Zee5 now has now 61.5 million monthly active users, adding 5.2 million new MAUs between December 2018 and March 2019. Parent company Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited reported revenue of ₹2,019.3 crore, which is 17% higher than the last quarter, for the quarter ending 31 March, 2019 (Q4FY19). Total revenue for FY18-19 grew by 18.7% YoY to ₹7,933.9 crore.

Zee5 metrics:

  • MAUs: 6.15 crore in March 2019, growth slowed from as the previous quarter had seen a growth of 36% to 5.63 crore MAUs between September 2018 and December 2018.
  • Average time spent: 31 minutes per day, flat over the previous quarter
  • Original content: 60 shows and movies across 6 languages, including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi

Partnerships:

  • Signed a content partnership deal with Vodafone Idea — Zee5 content is now available on Vodafone Idea’s apps; Zee5 bundled its service with Gaana
  • Launched customised app on KaiOS for Reliance Jio feature phone users
  • Added Amazon Pay as a payment partner

Expansion:

  • Commenced roll-out in priority markets — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia

Financials:

  • Quarterly revenue: ₹2,019.3 crore, up 17% over last quarter
  • Annual revenue: ₹7,933.9 crore, up 18.7% over last year
  • Quarterly expenditure: ₹1,451 crore, up 16% over last quarter
  • Annual expenditure: ₹5,370 crore, up 16.5% over last year
  • Profit after Tax (PAT): ₹1,567.1 crore, growth of 6% over previous year
  • ZEEL’s “unexpected” domestic advertising revenue growth of 17.7% to ₹1,157.5 crore in this quarter was aided by Zee5; TV entertainment spends were not expected to have grown as much because of disruption by the TRAI order, said the company
  • Domestic advertising revenues for FY18-19 grew by 19.8% YoY, partly because of monetisation of Zee5’s users, the company said
  • Programming cost increased by 28.1% YoY due to content cost for Zee5, full quarter impact of Kerala channel launch, and elevated costs for the movie production and distribution business. FY18-19 registered a programming cost increase of 21.7%.
  • Advertising and publicity costs for the quarter increased by 46% YoY because of higher marketing costs for Zee5, TRAI tariff order and Manikarnika. For the whole year, they increased by 10.8%.