Info Edge (India) Ltd

NSE:NAUKRI

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q4

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

Thank you, Anand. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Info Edge India Limited Earnings Conference Call for the results of the March quarter and financial year ended 31st March 2024. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. Joining us from management today, we have Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Promoter and Vice Chairman; Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter and Managing Director; and Mr. Chintan Thakkar, Director and CFO. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the detailed disclaimer included in the presentation for a good order sake.

Now I will hand over the conference call to Mr. Hitesh Oberoi for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, Hitesh.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Thank you, Vineet, and a very good evening, everyone, and welcome to Info Edge's Q4 FY '24 Earnings Call. As always, we'll start with an update on the stand-alone financial performance, and then we'll cover every business segment in more detail. And then, of course, we'll have time for Q&A in the end.

In Q4 of FY '24, our standalone billings were INR 827 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 10% and revenue was INR 608 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 8%. Billings and revenue, including Zwayam and DoSelect were INR 856 crores and INR 637 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 11% and 9%, respectively. Operating profits at a stand-alone level grew 9% year-on-year to INR 225 crores, and the operating margin was 37%. The stand-alone business generated cash from operations of INR 468 crores in Q4 of FY '24, a Y-o-Y growth of 13%.

For the full year FY '24, stand-alone billings were INR 2,496 crores and revenue was INR 2,381 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 5% and 10%, respectively. Billings and revenue, including Zwayam and DoSelect were INR 2,572 crores and INR 2,457 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 6% and 10%, respectively. Operating profit at a stand-alone level grew 18% year-on-year to INR 871 crores, and the operating margin was 36.6%, a Y-o-Y growth of 250 basis points. EPS before exceptional items for FY '24 stood at INR 65.9%, a Y-o-Y growth of 20%.

The stand-alone business generated cash from operations of INR 1,135 crores for the full year, a Y-o-Y growth of 9% year-on-year. While the Recruitment business continue to be cash generative, the cash losses in non-Recruitment businesses reduced significantly by 75% from a cash loss of INR 177 crores in FY '23 to a cash loss of INR 44 crores in FY '24. The Board has proposed the cash balance of Info Edge including wholly owned subsidiaries at the end of March '24 stood at INR 4,191 crores. The Board has proposed a final dividend of INR 12 per share, along with the interim dividend of INR 10 per share. The total dividend for FY '24 is INR 22 per share, a 16% year-on-year increase. And the headcount of the company as of March '24 end was 5,750 people.

Moving on to segment price performance and starting with the recruitment business. In Q4 of FY '24, recruitment billings grew by 7% to INR 625 crores and revenue grew by 3% to INR 452 crores. Operating profit was lower, 2% Y-o-Y at INR 258 crores, and the operating profit margin was 57%. Cash generation from operations was at INR 458 crores Y-o-Y growth 2%. For the full year FY '24 for the Recruitment business, billings grew by 1% to INR 1,883 crores and revenue grew by 7% to INR 1,805 crores. The operating profit growth for the full year was 4% year-on-year at INR 1,051 crores and the operating profit margin for the full year was 58%. Our Recruitment business continues to consistently deliver cash flow and cash from operations in FY '24 amounting to INR 1,208 crores.

Key operating highlights in Recruitment, FY '24 was a challenging year for the overall Recruitment business largely because of the slowdown in IT hiring, which is approximately 45% to 50% of our business directly and indirectly, if we would include the business from recruitment consultants. And non-IT businesses, business segments, especially Manufacturing, Real Estate, Travel, Tourism, Healthcare, Pharma, BFSI, et cetera, can sustain growth and help offset the slower growth in IT to some extent. We continued our efforts of opening new branches in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities to penetrate non-IT and SMB segments further. We now operate 79 branch offices all over the country. In Q4, we saw an uptick in billing numbers, driven by healthy renewal rates. The billing growth in Q4 was broad-based with IT also growing at 11% and non-IT growing at 12% and the construction segment being flattish.

IIMJobs and Naukri Fast Forward, also witnessed healthy billing growth of 32% and 29% year-on-year respectively. Naukri Gulf reported a Y-o-Y growth of 26% during the quarter, primarily led by growth in new customer count on the platform. Our overall client base increased to 132,000 customers in FY '24 from 127,000 customers in FY '23. We -- a few of our business -- new businesses like JobHai, AmbitionBox, et cetera, started monetizing in a small way in Q4. We believe there is significant opportunity in these businesses in the long term, and they have the potential to grow at a much faster pace going forward.

We continued investing in both AI, data science and machine learning and generative AI and product improvements to enhance user experience and refine our recommendations, and search engines. The deployment of multiple functionalities across our products has improved user engagement, experience and increased productivity and efficiency. Platform metrics continue to remain healthy. The Naukri database is now has 98 million resumes and average daily app installs were highest in Q4, and the average number of resumes added daily grew by -- year-on-year by 40% to 28,000.

On the job seeker side, we introduced a Naukri360, a comprehensive suite for all career-related initiatives, both on and off the platform, reinforcing our position as a modern career brand. Additionally, we've integrated Coding Ninja, making upskilling a central component of our offerings. In March, we also revitalized the Naukri brand to resonate with a newer generation of working professionals.

