Info Edge (India) Ltd, the largest consumer internet firm in the country by market value which runs sites such as Naukri.com and 99acres.com, saw revenues rising 15.7 per cent to Rs 106.4 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2012, over the year-ago period. The standalone net profit rose 6.9 per cent to Rs 30.8 crore during the period even as both top line and profits shrank sequentially.
Revenues declined 1.3 per cent while net profit was down 7.5 per cent, compared to the second quarter ended September 30, 2012. The firm had reported faster revenue and profit growth in Q2, which means the financial performance has deteriorated in the last quarter.
Standalone results of the company include revenues from its primary recruitment business Naukri.com, NaukriGulf.com, Quadrangle, Job Seeker Services and Firstnaukri.com, besides Jeevansathi.com, 99acres, Shiksha.com and Brijj.com.
Commenting on the results, Ambarish Raghuvanshi, CFO and director of Info Edge, said, “The key business of recruitment continues to decelerate in line with weak economic indicators. While other businesses have growth, they are not as significant and don’t contribute to the total bottom line. Also, the company has continued to make discretionary investment in the businesses, including in recruitment, leading to erosion in margins.â€
During the quarter, revenues from recruitment solutions grew 10.1 per cent while the real estate vertical grew 54.6 per cent.
It does not represent revenues of its seven subsidiaries which are part of the consolidated financials and whose details are disclosed annually. These units include Allcheckdeals, Applect (Meritnation.com) and Etechaces (Policybazaar.com), among others.
In the last quarter, the firm had acquired the business of Toostep Consultancy Pvt Ltd. Toostep has developed a SaaS platform that enables recruiters to promote jobs on social networking sites & search engines and manage the responses received.
It also invested Rs 5 crore ($0.9 million) to pick 25 per cent stake in Happily Unmarried Marketing Pvt Ltd. Established in 2003, Happily Unmarried designs and sells fun products through a hybrid model of offline and online retail.
(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)