HT Media has reported revenues of Rs. 2.05 crore for its Internet business Firefly eVentures, which operates the jobs classifieds site Shine.com, education portal HT Campus and social networking portal DesiMartini.com. Revenues for the segment are down 24.35% quarter on quarter, and almost double of Rs. 1.1 crore for Q3 last year, albeit on a low revenue base. Losses for the Internet segment were up to Rs. 10.7 crore, compared to Rs. 9.44 crore for the previous quarter. Much of these revenues would be from Shine.com, and typically, the third quarter of the year is the worst of the year for job portal businesses in India. As we had reported earlier, the group intends to merge Shine.com into HT Media Ltd, for tax purposes, and perceived synergy with their print business. According to notes to its accounts, by merging the Job Portal undertaking of Firefly (i.e. Shine.com) into HT Media Ltd, the company says that its tax expense for the current quarter and the nine month period ended December 31st 2010, is lower by Rs. 40.91 Crores. Note that this doesn't include revenues for news websites that are associated with HT Media publications - Livemint.com and Hindustantimes.com. In a press release, the company says that its digital business is showing 'encouraging results', and that Shine.com is gaining revenue traction, and like it did last quarter, says that new registrations are "close to the run rate of industry peers", referring to Info Edge owned Naukri.com, which is the only co that publishes this…