We introduced a fresh, more vibrant brand identity that maintains our legacy and signature visuals while adopting a boulder aesthetic. We unveiled the same in the current IPL season through a couple of brand campaigns that have being caught good traction. Overall, we are optimistic about the recent improvements in the core Naukri business and the growth of the new sort of emerging product lines and strategic businesses. We plan to monitor the overall growth over the next 1 or 2 quarters before confirming a definite recovery.

Moving on to the Real Estate segment. In Q4 FY '24, billings grew by 26% to INR 131 crores and revenue grew by 23% to INR 93 crores. Operating losses reduced by 31% to INR 15 crores and cash from operations was a positive INR 30 crores, a year-on-year growth of 121%. For the full year FY '24, billings grew by 24% to INR 385 crores and revenue grew by 23% to INR 351 crores. Operating losses reduced by 42% to INR 69 crores. Cash loss for the full year was INR 13 crores, a year-on-year improvement of 82%.

FY '24 has been a healthy year for 99acres and supported by a favorable macro tailwinds and good execution by the team. The momentum continued in Q4 as well for both the primary and secondary parts of the business, driven by strong demand and premiumization of supply, prices continued to rise significantly in some markets. Affordability measured as property prices divided by annual income also continues to be good. It's improved a lot over the last few years. Unsold inventory levels continue to remain low in the top 8 cities and many developers continue to see good responses to their new launches.

New launch sales continue to be dominated by channel partners. We are working to improve our go-to-market for this segment and grow our market share in the new launch segment. Billing growth in Q4 was driven by growth in both the number of billed customers and improvement in average billing per customer. We saw strong billing growth in metros as well as Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. We continue to improve the efficiency of our digital performance, marketing spending, applying using analytics and creative content and audience optimization strategies.

Overall, traffic in Q4 grew at 26% year-on-year, driven by growth in new projects and resale traffic. Our app DAU base also grew strongly by 36% year-on-year in Q4. We continue to lead in terms of the quality of traffic trying spent in brand recall. 99acres continues to focus on investments and growing as user based and enabling us to superior platform experience and differentiated content to help its users make the right real estate decisions.

Moving on to the Matrimony business. In Q4 FY '24, billings grew by 26% to INR 26 crores and revenue grew by 29% to INR 24 crores. Operating losses reduced by 59% to INR 9 crores. Cash loss was also INR 9 crores a year -- Y-o-Y improvement of 54%. For the full year FY '24, billings grew by 17% to INR 85 crores and revenue grew by 10% to INR 85 crores. Operating losses reduced by 44% to INR 59 crores and cash losses were INR 55 crores, a Y-o-Y improvement of 56%.

The success of the premium model we introduced a few years ago is clearly reflected in the consistent growth in revenue, organic traffic and increasing user profiles on the platform, all achieved alongside a continuous decrease in marketing spending. Our marketing expenses are down 50% year-on-year in Q4 FY '24. All platform metrics like acceptances between users and two-way chats continue to grow aggressively in the quarter. The team maintains its focus on exploring additional ways to monetize platform traffic. In this business, we continue to enhance revenue generation and reduce quarterly losses to achieve breakeven soon.

Moving on to the education vertical, Shiksha.com. In Q4 of FY '24, billings grew by 9% to INR 45 crores and revenue grew by 22% to INR 39 crores. Operating profit grew to INR 6 crores from INR 1 crore in the same quarter last year. Cash from operations was INR 15 crores, which was flattish year-on-year. For the full year FY '24, billings grew by 15% to INR 143 crores, and revenue grew by 19% to INR 139 crores. Operating profit was INR 3 crores, cash from operations was INR 24 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 15%.

The registrations for the MBA and PG courses peak this year due to campus placements getting impacted, especially in IT-related jobs. New private universities in India, coupled with expansion of course offerings beyond engineering by existing universities, offer an opportunity for Shiksha to expand its footprint further. We continue to invest in making our content more comprehensive and student-friendly in building deep domain expertise in this space. Students' interest in studying abroad in the fall '24 season was impacted by the weak external environment. We continue to make long-term investments in strengthening the Shiksha Study Abroad platform.

Moving on to the consolidated financial highlights for the company. At the consolidated level, the net sales of the company stood at INR 667 crores in Q4 of FY '24, versus INR 605 crores for Q4 at FY '23. The total comprehensive income stood at INR 7,959 crores compared to a loss of INR 415 crore in the corresponding quarter ending March '23. After adjusting for exceptional items, the profit before tax in Q4 FY '24 was INR 324 crores compared to a loss of INR 349 crores in Q4 of FY '23. Thank you, and we are now ready to take any questions that you would have.

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

Thank you very much Hitesh. I guess we can begin the questions now. Anand, we can take the questions.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

[Operator Instructions] The first question we have from Swapnil from JM Financial.

[Swapnil Potdukhe, analyst]

So I will start with the clarification first because there was a mention of some advertising spends for Naukri in the current IPL. So any qualitative or quantitative numbers you can share as to how much of the spends would be? And -- or will there be any impact on our margins in the Naukri business because of these spends?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

We can't tell you how much we would be spending this quarter because the quarter is still on. But yes, we'll be spending a lot more than what we spent in previous quarters, this quarter. Whether it will impact our margins or not in the long run will depend on what kind of revenue growth we get this quarter. So hard to say where margins will land.

