40% Of JustDial's Mobile Traffic Is From Apps; On Monetization Of New Products

Online and telephone business listings service JustDial had reported 2.39 lakh paid listings (2,38,650 paid listings) for the quarter ended September 30, 2013, up 27% year-on-year. It had reported increased profits of Rs 28.66 crore for the quarter, up 98.7% from Rs 14.48 crore profit in the same quarter last year. Here are some notes from JustDial’s earnings conference call:

– Mobile contribution to JustDial’s total usage doubled YoY to 20% this quarter, from 10% in the same quarter last year. Mobile traffic was up 168% to 24.3 million while mobile searches was up around 230% YoY.

– 40% of its mobile Internet traffic comes from its mobile apps. JustDial currently offers mobile apps across Android, iOS and BlackBerry.

– Shifting usage from desktop to mobile? Responding to an analyst question, JustDial founder and CEO VSS Mani noted that they are also witnessing an increasing number of people accessing the service through phone or tablet, however it doesn’t affect their business since the monetization still remains the same.

– On monetization of new products: Mani said the focus of its newly launched services is currently focused on user acquisition. “We know for sure that we will be able to immensely monetize it at sometime, right now that is not a thinking in our mind”. The idea behind this platform seems to be providing an online capability to all the offline stores.

Some of the probable monetization options include providing these products for free for existing sponsored listings as part of their campaign or working on a lead-based model, wherein businesses who are not yet on its sponsor listing or the premium listing model, pay a commission for every lead generated for their business.

– Forthcoming Services: JustDial also plans to launch bus ticketing, rail ticketing, air ticketing, and hotel booking in the future. “But we will not be advertising aggressively by saying this is the destination for booking air tickets, or this is the destination for booking hotels. We are giving one single platform for you.”

– Around 4,700 restaurants are currently live on JustDial’s online food ordering service and the company intends to expand this to about 10,000 restaurants.

– JustDial increased the number of sales and marketing employees by around 100 employees, especially the feet on street through its JD Ambassador program. This resulted in the increase in employee cost during the quarter. Yearly increments of 9%- 10% and one-time reward of around 0.75% – 0.8% of its revenue to its senior managers also contributed to the increase in employee cost.

– It will be hiring at least 1,000 more employees in sales (especially feet on street) over the next two to three quarters. Responding to an analyst question, JustDial founder and CEO VSS Mani said this is because they need to actually show and tell their products & services to potential customers now. “They are not just educating people, they are actually highly profitable centers. They recover more than their salaries and start contributing to the bottom line”.

– JustDial will be spending on advertising in the ongoing quarter (Q3-FY14), the amount of which will be determined during the course of the quarter and in Q4-FY14. JustDial CFO Ramkumar Krishnamachari however didn’t disclose any specific details on this.

– Employee Break-up: JustDial currently has 8,213 employees as of September 30, 2013, of which 2,150 employees are answering calls which has declined by 6%-7% from the quarter. 3,900 employees are in sales and marketing division, of which 3,000 are in tele sales and around 1,000 are feet on street. It also has around 600 people in its evangelist program. Rest are in technology, database and other departments.

Read – JustDial Q2-FY14 Concall Transcript