Earnings Call: Naukri Defers Raising $125 Million For Acquisitions; Shiksha To Launch This Quarter

Naukri.com has decided to defer raising $125 million for investments, CEO Sanjeev Bikhchandani mentioned in the earnings conference call today. The reason: “Given the volatility in the market, we decided to postpone the requirement. Essentially, that money was being raised for potential future acquisitions. Now we’ve decided to first identify the acquisition and raise the money should we need it.” Readers will remember that in December last year, the company had taken a board approval for raising Rs. 500 crores ($125 million) money for investment. During the call, the word “volatility” was repeated often when referring to the market.

Some details also emerging on the companys proposed entry into the educational segment as well – Shiksha.com will be an educational search engine, and an educational marketplace like Naukri is for employment. There will also be features to help advise students on which courses to pursue (on the lines of AskNaukri.com?). Shiksha is expected to be launched sometime this quarter. During the call, I also asked company execs about their investment in StudyPlaces (question sent by pacificleo to me via Twitter): Says Bikhchandani: “the educational segment is huge and different players will occupy different segments. Over the next 3-4 years people will find their niches and more than one side will succeed. But it’s a very large space so its important to have more than one play.” He added that the educational market is one which will even rival the total jobs market; it’s a largely undocumented market

Lots of numbers from the very long investors conference call:

Recruitment & Naukri.com
— Recruitment grew by at 54 percent in the year, accounted for Rs. 196 crores, accounts for 89-90 percent of net sales
— ARPU was 49,000 for Naukri, up from 39,000. ARPU might come down as more clients are added.
— There is a slowdown in IT, but was mitigated due to growth in other sectors (30-40 sectors). Expect share of IT to reduce in the year
— Expect high volatility in Naukri business, internal target of 40 percent growth
— Infrastructure segment is growing at 65 percent, accounts for around 20 percent of sales
— 48-49 percent revenue is from services
— total 32,500 clients, up from 27,500 last year.
— The top 10 percent of clients accounted for 63 percent of revenue, which is flat like last year
— In Q4, 14,000 resumes added daily, and significant increase modified resumes due to changes in UI and navigation
— FY07-08: 10,000 resumes added daily, 36,000 modified daily
— In Q4, Share of IT declined from 30 percent to 27.9 percent. Annually, IT is 29 percent from 32 percent previous year for Naukri corporate sales.
— IT revenue grew 48 percent in the year over previous year. In quarter on quarter, it grew 33 percent
— Good traction from small accounts, mostly non-IT companies
— Set up office in Bahrain, and looking to set up shop in Saudi Arabia

details on other verticals after the jump

Other Verticals (apart from Naukri.com)
— Good topline growth with percentage losses declining
— grew by 90 percent and accounted for Rs. 22.5 crores of topline
— Investment was Rs. 18 crores at EBITDA level
— expect non-Naukri businesses to grow upwards of 70 percent
— loss of Rs. 18 crores at EBITDA level; expect losses to go up, though percentage losses will go down. Investments in Shiksha.
— Portals that we launch today will require 3 year break even, with investments upwards of Rs. 25-30 crores
— Evaluating freshers segment, and if we do something there, will be in 6-9 months
— Brijj: upwards of 600-700,000 registration, but not much engagement

Jeevansathi.com
— launched first offline center in lucknow, and intend to add 25-30 centres over next six months. Rented premises, not franchise model.
— not more than $1 million – $1.5 million over next 6 months investment in offline centers
— 2.36 million users ever registered, up from 1.3 million last fiscal
— 72,000 paid profiles in the year
— Break-even at Rs. 1.25 lakh per center per month
— Finding a niche in Hindi belt and Maharashtra – it’s about segmenting the market, and being number 1 for a segment
— Average revenue per paying customer per year is Rs. 1700

99 Acres
— very very good growth – 182 percent growth in topline in the year
— market conditions are tigher, and brokers are more open to spending money online
— 200,000 listings, up from 60,000 in Q3. Offering more free trials
— paid listings are up at 54,500 up from 30,000 at end of Q3; higher number of paid clients
— 2438 paid transactions in Q4, 1766 unique paid customers

Disclosure: I own an inconsequential number of shares of Info Edge

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post