[Swapnil Potdukhe, analyst]

Okay. And if I were to extrapolate a few things. Your Naukri billing seems to have bottomed out a few IT also now moving into double-digit growth. Consultant business may also start improving in the next 1 or 2 quarters. Assuming that happens, how much time do you think will it take for your Naukri business margins to move to 60% kind of levels, which historically used to be the trend. And now they are close to 57%. I mean, if you can quantify in terms of quarters or some that will be really helpful.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

It's very hard to say because we don't know how demand will pan out. But what we said in the past is that if we are able to grow our revenue, grow our billing by 15%, 16% year-on-year, we should be able to maintain margin. If we are able to grow at 20%, we'll -- that will help us improve our margins. And if we grow at 9%, 10%, then we might -- our margins might take a dip in the short term. So that we continue to hold.

[Swapnil Potdukhe, analyst]

Okay. And with respect to the revenue or billings contribution from JobHai and AmbitionBox. Can you give a sense first on the revenue model? How much has been the contribution in 4Q? And how quickly do you expect these businesses to ramp up to meaningful levels such that they contribute to the Recruitment segment in a meaningful way.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

No, no. So we just started monetizing in Q4. And right now, our contribution is tiny, the overall sort of number is mini skewed. How fast will this revenue ramp up, hard for us to say. We always think is that we've started monetizing, and response in Q4 is encouraging. But for the revenue to become meaningful to when to start impacting our numbers will take several years in my view.

[Swapnil Potdukhe, analyst]

Okay. And just a last one. Your billings growth in the Matrimony business seems to be much faster than the competition. What do you think is working for you? And this is despite the fact that your marketing spends have come down meaningfully, whereas the competition seems to be still spending and not able to grow. So any specific thing you want to call out or those qualitative as well is fine.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So if you recall, we changed our model some time back. We started giving a lot of services for free, which we used to charge for earlier and that hit our revenue for some time. In fact, revenue billings were minus 30% for a while. And -- but we believe that this model change was important for us. We are the #3 player and for us to sort of stand out and make an impact and get noticed. And this was required. Now -- and what's happened over the last 4, 5 quarters as a result -- or 7, 8 quarters as result to this change is that our traffic share has grown.

We are getting more profiles than earlier. Our market share -- our engagement is also a lot better. We're seeing a lot more acceptance on the platform. And now we are slowly pushing the pedal on monetizing, right? And we've introduced new products and services to help us monetize this engaged audience better, right? And that's why you saw this bump in revenue in Q4 -- bump in billings in Q4. So we are still tiny in the grand scheme of things. But in the markets where we operate, we have significant share. We have a strong #2 player in the Hindi belt. And we are perhaps as big as the #1 player when it comes to traffic in the Hindi belt now. And let's see how this pans out going forward here.

[Swapnil Potdukhe, analyst]

If I were to just to add on to that and ask you, assuming you breakeven in the next few quarters in this business, what will you focus on? Will you focus on growth at 20%, 25%, which has happened in this particular quarter? Or would you want to ensure that the profitability also continues to improve in a straight-line manner and maybe you will accept market growth kind of a scenario.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So in the Matrimony business, our goal is to breakeven as quickly as possible.

[Swapnil Potdukhe, analyst]

No, once you breakeven. My question was like once you breakeven, what will be the strategy thereafter? Will you want to operate at 0% margin or like for some time and focus on growth? Or will you be expanding your margins, growth might be slightly lower.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

We'll cross the bridge when we get to it. But we see we are under no pressure to make money in the matrimony business. You would rather focus on gaining share, but we would want to breakeven.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

The next question is from Nitin Jain from UTI AMC.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

Congratulations on the good performance. So my first question is on the Recruitment business. So the margins have dropped by about 3 percentage points year-on-year in this quarter. So would you be able to throw some light here? Like is it because of an increased ad spend? Or is there something else that we are missing?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

No, no, margins have fallen because billing growth was almost flattish last year. And of course, costs went up, manpower costs, I don't have the detail, must have gone up by 10%. Marketing cost must have gone up, overhead must have gone up. We continue to invest in a few areas, we think growth will come back at some point in time. And we don't want to delay investing in those areas, which are important for the long run. So we continue to invest in design, machine learning. We're expanding our sales team. We are focusing more on growing our non-IT business because IT hire is slow. So that's the reason margins for credit there.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

And like you've indicated that JobHai and AmbitionBox has started monetizing. So can you elaborate what -- how we are monetizing and what kind of growth we can expect here?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So right now -- I mean we just started monetizing last quarter. And we were able to get some customers for both AmbitionBox and JobHai. These are very early days. The model will evolve as over time. So right now, it's hard for us to predict what's going to happen in these 2 verticals. It's only been a month or 2 since we took them to market.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

JobHai, the model is similar to Naukri is it? Monetizing model?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Yes. I mean basically, monetizing job listings and response.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

Okay. And for AmbitionBox?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

AmbitionBox, we are setting a few branding relations in AmbitionBox right now.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

Okay. Great. So for the full year, the difference between billing and revenue growth is notable, like it's around 5%. So how do we reconcile this? Like is there a timing difference? Or like is there any leakage happening here? This is for the recruitment business.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Chintan, do you want to answer that?

