The Sify Outlook: Portals, Games, Broadband And Advertising

Here are other key highlights from the conference call between Sify and analysts annoucing Q1 2006 results:

Portal revenues:
It had revenues of $1.44 million from portals for the Q1 ending June 30, up from 0.73 million the corresponding quarter the previous year.
Of the total portal revenue, advertising accounted for 50% compared to 58% in Q4. eCommerce accounted for 24% compared to 20% in Q4. Broadband content-related revenue accounted for 11%. Mobile accounted for 6%. Globe Travels, which is a new acquisition, accounted for about 9%.

Online games:
A3, Sify’s MMORPG game, has a registered user base of over 50,000 with the continued promotion of online games through the Game Dromes and iWays. Sify is also working with a leading online game publication to create awareness of online games to grow the market in India.
Pijush Das says: “We have not yet commercialized this, but it is at the last stages. We will probably commercialize it in the next 10 days.” They are looking to have a portfolio of online games. “Right now, we only have A3 in our portfolio, but we think that it offers great potential. At the moment, our peak users last quarter were about 400,000 for online gaming. It is free at the moment. Last quarter, registrations were about 53,000. Concurrency was about 400 only. This is expected to go up. This gives us the belief that there is potential.”

ISP Business:
The user base is currently 191,000 and is expected to grow to about 350,000 at the end of this year. Currently, the average revenue per user or ARPU is probably about Rs 210. In cities, ARPU is Rs 332.

Online advertising:
Our advertising rates are very competitive with our competitors…in the 125 to 150 rupee CPM range. We work almost exclusively on a CPM basis.
We will move beyond simple banner advertising into video advertising, video banners as well as television commercials, which are perfect for online videos. You will see that they are already beginning to evangelize that in the Indian marketplace with media agencies and big FMCG clients. That will take a little time but that is something that you should see over the next few quarters, and that will also reflect significantly in our advertising revenues.

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