Coming off a strong festive season, Network18’s Digital Commerce revenues declined only marginally (around 3%) at Rs 81.9 crore for the quarter ended March 31st 2013 (Q4-FY13), down from Rs 84.4 crore the previous quarter. Given how lop sided commerce can be in favor of the festive season, they’ve done quite well; year on year, Network18 showed strong growth in its commerce business, with revenues up 126.87% from Rs 36.10 crore reported for Q4 last year. It’s not clear if this is the combined revenue of HomeShop18 and BookMyShow, since there is no break up for digital commerce revenues provided for the quarter.
Combined revenues for the quarter from Digital Content and Commerce were Rs 110.4 crores, registering a growth of 200%, over the corresponding quarter last year (adjusted for the sale of Newswire18).
Digital Content Business
Network18’s Digital Content operations recorded revenues of Rs 28.4 crores for the quarter, growing by 43.43% year on year from Rs 19.8 crore for the same quarter last fiscal, and 26.79% quarter on quarter from Rs 22.4 crore. What’s notable here is that the advertising revenues for Web18’s content properties will typically be high in this quarter since the Union Budget is announced in Q4,and MoneyControl.com, Web18’s financial portal and main source of online advertising revenues, does particularly well in this quarter. Note that this overall revenue figure includes revenues generated from its digital properties including moneycontrol.com, in.com, ibnlive.com and firstpost.com.
What Network18 hasn’t reported in the results is that it appears to have integrated CricketNext, a portal it bought back in 2006, into IBNLive during the quarter. Some key management changes at the content division recently: R. Jagannathan was appointed Editor in Chief of Network18’s Web & Publishing division. Rajan Srinivasan was appointed IBNLive CEO, while Joyson Thomas was made CEO of Moneycontrol recently.
Note: digital content and commerce revenues for Q2-FY12 have not been made public yet.
FY13 Results
Network18’s reported revenues for Digital Content and Commerce for the year were Rs 400.9 crores, up 193%, over the previous year (adjusted for the sale of Newswire18). The company says that Bookmyshow.com revenues grew 75% year over previous year, while HomeShop18 continued to scale across key operating parameters. Homeshop18 reported revenue growth of 250% over the previous year.
Exists & Stake Sales: AskMe, Newswire18, HomeShop18, BookMyShow
During the year, Network18:
– Sold its its entire stake in Newswire18 for a profit
– Divested its Yellow Pages and Askme businesses to Getit
– Diluted its majority stake in Bookmyshow, with BookMyShow raising Rs 100 crore. BookMyShow also acquired ticketing site TicketGreen.
“These transactions are in line with our stated objective of divesting stakes in non-core assets to create value for our shareholders and allowing infusion of growth capital in these assets to propel them to the next stage. The aforementioned transactions cumulatively added Rs. 180 crores to our profits for the year and raised Rs. 235 crores of cash for the Network18 group.”
Following the end of the fiscal, Network18 also entered into an agreement with OCP Asia Ltd. to raise growth capital of $30 Million in its TV and online commerce business HomeShop18.