[Chintan Thakkar, executive]

We are on a subscription basis model, right? So what happens is that whatever billing that happens in a particular quarter, the recognition of revenue happened subsequent to that depending upon the tenure of the contract, right? So there is no real question of any leakage per se because all the invoices that gets booked in billing will eventually get recognized depending upon the tenure of the contract.

The contract is usually 12 months or lesser than that period. So the difference is because what happens is, let's say, we had a reasonably encouraging quarter Q4, right, in recruitment business, particularly. So billing has gone up. But the revenue that we're seeing in Q4 by and large, it comes from what the sales have happened in Q1, Q2 and Q3.

There will be some element of Q4 as well in that revenue, but mostly it would be in the Q1, Q2, Q3. That's so when there's a sharp rise or a sharp decline, the billing will tell you actually what the real impact on the business is rather than the revenue. Revenue is more a derivative that comes from the billing. That's why we keep talking about the billing numbers.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

Right. So it's more to do with timing.

[Chintan Thakkar, executive]

Yes. And the maximum is 12-month time, but it reconciles eventually.

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

It's basically about the fact that you're recognizing revenue as it accrues. So this a 1-year subscription, you recognized one 365, 366 every day. And also the 12 months subscription is recognized over 12 months, the revenue even though you may have collected the money today and bill today.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

Got it. Got it. And what is the INR 12 crore write-off for, if you can elaborate?

[Chintan Thakkar, executive]

So look, some of the investments that we have, right? And as you know that most of the investments in start-up type of a some company, they have started now chasing a lot more about the profitable growth rather than growth at any cost. Because of that, what happens is that whatever the initial projections were there when we invested and what the projections now would be, there will be a kind of a difference in that. And hence, as per the accounting standards that we follow, we need to revalue some of these assets and on revaluation, we think that the positions have kind of gone down, then we need to take an impairment for that. So that's the impairment cost there.

[Nitin Jain, analyst]

Okay. Great. And last question for Hitesh. So for both 99acres and Jeevansathi, the marketing expenses have gone down notably -- so -- and I know that in the past, you have indicated that these are usually a function of competitive intensity. Like if competition spends you need to spend too. So how do you see -- is this an indication of competitive intensity coming down? Or like you think the brands are strong enough to generate good organic traffic?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

I think it's a bit of both. So in Jeevansathi, we changed the model. We took a dip on revenue because we went free and that helped us acquire a lot of users. And we are continuing with that model. And of course, the market has also become a little more rational because we were spending a lot of money earlier over the others now because we brought down our spending, maybe others are also spending a little less than what they would have spent otherwise. And in 99acres, still very competitive, but we believe this is the optimum level of spending. Beyond this, is -- may not help our business. And we would rather invest in other areas. And so that seems to be the current thinking. Let's see how it goes.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

The next question is from Deep Shah from BK Securities.

[Deep Shah, analyst]

Hitesh, So one question that our IT billings have grown 11%, but that recruitment consultants is flat. And typically, we understand 2/3 of that recruitment consultant is IT. So how should we marry these 2 aspects? Is it that IT is a lot more because of GCCs or captives or any such other commentary that is there?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

See, my sense of what's happening is that a lot of the IT companies had over-hired, right? Because for -- actually after COVID, there was a lot of digitalization worldwide, and there was a lot of demand for IT services. And our business also grew like a hockey stick for a while at that time. And attrition rates were high and people are hard to get salaries and through the roof.

And as a result, when demand suddenly disappeared, companies realized that they're over-hired, and utilization rates at these companies, which is to average maybe, say, let's say, 85% pre-COVID, utilization rates fell. And for a long time, therefore, many of these companies did not hire or did not replace the people who are leaving. Headcount, in fact, went down at -- some of the IT services.

I think we are now perhaps at a stage that where some of these companies are -- the best -- the utilization rates are back to near pre-COVID levels. And they have started replacing some people who are leaving. Maybe that is the reason why our IT sort of revenue started to look up a little bit. But of course, there's a base element as well, right? So our bases are much lower than what they were last year.

[Deep Shah, analyst]

Right. So it's not wholly attributable to GCCs or captives. Obviously, there will be a good part of it there, but not wholly attributable.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Yes.

[Deep Shah, analyst]

And then the trend that you highlighted, we've also -- I mean IT companies haven't been giving very rosy commentary. But the fact is that what you said is visible. So then fair -- I'm not even asking for a number or guidance, but fair to say that with some hiring in IT companies already there, it's very comfortable to say that we've actually bottomed out and therefore, the recruitment side should also pick up maybe 1, 2 quarters? Or what's your thought process there?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Well, I hope that is the case. I really don't know. I mean because a lot will depend on the -- see IT services -- demand for IT services is more sort of indexed to what happens in the U.S., okay, than to what happens in India. So while a lot of Indian companies also hire IT talent, while start-ups also hire a lot of IT talent. I mean in the grand scheme of things that hiring is tiny, right? Of course, if GCCs grow, that will also help our business. So it's not just a function of what happens. So IT services companies also function, what happens to GCC hiring, what happens to start up hiring, what happens to Indian companies who hire IT professionals.

