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Info Edge Q2 total revenue up 14% at Rs 123.5Cr but net profit remains flat at Rs 33.3Cr

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info-edge-logoInfo Edge (India) Ltd, which runs sites such as Naukri.com and 99acres.com, reported 14 per cent rise in total revenue, which stood at Rs 123.5 crore for the three months ended September 30, 2013, over the year-ago period. Net profit remained almost flat at Rs 33.26 crore as compared to Rs 33.31 crore in the year-ago period, largely due to higher tax outgo.

The firm, however, reported better operating margins with EBITDA rising over 19 per cent in the same period.

Sequentially, revenues rose almost 2 per cent with EBITDA up around 19 per cent and net profit rising 13 per cent.

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The earnings per share (EPS) for the company was at Rs 3.05, an increase from Rs 2.69 from the previous quarter ended June 30, 2013. EPS was flat year-on-year.

These are standalone numbers and do not include financials of subsidiaries running sites such as Meritnation, PolicyBazaar and Zomato.

The firm also declared an interim dividend of Re 1 per equity share.

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"The job market continues to be tight but the company has weathered the slowdown reasonably well, partly helped by the IT sector being stable," said Hitesh Oberoi, CEO and MD, Info Edge.

While Info Edge did not make any new investments during the quarter, in the previous quarter, it had made a provision for diminution in carrying the value of its investment in Nogle Technologies that runs the social networking site Floost. Info Edge had invested a total of Rs 2.6 crore in the Noida-based firm and made provision for the entire investment as an exceptional item for the quarter.

In 2013, the firm had invested an additional Rs 30 crore ($5.5 million) in Applect, which runs an online education and assessment venture through Meritnation. It also invested Rs 55 crore ($10.07 million) more in Zomato Media, which runs Zomato.com, an online food and nightlife guide, and in the process converted Zomato from an associate company to a subsidiary.

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The company acquired MakeSense Technologies Pvt Ltd for around Rs 8 crore ($1.5 million). MakeSense has developed proprietary software for semantic search that will augment search capabilities for both recruiters and job seekers, principally on Info Edge's flagship site Naukri. The company also disclosed that it would make provision to write off its entire investment of around Rs 29.3 crore ($5.4 million) in Ninety Nine Labels Pvt Ltd, the company that runs the online private sales portal 99labels.com, during the quarter.

Key highlights

The Naukri site added around 10,900 fresh CVs on a daily basis in Q2, 2013 and the database grew to over 35 million CVs. In total, the site serviced 27,000 unique customers in the quarter.

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99acres.com made a loss of Rs 1 crore on account of brand building and growing investments in themes and product development. Paid listings on the site were at 5.6 lakh. The company will expand into 35-40 cities over the next few years, currently it has offices in around 15 cities.

Jeevansaathi.com saw an EBIDTA loss of Rs 80 lakh.

Siksha.com's net sales grew at over 60 per cent over the last year.

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Mobile accounts for about 15 to 30 per cent of the total traffic across properties, depending on the category. Naurki is launching an Android app this month, which will be followed by a 99acres app that is under development.

Info Edge has invested a total of Rs 285 crore in 9 companies so far, out of which three investments have been written off (Nogle Technologies, Floost and Studyplaces.com).

Zomato is looking to raise another round and the company will invest in the same along with another investor. The investment will be closed before the end of 2013.

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