"Justdial has historically been a good company in the telephone-based directory market. However, B2B markets experience strong network effects — it’s not a one or two quarter game, and it takes decades to build a strong B2B platform,” said Dinesh Agarwal, CEO and MD of B2B marketplace IndiaMART. Agarwal was responding to an investor’s query during a call with investors on Tuesday to discuss the company’s Q2 performance, about how IndiaMART viewed Justdial launching its own B2B marketplace — JD Mart. The company saw a jump of 706% over last year in net profit, as it raked in ₹70 crore, as opposed to ₹9 crore last year. Despite the new competition, Agarwal said that IndiaMART doesn’t see any immediate need to increase its advertising spending for increasing customers or platform traffic. “In any case, we don’t see advertising as a means to acquire traffic or customers. Advertising only helps in brand recall,” he added. IndiaMART registered a traffic growth of 32% YoY with 259 million in Q2 FY21 as compared to 196 million in Q2 FY21. Total business enquiries delivered increased to 175 million from 123 million, a growth of 42% YoY. Supplier Storefronts grew to 6.2 million in Q2 FY21, an increase of 9% YoY and paying subscription suppliers grew to 141 thousand, a growth of 3% YoY. ‘Learning from dukaan-tech companies’ Digital collection vs physical collection: When asked why the company still relied on a physical collection process, Agarwal said that 95% of the revenue that the company…