But the IT companies continue to be a big part of the puzzle. And maybe we bottomed out, maybe we haven't. I can't say for sure. I mean all I can say is that on our website, more IT jobs are being posted every day than was the case 3 months ago. On our website, more CVs are being viewed by IT companies than was the case maybe 3, 4 months ago. But let's hope it sustains there.

[Deep Shah, analyst]

The second is on this Naukri360 that you alluded to in your opening remarks. So is it something like the RMS team, which we had launched, I think, 4, 5 years ago? Or is this something different more comprehensive? If you could just explain a bit more?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

No, no. These are -- see, basically, we have a candidate service business called FastForward where we write resumes for people. We help them fast forward their job search. So Naukri360 is basically a suite of services, which we have launched for job seekers to help them navigate the career market a little better. We've -- for example, we have some interview prep services. We have -- so we are experimenting with a bunch of new offerings. And the whole idea is to sort of in the long term position Naukri more as a career brand, not just as a job board. So that's really what Naukri360 is all about.

[Deep Shah, analyst]

And this is sold as a separate license, separate subscription or it's a value-add to say someone who's using your career database, like these...

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

These are for jobs seekers.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

Next question is from Vivekanand from AMBIT Capital.

[Vivekanand Subbaraman, analyst]

Hello. So on recruitment, again, extending what we Deep was asking related to a recovery. You did highlight that the activity on the portal is improving, and we see that in the job database as well, month-on-month, there is an improvement. Do you think that now as we enter the fiscal '25, since the first 9 months of fiscal '24 had a decline in billing, is the base quite favorable and perhaps the growth could accelerate from this low base? Or am I reading it wrongly, it's still very unclear? That's question one. Second one, on the recruitment side, now that you have started monetizing these products, have you thought through what the market size could be for some of these segments? And if you could help us understand, that will be great.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So sorry, your first question was around...

[Vivekanand Subbaraman, analyst]

Around the base that -- because the first 9 months of fiscal '24, you had a recruitment billing decline.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Yes, you're right. So the base is a lot lower, and therefore, it should be possible to grow faster on this base if the market remains reasonable, right? If the economy continues to grow at 7% per annum, if demand for IT services starts coming back even moderately, I think that should certainly help us grow a lot faster. I mean, in Q4, you saw that, right? Our billing growth was much higher than what it was in the first 3 quarters of the last financial year.

So if attrition rates start to pick up a little bit, if demand starts to come back a little bit, if the economy continues to be buoyant. I mean, we should target higher growth in the core business. Then of course, there are these newer sort of verticals, right? We've been investing in like IIMJobs, like hirist like DoSelect, these verticals, we would want them to grow even faster because there we have an opportunity to penetrate more customers.

So penetration -- there's a penetration opportunity as well in addition to -- so Naukri has 120,000 customers and maybe 20,000 large customers or 15,000 large customers or 30,000 large customers, then the number of customers who use some of these offerings are a fraction of that number. So there's an opportunity to grow these products and services faster than the main Naukri business.

So we'd be investing behind that. And like I said, we've also opened new offices because there are many more cities where we think we can get some business from. Now of course, it's not as if any one of them is going to move the substantially, but they will hopefully all add up over time and help us grow a few percentage points faster in the medium term.

[Vivekanand Subbaraman, analyst]

Understood. Very helpful. Just on recruitment itself, trying to understand the cost associated with some of the branch expansions. Is that now fully in the base? Or will there be any meaningful pickup in costs? I understand you don't want to comment on the IPL spends, but other than that is the fixed cost for the new infrastructure already in place?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Well, so the -- we are expanding our sales team so we're adding more sales people. Now some of them have been hired, but some are yet to be hired. So Naukri headcount will grow next year over last year. And -- but a lot of the hiring -- and then we're also going to be investing a little more in data science and machine learning. So that headcount will also grow. So some of these costs -- some of these people have already been hired, but some more will be higher over the next couple of quarters.

[Vivekanand Subbaraman, analyst]

Okay. Got it. Last one on the ad spends. You did -- you highlighted about the optimization of programmatic advertising on 99acres. Is it possible for you to take -- walk us through the nature of ad spend that you currently have, how much of the INR 270-odd crore is brand advertising? How much is programmatic? And how does it look like across the various verticals that you are presenting.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So we don't give out those details, and I really don't have the numbers with me right now either. But for competitive reasons, we would not want to give out that information.

[Vivekanand Subbaraman, analyst]

Sure. Okay. Since you didn't answer this question, I'll slip in one more. So Sanjeev, if you can discuss a little bit about the investment that you announced in gramophone. This was one of the 5-odd promising businesses that you had articulated or discussed in 2022 when you expanded the AIF to new funds. Any comments here in terms of how it's scaling up, I can see that the revenue has declined in gramophone. So...

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

So 2021, '22 is a different environment, since then the company has faced some headwinds. It is still early stage, still carrying early stage risk, but we continue to support it because we believe it has potential. This is an internal round, but currently investors are putting money, although we are putting in the bulk of the money. And with this, they're going to follow a breakeven plan and let's see how far we go over this.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

Next question is from Nikhil Choudhary from Nuvama.

