidance.
All right. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Second question is on linear subscription. You mentioned some churn, etc., which resulted in sequential decline. How are we seeing the market evolving? Are instances of cord cutting continuing? Is there any stability in the number of pay-TV households? Also, the appetite for the market to absorb further price hikes from here?
The price hikes, if you look at historically, have been in single digits itself. The price hikes have not been very significant from that perspective. I think the churn is happening by a natural cause, but we are also still seeing that television penetration in India is still growing. Of course, a large part of that is going to free-to-air and potentially not coming to pay-TV. We are looking at the ecosystem, how it evolves over the next couple of years, but I'm pretty certain that it will stabilize at a certain level. Whenever it comes to the pay-TV subs, we'll stabilize. Of course, free-to-air will remain free-to-air.
Sure. Final question on the fund utilization, the INR 200 crore FCCB. Any plan, any target that you have identified, any timeline for when and where you want to deploy this fund? Thank you, sir.
From that, we are still evaluating a couple of assets as we speak, but we'll come back to you as soon as we find the right mix of the right valuation and any asset which gives us the right scalable opportunities. There are a few interesting assets which we are looking right now but haven't finalized yet.
Sure. Okay. Thank you and good luck.
Biggest lever for us when we consider any asset is that it has to be value-accretive to us.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Navid Virani from Bastion Research. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Please.
Hi, Navid. We cannot hear you clearly. Can you use your handphone?
Is it better now?
A little better. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yeah. Can I go ahead?
Yes, please.
Hello. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. First of all, congratulations on continuing your office for Unified in the mandatory this year. I just wanted a clarification on revenue and profitability for Unified. If I understood correctly, what you meant to say, the answer to some previous question was.
Navid, revenue growth that we.
We could not understand.
Has it read more, please?
Is it okay now?
Yeah. Better.
Yes. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Wanted one clarification regarding revenue growth and profitability for ZEE5. If I understood correctly, what you answered in one of your previous questions was the revenue growth that we see in ZEE5 this quarter was also driven by syndication revenue, which is one-off in nature, and that resulted in a stronger profitability or a better loss ratio, which might not be steady state going forward. Is that understanding correct, sir?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Please go ahead.
That's partly correct, Navid. Just to be clear, even if you would have taken syndication out, you would have still had revenue growth, and you would have still had improvement in the margin journey. The only point I want to leave you with is it is not that the quarter-on-quarter improvement you're seeing both on growth and margin is entirely because of that. Yes, the syndication deal is aided, but excluding that, there will still be improvement both in terms of growth and margin.
Perfect. Perfect. Understood. Is it fair to assume that the kind of losses that we saw in Q3 can continue to be steady state as far as ZEE5 is concerned until some more time?
Our aspiration, Navid, is going to be to reduce those losses on the basis of bringing in more growth in terms of revenue, both on advertising and subscription. If you wanted to model it from your perspective in your business case, yeah, that's a safe assumption to go with.
Perfect. Perfect. Thank you for the clarification. Wish you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you, Navid.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Mayur Awasthi, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Am I audible?
Yes, ma'am.
Yes. Go ahead.
Yeah. As we have seen in past two quarters, that our advertising revenue has declined. What do you foresee in the near coming two quarters? Might be advertising revenue will take offshoot? My second question is related to, I mean, this is apart from Q4, but considering the whole year for FY 2025, there were some cases that our competition in the market is again streaming on, and our prices in the market have also gone very down. Is there any case that a promoter is looking to increase the stakes?
On your first question on advertising, the market is still under pressure. Very difficult for me to project when the market will start bouncing back. We do expect that the bounce back will start very soon post the cricket calendar end for the entertainment networks. The second part, you mean it's about the pricing and promoter volume doing steady state?
Yes. I mean, see, we have a very competitive advantage as compared to the overall market. However, I mean, it impacts if the prices of the stock go down, right, in which case. However, it is not the true reality. If that is the case, then it will show some other pictures.
No, the promoter has always stated publicly that they would want to increase their stake at a certain stage going forward.
Understood. Just wanted to know that it was being told previously. In the coming quarters or in FY 2026, is there any possibility to, I mean, really come on that?
Mr. Mayur, as and when the board decides and there is an update, we will let you know as soon as possible.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Umang Mehta from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. Thanks for the follow-up. Just on ZEE5, if you can elaborate on what change did you all do for the regional market, and how salient are the regional kind of genres for ZEE5? Any color you can give would be helpful. Thank you.
We've had a strategic shift in terms of our pricing for the language market. Earlier, we were selling only one pack, which was all-you-can-eat across languages. Through our own research, we realized that the consumer feels that because their consumption is largely restricted to one or two languages, they are being cheated in terms of what we are charging them. Therefore, we have redesigned the entire pricing strategy, which was launched.
In December.
In December.
The results are visible in this quarter.
The results are already visible, as Mukund has said. Yeah, so that's what we intend to do.
I mean, how big? It's not numbers, but qualitative. Is it that the regional genres are dominant for ZEE5?
See, Umang, what happens is that content consumption is uniform across platforms as I look at it. The way the television market behaved, eventually the OTT market will behave the same way. Now, whether that happens in one quarter or that happens in two years' time, we have to wait and watch and transform ourselves from that perspective.
Understood. Okay. Sure. I'll take it offline. Thank you.
Yeah. Okay.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. On behalf of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.