Directory services company JustDial reported an operating revenue of Rs 179.61 crore, up 15% year-on-year (YoY), for the quarter ended March 2016 (Q4 FY16). Sequentially, operating revenues were up 4.83% from Rs 171.33 crore. JustDial’s employee count increased to 11,142 from 10,198 employees.
In Q2 FY16, JustDial had said that said revenue growth was hit as the company did not make adequate hiring for its sales team. Last quarter, the company said it would be adding more than 4,000 employees to handle sales for the company over the next 9-10 months.
Net profit stood at Rs 35.3 crore, down 25% from Rs 47.16 crore in the same quarter last year. On a sequential basis, net profit increased 30% from Rs 26.99 crore.
However, despite the recent hires, employee related costs increased marginally to Rs 97.76 crore from Rs 95.36 crore in the preceding quarter. Employee costs accounted for 31.6% of total costs.
JustDial Omni
During the quarter, JustDial also launched JD Omni, an inventory management product to help small businesses manage their online and offline sales, and said that it saw setup fees of Rs 3.65 crore recognized in the quarter.
Omni will help small businesses and shops get their own website complete with a payment gateway. “In 10 minutes a person can get going with his own website fully in the sense enabled with payment gateway, he can start using it as a POS system, if it is got a retail outlet,” Mani had explained. Mani added that by getting customers on the Omni platform, JustDial Marketplace will get the complete inventory of the store.
Listings business
The company conducted 368,800 paid campaigns for advertisers in Q4-FY16, registering a 11% increase in the number of campaigns, as compared with 331,200 campaigns in the same quarter last year. It had reported 354,900 paid campaigns in the preceding quarter. Campaigns are essentially paid featured listings/recommendations on JustDial’s search. JustDial made Rs 4870 per paid campaign.
JustDial’s overall listings grew 9% to 16.3 million in the quarter from 15 million listings in the same period last year. On a sequential basis, the company reported overall listings growth of 1.24% from 15.8 million. The company currently has 30 search plus services live on the platform.
Other developments
JustDial bought back shares worth nearly Rs 165 crore from shareholders during the quarter. The transaction was carried out at the price of Rs 1,550 per share payable in cash. The company used its free reserve capital to carry out the transaction.
Download: Financials
