Just Dial to launch price discovery engine; Q2 revenues up 29% to Rs 112.6Cr while net profit almost doubles

Mumbai-based Just Dial Ltd, which runs the online business directory Justdial.com, has reported a 98 per cent growth in net profit for the quarter ended September 30, 2013, boosted by a 23 per cent growth in paid listing.

Net profit for the quarter stood at Rs 28.66 crore compared with Rs 14.48 crore in the same quarter last year. Operating revenue grew 29 per cent to Rs 112.66 crore.

Just Dial's operating EBITDA for the quarter increased 43 per cent to Rs 35.23 crore. Operating EBITDA margin rose to 31 per cent in September 2013 quarter compared with 28 per cent last year.

However, sequentially, the net profit was almost flat while revenue rose 7.5 per cent over the quarter ended June 30. Operating EBITDA declined marginally and EBITDA margin shrank 400 basis points from 35 per cent in Q1 FY14. Net margins also declined marginally compared with the first quarter.

"We continue to witness robust revenue growth and margin expansion in Q2. As part of our strategy to provide users with convenience & ease of performing online transactions, we are developing various products in the transaction enablement space. We hope to launch some of these in the next few quarters," Just Dial managing director and CEO, VSS Mani, said in a statement.

Just Dial received approximately 122.6 million visits (both from PCs and mobiles) in Q2 FY14 compared with 90.3 million in Q2 FY13, representing a 36 growth year on year. The company said that this growth resulted in approximately 291.8 million searches in the just concluded quarter compared to 202.6 million in Q2 FY13. This represents a Y-o-Y growth of 44 per cent.

Internet platform (both PC and mobile) contributed 68 per cent of total usage in Q2 this year, compared to 61 per cent in the same quarter in the previous year. Of this, mobile visits contributed to 20 per cent.

As of September 30, 2013, the company was conducting approximately 238,650 campaigns for its paid advertisers compared with 187,784 as of September 30 last year. Paid listing also rose over 7 per cent sequentially.

Just Dial's database consisted of approximately 10.1 million listings as of September 30, 2013, compared with 8.2 million listings the same time last year.

New products

The company, which recently added transaction-based services on its platform with online food ordering, said in a press statement that it is building an online transaction platform focused on services, in addition to search and discovery of service providers.

The firm also plans to launch a comprehensive price discovery engine along with an online platform for various goods. For businesses, this online platform will provide an opportunity to get discovered and open up an additional channel of distribution.

It added that it will not be engaged in e-commerce directly but will instead focus on connecting its customers with local merchants and will allow consumers to browse catalogues and place orders online. Just Dial will not be involved in fulfilment of products or services, nor will it build warehouses or own any inventory.

This could be a product similar to Amazon's first India-specific product Junglee.com. There are various other such products and price discovery search engines which guides consumers to sellers of a particular product. For Just Dial, this would add to its revenue streams.

During the last quarter, the company launched or made progress in building products focused on restaurant food order & table reservation, wine order, movie/event ticketing, cab booking, doctor's appointment, grocery order and flower delivery order.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)