DB Corp Q3 FY17 revenues up 6% at Rs 6,309 mn; PAT grows by 7%

DB Corp, home to flagship newspapers Dainik Bhaskar, Divya Bhaskar, Dainik Divya Marathi and Saurashtra Samachar, has reported a 6 per cent growth in its consolidated total revenue at Rs 6,309 million for the third quarter ended December 31, 2016 from Rs 5,947 million in Q3 of last fiscal.

Profit After Tax (PAT) grew by 7 per cent YOY at Rs 1,181 million (PAT margin 19 per cent) in Q3 FY17, against Rs 1,107 million (PAT margin 19 per cent) in Q3 of last year, after considering forex loss of Rs 26.7 million.

EBIDTA grew by 4 per cent YOY to Rs 2,019 million with EBIDTA margin of 32 per cent for the quarter, against EBITDA of Rs 1,944 million (margin 33 per cent) in Q3 FY16, after considering forex loss of Rs 10.4 million.

Advertising revenues for Q3 FY17 reported a growth of 4 per cent YOY to Rs 4,530 million from Rs 4,356 million in Q3 of last fiscal, while circulation revenue increased 9 per cent YOY to Rs 1,243 million from Rs 1,141 million, primarily due to yield driven growth, largely growth has come from mature market.

The group’s radio business continues to be strongly positioned ahead of peers: retail model has been delivering results with focus on localised revenue streams for better ROI to advertisers and higher profitability for the channel. Advertising revenues for the radio business expanded by 12 per cent YOY to Rs 363 million in Q3 FY17, against Rs 323 million in Q3 of last fiscal.

Radio business EBIDTA grew by 3 per cent YOY at Rs 148 million (41 per cent margin), with the radio business maintaining highest EBIDTA margin amongst all major peers.

Radio business PAT grew by 3 per cent YOY to Rs 81 million (22 per cen margin).

Meanwhile, DB Corp’s digital business revenue grew by 33 per cent to Rs 162 million in Q3 FY17 from Rs 123 million reported during the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

Dainik Bhaskar Digital has become the second largest digital group in the country, while DainikBhaskar.com (www.bhaskar.com), the flagship website continues to be the second largest news site (Source: comScore Nov’2016).

Digital Media continues to attract exponential viewership, with the current focus on user experience which is expected to be a key driver of online traffic. Digital Media Unique Visitors (UV) rose to 80 million in December 2016 versus 27 million in December 2015 (growth of ~3x in); Page Views (PV) rose to 2.6 billion for December 2016 from 784 million in December 2015. 8.5 million app downloads were seen for Dainik Bhaskar and Divya Bhaskar.

Commenting on the performance for Q3 and 9M FY2016-17, Sudhir Agarwal, Managing Director, DB Corp, said, “The resilience of our business model and strength of our operating strategy has been brought to the fore by our performance in Q3, which has broadly been a quarter of weak demand and subdued consumer spending and I take this opportunity to thank the team for their sincerity and dedication. Dainik Bhaskar has been acknowledged as the nation’s largest circulated multi-edition daily by RNI, which is again an endorsement of our operating approach and philosophy. We have undertaken several growth oriented initiatives across all our print, digital and radio segments that have made a holistic impact on the business. We will continue to maintain this discipline and control at all levels while we are also empowering employees to enhance agility in the workplace.”

He further said, “We expect the immediate-to-midterm impact of the currency purge undertaken by the Government, on consumption, to normalise over the next few months, a process which has already slightly started improving. We will continue to sharpen our strengths across our print and non-print businesses as well as our deep knowledge of our customers’ domain that are driving our ability to play a strategic role in the Indian M&E environment.”