The economic recovery in India is continuing, and this quarter, aided by the festive season, has been exceptionally good, said DB Corp Ltd Non-Executive Director Girish Agarwal stated during the Q2FY23 earnings conference call.

“We have been able to deliver very robust results, very strong Q-o-Q as well as the Y-o-Y performances across all segments. We are hopeful that at this pace, the industry will continue from where it left off in fiscal 2020, before Covid,” said Agarwal.

He also talked about the softening of newsprint prices. “Based on the current domestic and international market visibility and engagements with newsprint suppliers, we believe that the newsprint prices should see a correction of around 12% to 15% both in India and outside going forward. The impact of the same should be visible from the Q4 of FY2023 in our numbers and we expect this to continue.”

Speaking on the group’s financial performance and cost optimization, Agarwal said that their singular focus has been to ensure that the various cost-cutting measures are long lasting. “While we are working towards increasing our revenue base, we have also managed to save approximately 10% in the operating costs vis a vis Q2 of FY2020. Resultantly, the print business EBITDA margin of Q2 FY2023 stood strong at 21% despite the high newsprint prices.”

Talking about the newsprint prices for the last four quarters, he shared that in Q3 of FY2021-22, the purchase cost for the newsprint was roughly around Rs. 47,000 per tonne which in the Q4, but went up straight away to Rs. 53,000 per tonne. “Then in the Q1 of FY2022-FY2023, this number went up straight away to almost Rs. 66,000, and then in Q2 it is hovering around the same price of Rs. 65,500. But looks like, from Q4, the prices will go down around 10% to 15%. So we are expecting that from Rs. 65,000-Rs 66,000, the prices will go down below Rs.60,000 and furthermore in the Q4 and there on,” he mentioned.

While speaking to the analysts about advertising, Agarwal shared his perspective of all the categories. “In terms of education, if I compare the Q2 with the pre-Covid times, then we are on a growth, strong double-digit growth. In terms of government advertising, we are on a decline. In response category classifieds, we are on a double-digit growth. In real estate again, there is a very strong double-digit growth. Automobile is one area where we are down by almost 50% compared to the pre-Covid level. This is because automobile companies are facing supply issues for the last two years and so they are not coming up with new launches.”

He further added, “In FMCG also, there was a decline of around 15%-18%. Jewelry has seen a very strong, almost 100%, compared to the pre-Covid level. Hospitals, clinics, and healthcare are all growing. Lifestyle is another category which is at 24% decline on a pre-Covid number. Once the suppky issues of the automobile sector are sorted, this decline should turn into the growth. That will be a big upside for us as well."

Meanwhile, Pawan Agarwal, Deputy Managing Director, DB Corp, highlighted the key financial performance of half year and the quarter ended September 30, 2022, followed by key operational updates.

He said that the past quarter witnessed robust growth in advertising, with many hitherto muted segments like consumer durables returning to the fold in a big way. “If you recollect, we had indicated that a strong trend of resurgence in print is being witnessed where advertisers, both large and small, are considering print to be a more trustworthy and effective medium for utilizing their advertising spends. As India's largest print media company, our editorial strength has undoubtedly helped our performance this quarter.”

Talking about the digital business, he shared that the company has been steadily growing its loyal monthly active user base across all its apps with increase of around eight times from 2 million in January 2020 to more than 15 million in August 2022, which can be attributed to our focus on ensuring high quality content with a bespoke and highly personalized product experience.

“This, we believe, has helped proper Dainik Bhaskar Group in becoming the dominant digital leader with number one Hindi and Gujarati news app player. With the dominance already established in the print format and now in the digital format, we are undoubtedly the number one phygital Indian language newspaper in the country.”

On the radio division, he mentioned that MY FM content continues to connect with audiences and augment listener engagement activities through innovative content creation. “This has helped us get better ad rates and we are hopeful of further improving this in the forthcoming quarters.”