HT Media's digital biz revenue up 35.7% at Rs 13.31Cr in Q2, cuts losses

Media and publishing group HT Media recorded Rs 13.31 crore in revenues from the digital segment for the quarter ended September 30, 2012. This marks 35.67 per cent growth over the second quarter of the previous fiscal while revenues grew 10.3 per cent sequentially over the preceding quarter ended June 30. The company's digital business includes the job portal Shine.com, which competes with the likes of Naukri.com, among others, and HTCampus.com.

Losses from the digital business was pegged at Rs 9.97 crore last quarter as against Rs 10.78 crore in Q2 of FY12 while it also cut losses around 15 per cent sequentially. This shows that the digital business is slowly improving its performance after clocking more losses than revenues during FY12.

According to the company, during the last quarter, it invested Rs 3.1 crore afresh through compulsory convertible debentures (CCDs) of HT Digital besides converting previously issued CCDs worth Rs 6 crore into shares of the digital arm.

Shine.com records 5.2 million engaged candidates in Q2, up from 5 million as of June 30, 2012, and 2 million in Q2 last year (with revenue growth of 61 per cent over the year-ago period). HTCampus.com has more than doubled its revenue and its operations are profitable at gross margin level. HT Mobile continues to grow with 9 per cent increase in revenue.

HT Media, which publishes the English daily Hindustan Times besides the Hindi daily Hindustan and the business daily Mint, as a whole reported total revenues of Rs 510 crore, up 4 per cent over the year-ago period. HT Media's net profit declined 24 per cent over the year-ago period, largely due to shrinking margins in the core printing and publishing business.

The radio & broadcast segment, which clocked Rs 2.38 crore profit as against the loss of Rs 4.54 crore in Q2 of FY12, saw revenues rise 26 per cent to Rs 19.92 crore in the last quarter.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)