[Nikhil Choudhary, analyst]

Congratulations on strong quarter. So Hitesh, first question is on recruitment side, we have seen IT and non-IT now growing in double digit, while third-party consultants still in single digit or flattish. Generally, even third-party consultant indirectly are impacted by IT and non-IT hiring, right? So based on your experience, how much time it takes for consultant to start delivering growth?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

How much time for consultant market starts to recover?

[Nikhil Choudhary, analyst]

Yes. So like IT growing in double digit. Non-IT growing in double digit. What will it take for consultant to start, let's say, growing in double digit?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

I think a lot of this is a function of attrition one, at IT companies, and two, whether they want to grow their headcount over the previous year. So if attrition numbers start to look up an IT services company and there is the same -- and normally that happens when there is demand. And then they come under pressure to hire people faster, okay? And that's when they sort of -- they try whatever can help at that stage. So that's when they start going to consultants.

If they are under no pressure to hire, they would rather use portals and be done with it because they can take their own sweet time to hire, they're under no pressure. They're not losing business. So recruitment consultant -- hiring from recruitment consultants will start looking up and demand starts looking up for IT services.

[Nikhil Choudhary, analyst]

Sure, Second is a follow-up on that. With IT, non-IT in double digit, that quarter 4 last year had a higher base compared to next 12 months. Your Naukri jobspeak has shown even further improvement. IT for the first time has grown after 15 months on a Y-o-Y basis. And that too with the IT companies reporting negative headcount, right? So is it fair to assume now the billing should be heading towards double digit, especially in Naukri?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

I hope so. I mean many a slip between the cup and the lip and hard to predict the future. Like I said, we are seeing more activity on our platform. We are seeing more jobs being posted every day. Of course, the base has also connected, right? So when I say more jobs being posted, its compared to a year ago, right? We are seeing more recruiter activity in terms of CVs being viewed. So -- and like I said, anecdotally, at least we are hearing from a lot of companies that their utilization rates have moved up.

But at the same time, there is this whole overhang of the U.S. election and generative AI and what it could do and so many other things that it's very hard for us to call what the next few months are going to look like. There's also demand for certain skills, right? Like new age skills, like data science and machine learning, data engineering and AI. But they are a small part of the overall demand right now?

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

May I just add one little nuance here. You see a lot of our billing is indexed to how many clients we have. To some extent is how are they use it and what products they buy, but also a number of clients we have. And what jobspeak measures is total activity, which could be coming from fewer clients, more activity. So the correlation between jobspeak and our billing growth is not perfect.

[Nikhil Choudhary, analyst]

The next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi.

[Vijit Jain, analyst]

My first question is the non-IT side billing, Hitesh. So obviously, last year, if I look at my notes, you had started to call out IT billings growth was challenging. It was still a decent growth here and you attributed that to non-IT. So is it fair to say that here non-IT is moderate because of low base? Or do you see the non-IT thing actually moderating because 11%, 12% is probably lower than what you've seen in the non-IT side in the last few quarters before, right?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Yes, you're right, non-IT growth has also slowed down from maybe 1 year, 1.5 years back. Some sectors continue to sort of do well. Growth in other sectors seem to have moderated a little bit. I also feel it's just because there is so much more talent supply in the market because IT companies are not hiring, and ITES companies are also not hiring, which are actually also -- which also do a lot of non-IT hiring.

There's just more talent supply, and it's easier to hire even for non-IT companies. So somewhere, if IT hiring starts to pick up, then perhaps that will also impact non-IT hiring somewhere because attrition rates may start going up for those companies as well. So it's -- they're all -- it's also connections in some ways. But you're right. I mean hiring -- non-IT hiring has slowed a bit from perhaps a year back, growth in non-IT.

[Vijit Jain, analyst]

Fair enough. And so thanks for adding that color earlier about the way IT companies are looking at hiring again. I think what you mentioned that they are now beginning to replace people who are leaving versus maybe not doing that earlier. So it looks like, as you said, hopefully, early stages of recovery here. I'm just wondering in terms of the kind of people they are hiring, is there a different pattern to it now versus maybe 2, 3 years back in terms of are they hiring more in the more experienced end of the spectrum or in new skill sets? Any color you can give on what the hiring -- where the hiring recovery is? And any color on that, that will be helpful.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Well, we haven't done a very detailed analysis, but clearly, demand for certain skills is higher than it was maybe 3, 4 years ago. So all these new-age skills are in more demand, AI, machine learning, data engineering, data science, modeling, analytics, these kind of skill sets are in more demand than the regular skill sets like Java, python and others. But we haven't done a very deep analysis of this yet.

[Vijit Jain, analyst]

Sure, no problem. My last question Hitesh, just looking at the nonrecruitment verticals, right? Obviously, if I look at year-on-year, combined all 3 businesses have shown a pretty sharp decline in losses. And you've said already that in both property and the matrimonial business, your aim is to get to breakeven, right? And education is almost kind of trends towards breakeven in any case. So do you think you have a pretty clear line of sight to actually getting these nonrecruitment businesses to 0 and above overall? Is that how you would look at it? Or would it simply -- would it still be just 3 different pieces?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

We have a plan. We have a plan, and the team is working on a plan, but a lot will depend on how they execute. A lot will also depend on whether the market is supportive or not and a lot will also depend on whether competition continues to be rational or not. So if all these things fall in place, and of course, we would want to sort of target breakeven in all -- in our nonrecruitment businesses.

