Nazara Technologies Q4 profit rises to Rs 4.2 crore, revenue up 41%

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed gaming company Nazara Technologies has reported net profit for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2021 at Rs 4.2 crore, against the loss of Rs 7.02 crore reported a year ago.

The company saw a 41.7% year-on-year increase in revenue while its revenue from operations touched Rs 123.38 crore in Q421, up from Rs 87 crore a year ago in the same period. Sequentially, it saw a slight decline of 5.3% from Rs 130.03 crore in the previous quarter, the company said. 

Nazara had made its public market debut on March 30, 2021, a day before the fourth quarter ended. 

“For FY21, we clocked a total operating revenue growth of 84% on YoY bases and profits of Rs.136 Mn (Rs 13.6 crore),” Manish Agarwal, CEO at Nazara Technologies, said in a statement. 

Gamified early learning, offered through the Kiddopia platform, stood out as the top business segment for Nazara, contributing 39% of the total operating revenue recorded (Rs 454.2 crore) throughout the financial year. This was followed by the eSports category, which includes Nodwin Gaming and Sportskeeda, as well as telco subscriptions with revenue contributions of 37% and 17% respectively.  

The revenue from real money games -- Halaplay and Qunami -- and individual freemium offerings such as World Cricket Championship (WCC) was the lowest at Rs 13.8 crore and Rs 19.5 crore. 

On the product side, Nazara said, average monthly active users (MAUs) across all offerings rose 56% YoY to 62.59 million. 

“Prudent financial management is in our DNA. This is clearly evident from Rs. 4,784 million (Rs 478.4 crore) of cash reserves including liquid investments as well as zero debt on our balance sheet,” Agarwal added in the statement.  

“We will efficiently utilize our cash balance to fund any inorganic growth opportunities - from building capabilities to geographic and demographic expansions in our domain of operation,” he said. 

As per an analysis from Frost and Sullivan, the Indian gaming sector is expected to hit $3.5 billion by 2023, surpassing the highly popular Bollywood industry.