Naukri Q2 Results Out On a Day When Stock Markets Globally Melt Down

Naukri Q2 Results Out On a Day When Stock Markets Globally Melt Down

Infoedge (Naukri.com) has released its quarterly numbers are has reported a net income of Rs 15.67 crore for quarter ended September 2008, which is a 3.5 per cent growth over previous year. Total income is up by 24 per cent to Rs 72.32 crore as compared to Rs 58.50 crore a year ago.

According to Ambarish Raghuvanshi, CFO and Director, Info Edge India, has said, “The company’s results are good considering the difficult operating environment. We have continued to grow, albeit slowly despite the downturn in hiring levels. Other businesses, especially 99acres.com grew very appreciably. We therefore have engines of growth for the future which we are continuing to invest in.”

We had Interviewed the Infoedge COO Hitesh Oberoi yesterday who also felt that the growth would be slow in the year ahead.

Growth in portals like Jeevansathi.com and 99acres has been impressive though at 98.9 per cent and 40.3 per cent respectively. Though given that that non naukri revenue only contributes 12% this growth would have little or no impact on overall numbers.

Well Naukri numbers come out on a day when a global financial meltdown and Naukri’s own stock was down 5% today while it had lost close to 30% from the levels at which it got listed on the stock market in november 2006. while BSE Sensex crashed 13% down 1138 points. We had taken the VC’s view on the slowdown and it seems they were right when they called the slowdown to be 2-3 years. As analysts on Cnbc Tv18 one of the leading financial news channels have also been predicting atleast a 2 year long slowdown.

Web18 Reports Q2 Loss of 24.2 Crores - Claims No.2 Postion In Indian Internet Space

Web 18 has reported a net loss of 24.22 crores as per this release of their Q2 results. A look at the numbers shows that their earnings are around 15.26 crores and the expenses are 34.2 crores. Now as one may know most of web18’s earnings are from their financial portal moneycontrol.com which till now was their most premium and most successful web property (Given the stock market boom since 2 years). Ofcourse after the global financial meltdown this could change as the traffic number could come down with retail investors logging off after a bitter experience with the market.

On the other hand the expenses would have been primarily driven by the TV and marketing spends to promote In.com which if you ask me has not yet hit the advertisers radar or else why would they monetize using google ads on the homepage (scroll down)

In.com Achieves No.2 Status? Integration At Play?

The release also claims that the In.com has achieved no.2 status as a web property (as per comscore and google analytics) ahead of indiatimes, sify. Well the last time we checked via alexa and google trends they still had some time before they overtook indiatimes.Though this claim may become a reality once these charts start showing the effect of the integration of sites like cricketnext and tech2 with In.com.

Consolidation of Traffic & Ad sales = Mantra for growth during tough times?

Till now though moneycontrol has been kept separate but it may not be so in the future as given the slowdown the biggest challenge for In.com will be to attract advertisers and fill up the revenue loss that would be created by retail investors moving away from the markets and there by moneycontrol in what’s touted to be a bearish market for some time to come in the future. Hence consolidation traffic and selling one large property that many niche properties would be very useful for In.com. Also which means a singular sales team can sell everything thats on offer and there may not be separate sales teams for ads sales.

Question-Answers

Q) How do you plan to reach out to advertisers for BigAdda? What steps, strategy are you taking?

There are two parts to our strategy for reaching out to advertisers for BigAdda.

The first is via agencies. Our intent is to support agencies in their use of online video as a part of their media plans. There are many agencies who have a desire to use online video but are not necessarily equipped with the tools, technologies and publisher network to be able to effectively execute an online video campaign. Our intent is to support these agencies and function as their inhouse online video experts. We have relationships with all top tier agencies, and the expansion of our marketing/tech support staff is intended to grow these relationships. Currently, we have offices in Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore and will open an office in Mumbai in the next 3 weeks – allowing us to effectively support agencies nationwide.

The second part of our strategy is to gain exposure for our online video advertising products and services directly to advertisers via our marketing efforts in India. We will be very visible in the online advertising world in India through participation and sponsorship of events such as the last IAMAI conference in Mumbai. This strategy working quite well, as we have initiated discussions with several premium brand advertisers as an outcome of these marketing efforts in the past few weeks.

In each of the above aspects of our strategy, we have positioned BigAdda inventory as premium inventory which is great for targeting an important emerging demographic in India. The response to BigAdda inventory has been very positive from our prospect base, and you can expect to see us initiating several campaigns on BigAdda this month (October.)

Q) What kind of margins would Jivox earn from the BigAdda deal?

I’d prefer not to reveal the specific details of our financial relationship; but will note that it is a win-win relationship.

Q) What are the standard revenue share that you have with publishers?

It depends on the level of engagement, the type of technology we have provided to the publisher, the marketing support for the relationship, etc. A number between 20% and 50% (to Jivox) is the typical range within which we operate.

Q) What are the kind of publishers (size, traffic, type of content etc) that you are looking to partner with in India?

We partner with premium publishers who have a significant amount of video content. We are specifically NOT interested in the long tail model which includes small (relative to traffic) sites with (potentially) unlicensed content. Our advertisers prefer to have their online video presence on those publishers who host premium, licensed content on high traffic sites and can embed instream video ads. Sites such as rajshri.com, ibnlive.com and bigadda.com are part of our network and are great examples of the kind of sites we like to partner with.

Q) What kind of ads does Jivox allow (Pre roll, post roll, player branding?) Also do you have any tools to create these ads for advertisers?

All of the above (pre, post and player branding) are possible with Jivox.

Tools for ad creation are a core part of our strategy. At our public site www.jivox.co.in and www.jivox.com we host a free product called “AdSlate” (http://slate.jivox.com/advertiser/login.php) which allows advertisers and agencies to rapidly create compelling video ads. “AdSlate” has available hundreds of licensed stock video and audio clips which users can use to quickly create a relevant video advertisement. The tool has sophisticated capabilities to add text, images, custom audio tracks, etc. and specify timing transitions between them to completely customize the video, and convey the appeal of a brand effectively.

Q) Who are the current Indian advertisers on your network? What is your projected revenue for the next year/3 years from India?

In India, we have several dozen advertisers. Nokia, Bharathmatrimony and Isango! are a representative sampling of our current advertisers.
As a private company, we do not discuss specific revenue figures, but I will note that we have a dominant share of the current Indian video advertising market as an independent (non-publisher) premium video advertising network and expect to maintain that market share in the coming years.

Q) How big do you see the video advertising market in India to be in 3-5 years? And what would be the reasons for that growth?

It is currently quite small (less than 50 crores), but all indications are that this number will be at least 20x that size in 3 to 5 years. The reasons for the growth are the 1/ increasing availability of video content – which in turn drives the availability of inventory for video advertising 2/ increasing percentage of Indian viewers who see video as a mainstream (and exclusive) medium to receive news, entertainment, etc. 3/ The increasing availability of high bandwidth internet connectivity which fuels the previous 2 trends and finally 4/ requirements from advertisers for media that can effectively convey the unique value proposition and emotional appeal of their brands – which video can do better than most other forms of media.