[Vijit Jain, analyst]

And Hitesh, if I can just ask a quick follow-up to that. So I mean, if I just look at the property business, right, and given how your costs in that segment have grown, maybe if your revenues are about 25%, 30% higher versus now, which could be next year or maybe in 6 quarters, you could breakeven. Is that a fair assumption to make here?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Yes, yes so that -- so you're actually a lot of the -- platform has been built -- we -- normally, these businesses have -- were reasonably high operating leverage. Brand is also sort of reasonably well established. We have an existing customer base, renewals -- there's a renewal business. So if we are able to grow the 99acres business by 25%, 30% again this year, then we should be able to make some -- generate some cash this year.

But fingers crossed here. I mean, see, we've had a good 4, 5, 6, 7 quarters in 99acres. But we are still -- I mean I don't want to go -- and I'm not -- till we see another 2, 3 quarters of solid recovery, I would not want to comment on what the next year would look like.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

Next question is from Abhishek from Nomura.

[Abhishek Bhandari, analyst]

So Hitesh, just one question. If you could talk about the quantitative intensity in the core recruitment business. This quarter, we didn't see any slide on the traffic data, what you guys normally share. And whether this marketing spend, what you're increasing is more opportunistic given the IPL season or you think the intensity has changed and we need to keep it for a longer period?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So this traffic data business -- I'll tell you, this traffic data -- the data we get from independent sources is no longer relevant because most of our traffic is on the app. And app traffic is -- for others is hard to get. So we can release our traffic data, which is as per our sources. But it doesn't make any more sense to look at data from independent sources because mostly that data is website traffic data. And that is a very small proportion.

In Jeevansathi, for example, 90%, 95% of our traffic is on the app. In Naukri, maybe 70%, 80% of the traffic is on the app. In 99acres, 60%, 65% of the traffic is on the app. So app data has -- app usage has really grown, and that's where most of the action is in all our platforms. And that data is hard to get for other players. We can release -- we can give you our data, but you won't be able to compare it to others. As far as advertising in IPL is concerned, like I mentioned, we've been working on a bunch of things in Naukri.

We were out of media for a long time. We have launched some new offerings. We just changed our logo. And so the team really felt that -- and we want to grow our non-IT business, which is -- so you need to reach more audiences, you need to reach more cities. So we feel that this -- it made sense to advertise on IPL. And if we get a good response, then we will continue to -- we will invest a little more in marketing going forward.

It may -- if we -- if you get our 15%, 17% growth, then we'll be able to maintain margin, but we might take a hit in the short term if growth continues to lack for a while. But like I said earlier, we don't want to compromise on -- we know that the market will come back at some point in time. We don't want to compromise on what we think is important to grow in the business in the long run. We continue to invest in JobHai. We've been investing in JobHai for the last 3 years. We will continue to invest for another few years before it makes money. We continue to build our capability in data science and machine learning.

We think it's important in the long run. We continue to invest in adjacent sort of verticals. And even in marketing, we recently been out of media for a while, we just felt that it was -- maybe it made sense for us to go back at least for some time. Hopefully, growth will come back. And therefore, margins were again start looking up.

[Abhishek Bhandari, analyst]

Just one more. If you could talk about your cash usage plan, now that almost at INR 4,200 crores cash. Last year was a benign year from an opportunity point of view in the market, valuations already subdued in private market, yet we didn't aggressively participate, maybe there was or lack of opportunities. And we are now still generating a lot of cash. So has the board thought about increasing the payout levels from here. And you have highly liquid investment like Zomato and PolicyBazaar which can be sold at any moment if you need cash strategically. So if you could answer that.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Chintan, you want to take a shot at it?

[Chintan Thakkar, executive]

Yes, sure. So look, you're right. We have something around INR 4,200 crores cash on hand. But if you really kind of slice and dice the balance sheet, you'll see that we also have deferred revenue of almost like INR 1,200 crores. So that's kind of a liability in some ways, that because of the negative working capital that we -- so we would like -- on a conservative basis, we would like to keep that as a cash balance because that's the working capital that we have received money from the customers.

Secondly, if you look at 12 months kind of an expenses for us, it would be something around INR 1,500 crores. So if you really take the base 2 items out, then we are not really left with flow very high amount of cash. The third is that, look, we are always open for any opportunistic inorganic activity or any investments in these strategic startups.

And none of the digital -- good digital assets are, they were cheaper nowadays. So keeping all that in mind, we think that, yes, we have a sufficient amount of cash. Cash is central to our part of our strategy. Having said that, we have increased our payout. If we have just announced a final dividend, and we have increased a little bit of that despite the fact that our profitability was kind of flattish. We have increased the dividend, which gives you a signal in some ways. But we think right now, we have kind of a rightsized cash balance on hand.

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

May I just add to that. You see what cash in the bank gives you is the confidence to take some calls that you might not have taken in times of crisis. And there have been two very specific occasions when we have done this, and the cash in the bank has helped us take those calls, giving us the confidence. The most recent example is April, June 2020, when they were locked down. There was COVID. There was no light in the tunnel. There was no cure. There was no vaccine. There was no nothing. And Naukri billings grew by, I think, 44% or 48% that quarter Y-o-Y, right? And we had cash.

