FMCG, retail, BFS & Ecommerce witnessed strong tailwind in Q3 FY22: Piyush Gupta, HT Media

Gupta, Group CFO, HT Media Ltd., highlighted during the Q3 earnings call that the company witnessed the robust revenue recovery in nearly all advertising categories In Q3 FY22, HT Media’s total revenue grew by 28% to Rs 501 crores. While, consolidated revenue growth y-o-

by Team PITCH
Published - February 17, 2022
3 minutes To Read
FMCG, retail, BFS & Ecommerce witnessed strong tailwind in Q3 FY22: Piyush Gupta, HT Media

Gupta, Group CFO, HT Media Ltd., highlighted during the Q3 earnings call that the company witnessed the robust revenue recovery in nearly all advertising categories In Q3 FY22, HT Media’s total revenue grew by 28% to Rs 501 crores. While, consolidated revenue growth y-o-y was 28% and was 14% sequentially, which is led by growth across all the business segments, said Group CFO, Piyush Gupta, during HT Media Group's financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022. While sharing his perspective on the performance for the quarter, Gupta shared that consolidated EBITDA, at Rs 107 crores, which is Rs 49 crores increase versus Q3 of FY '21 and the margins have come to a very robust level of 21%.   “EBITDA margin expansion happened despite an inflationary newsprint price environment, which we shall also be covering as we move forward. PAT came in at Rs 51 crores with a 10% margin. This is the highest in the last 14 quarters,” noted Gupta.   According to Gupta, the ad revenue from the print business came to Rs 323 crores, which is a 37% growth versus the period last year. Circulation revenue grew by 16% at Rs 54 crores. Hence, the total operating EBITDA came at Rs 396 crores versus Rs 289 crores, which is a 37% growth. Operating EBITDA came at a very handsome Rs 87 crores, which is a 3x improvement over the same period last year with an operating EBITDA margin at 22%. “This has happened because of a sharp increase in ad revenue driven by a strong festive season. And of course, there was a strong impetus of government advertising given the multitude of state election spending during the quarter. Circulation revenue growth on the back of recovery of copies in circulation and continued improvement in realization per copy has been witnessed in this quarter. Better operating EBITDA and margins are driven by top line growth primarily. If we just break it down into English and Hindi. This is our English Print business, the ad revenues, there's a growth of 47% at Rs 176 crores on a y-o-y basis and 32% growth on a quarter-on-quarter basis.” Gupta said that for the company's circulation revenue, there's a quarter-on-quarter growth of 43% and a y-o-y growth of 129%. Therefore, the robust revenue recovery in nearly all advertising categories was witnessed, substantial growth in ad revenues as well as improvement in yields. “The ad revenues in Hindi on a quarter-on-quarter basis grew 30% to Rs 148 crores; and on a y-o-y basis, a 26% growth. Circulation revenue on a quarter-on-quarter basis was reasonably flat at 2%; on a y-o-y basis, a marginal improvement of 5%. And the strong traction in ad revenues is due to the festive season, government revenues were also better. Categories such as FMCG, retail, BFS and e-commerce witnessed a strong tailwind. Circulation revenue growth continues to grow and with the focus on realizations. However, there was muted advertising from categories such as auto, education, medical, health and fitness.” The digital business of HT Media which also had a robust y-o-y growth of 42%, with revenues coming at Rs 36 crores as against Rs 25 crores, he said that the operating margin came to a breakeven level. In the radio segment, he said, “ happy to report that our Radio revenues also grew at 27% y-o-y. We would have it slightly higher but as you know, Radio has a lot of headwinds. But suffice to say, in this environment, Radio reported a positive EBITDA of Rs 5 crores during the quarter.”

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