Infoedge India Ltd, the owners of internet portals such as Naukri.com, 99acres, and JeevanSathi, has reported a dip in net sales in Q1 this year to Rs 52.9 crore from Rs 63.12 crore during the same period last year. However, the company has managed to keep the profitability a little higher with Rs 13.30 crore in Q1 2009-10 compared to Rs. 12.97 crore for Q1-2008-09.
"The sales dip in Q1 was expected, but we are hoping for a recovery by end of Q3," said Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Managing Director of Info Edge, to VCCircle. He added that there was an 8% increase in hiring in June over May. The sectors that saw a dip in hiring were export driven sectors like IT, real estate, retail and media & advertising.
The company has managed to cut costs and keep its bottomline healthier in a tough economic environment where hiring had seen decline across the sectors. The employee cost declined to Rs. 20.85 crore in Q1-10, from Rs. 24.34 crore in Q1-09; advertising and promotion costs were down to Rs. 9.07 crore from Rs. 12.14 crore last year.
According to CFO Ambarish Raghuvanshi, “The results reflect the weakness in the main recruiting segment in line with macro economic trends. The silver lining is that hiring is close to bottoming out and the competitive position has improved. We continue to invest in product, technology and analytics.”
According to the quarterly numbers issued today, the other income has increased to Rs. 9 crore in Q1 from Rs. 4 crore during the same period last year. This would have come mainly from interest in fixed deposits and returns from debt based mutual funds.
The company had raised Rs 170 crore in an IPO in 2006. From these proceeds, the company has spent Rs 61 crore till June 20, 2009. This included Rs. 13.98 crore in acquisition/strategic alliances and Rs 20.24 crore in purchasing land in Noida.
The company also brought out a data sheet which says that there has been a significant increase in the average number of resumes added daily on to the job search portal. About 12 million people have added their resumes in Q1 of FY09 as compared to 10 million in Q4 of FY 2008-09.
The listings on 99 acres.com remained the same at 4.9 million for both Q1 of FY09 and Q4 of FY 2008-09. However, its more than a 100% increase when compared the 2.3 million listings in Q1 of FY 08 to the same period for FY09.