And there were several companies who downsized and let go people, and we were faced with that choice. and it is a cash in the bank. So the stress test that Chintan did and then presented to the Board and to Hitesh and me was that the question we posed him was that, okay, Chintan, if revenue goes to 0, if marketing expenditures is 0 and increments are 0, how long can the company last on the current cash balance?

And the answer he came back with the 3 years. Now that answer gave us the confidence to not sack people. And it would be terrible apart from the fact that we completely contrary to our core values that people have built this company. And in a time of crisis like COVID if we let them go, as do the tense about COVID and the stress. And if you take their jobs away, it's doubly -- it's terrible. It's a terrible thing to do.

And from a business perspective, when the bounce back after a couple of quarters was so good and so great that because we hadn't sacked people we were able to advantage of it and for a long, long time, Naukri really grew very fast, and we were able to get that growth because we had not let go of people. So cash allows you to take those calls and we think it's okay.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

We have some questions in the chat box. So we'll take those now.

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

I can read it out. Hitesh, first question is for you. What specific initiatives have led to the growth in billings for Jeevansathi? That's a question for Hitesh.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

I think I did answer that. See we went free some time back and we took a hit on our revenue and because we were giving a lot of stuff for free. Now we've started tightening the screws on what is free and what is not. We've gained share in the last couple of years, traffic share. We've got many more people who are active on the platform than earlier. We are enabling more matches than earlier. And therefore, we have started charging for some stuff which was perhaps free earlier. I mean it's still free. I mean -- but some stuff is not as free as it what before, and that's led to this growth in billing in Jeevansathi.

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

The next question is for Sanjeev. Any plan to reduce your stake in PB Fintech or Zomato in near future?

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

Look, I mean the Board is always open to a discussion around this. But what we believe is that there's plenty of growth left and valuation left in both these companies. And for the moment, we would like to hold and not sell.

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

Sanjeev, an additional question is, can you give an update on some investee companies and also an update on performance of AIF?

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

So look, the AIF performance we don't go public with. But let me say that there's a good team managing it well, both all the AIFs. And yes, like use all AIFs, it's a portfolio. There will be some good companies, some middling companies and some not so good companies. Overall, I think we are okay, but I cannot be more specific than that.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

The next question is from Abijit from ICIC Securities.

Maybe we move to the next question. The next, we have Nitin Sharma from Moneycontrol Pro Research.

[Nitin Sharma, analyst]

Yes. So Hitesh, real estate listings look kind of flattish in terms of Y-o-Y basis. Would you say there's a scope in terms of volume growth from here and how you are placed versus the competition in terms of pricing?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So see what happens in a good real estate market is that real estate sells faster. And perhaps what's happening is that, one, there's not enough supply, and two, whatever is put out is sort of moving faster than earlier. In a bad real estate market, sometimes it can take years to sell, and sometimes it can take many months to sell. In a market which is hard, I mean, stuff tends to move faster and supply is also sort of limited.

Can we grow supply from here? So if more supply, it's a market definitely because we'll get our share of that. Of course, we're also working on gaining share. In some geographies, we are -- in some markets, we are very strong, in some geographies, we are relatively weak. So we're also working on improving our share in certain geographies. And if that happens, then, of course, we'll end up getting more supply in those localities and geographies as well.

[Nitin Sharma, analyst]

And on the pricing side, what kind of competition you're seeing in terms of pricing? General color would be helpful.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So see, the real estate business actually is -- so we -- see we make money from new homes. We make money from new launches. We make money from rental. We make money from resale. We make money on commercial real estates. In the new home part of the business, our real competition is actually portals like Facebook and Google. And the price is really set by them, and we are a price taker in that market. And in the resale and rental market, we are a leader. But of course, we have competition from players like Magicbricks and Housing.

And there, we believe there is an opportunity to take prices up further because we are -- we believe that we're creating a lot of value for our customers. Of course, prices of real estate have also moved up substantially. So if you just look at the value of a lead, if real estate prices are up 20% year-on-year, for example, and we are generating the same number of leads as earlier, the value of those leads are up 20%. So -- but you don't take prices up in one go. So we'll slowly and certainly take up prices in -- on the resale side of the business as we deliver more value to our customers.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

So was the last question we had online with us.

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

We can now, I guess, conclude the call.

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

I think there are one or two on -- there's one last question from Disha Patel.

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

Hitesh, it is a follow-up on Jeevansathi. Did the growth in Jeevansathi driven by order value or the number of orders? And what will be the strategy going forward?

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

So I suppose -- like I said, see, we are charging for some services we were not charging for earlier. And we've launched some new services, which were not there earlier. And so there are -- so -- and the number of users on the platform has also grown. So we are, therefore, getting both many more customers than earlier, and some customers are also buying more services than earlier. I don't have the breakup.

[Vineet Ranjan, executive]

Hitesh, that was it. Maybe we can just conclude this call. Thank you, everyone, for attending.

[Hitesh Oberoi, executive]

Thank you, everyone. Have a great evening.

[Sanjeev Bikhchandani, executive]

Thank you so much. Good night, everybody.

[Anand Bansal, executive]

Thank you so much, everyone. We conclude the call.