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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Aaditya Mulani from the HT Media Group. I would like to welcome you all to our third quarter financial year 2022/'23 earnings webinar. [Operator Instructions]
I now hand over to Ms. Anna Abraham, Head, Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, Anna.
Thank you, Aaditya. Good afternoon, everyone. I welcome you all to the earnings webinar to discuss the financial results of the third quarter of financial year 2023 of HT Media Group. On the call today from our side, we have Mr. Piyush Gupta, Group CFO; Mr. Anup Sharma, CFO of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited; Mr. Pervez Bajan, Group Controller; and then most of the Investor Relations team.
On the screen now is the earnings presentation. Kindly note that our remarks will track with the presentation on the Zoom webinar. This presentation, along with the financial statements, is available on the stock exchanges and the Investor Relations section of our website.
The Slide 2 captures the disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements, which is on your screens right now. Kindly take note of the [ same ]. As the practice, we do not provide specific revenue or earnings guidance.
Moving on to Slide 3. This gives our Chairperson's comments on the performance of the company for the quarter, and I quote, "The third quarter of the ongoing fiscal year saw the continuation of the gradual recovery of our media businesses on the back of an improved industry-wide business environment and the annual festive season. However, persistent general inflation acted as a dampener resulting in a relatively muted festive quarter. Raw material costs remained at heightened levels during the quarter but will likely ease off in coming quarters.
Against this backdrop, we continue to improve our business performance on a quarterly basis for the Print and Radio verticals. Overall, the Print segment saw sequential growth in both advertising and circulation revenues, but margins continued to be impacted by the high newsprint prices. Radio also saw an improvement on a sequential basis backed by better traction in both the FCT as well as the non-FCT space.
With inflation easing and stabilization of the overall business environment, we are hopeful of capitalizing on the growth in consumer and advertising spending in the medium-term. We remain committed to delivering credible and trustworthy news and engaging entertainment to our ever-growing audience base."
Moving on to Slide 4. This gives the agenda for today. We will begin the performance update with comments on our consolidated financials, which will be followed by detailed remarks on various businesses. We will open for Q&A session after the presentation concludes.
With this now, I hand over the call to Mr. Piyush Gupta.
Thanks, Aaditya. Thanks, Anna. We'll just tackle the screen here. So as you can see on Slide #6, we've got a consolidated financial summary. So for the third quarter FY '23, we had a total revenue of INR 488 crores, which is a decline of 2% versus the same period last year. EBITDA came at INR 28 crores, which is a decline of 74%, with PBT at minus INR 30 and PBT margin at a negative 6%.
The key highlights are given on the right side. Total revenue was down on Y-o-Y basis, primarily on account of a relatively muted macro. And first of all, just to expand, in the base -- sitting in the base is the political revenue, which came last year, considering the elections in UP. And also, there is 8 days short of the festive season because the Diwali timing ordered between the second and the third quarter. Net cash as of 31st December is at INR 824 crores.
With that, I move on. Now we go into the business unit performance coming into Print. We see revenue tracking at INR 284 crores as against INR 323 crores, and operating revenue, including circulation revenue payment, INR 368 crores versus INR 396 crores, which is a decline of 7 percentage points. Sequentially, that's a growth of 7%. Operating EBITDA came in negative at INR 4 crores versus Y-o-Y INR 87 crores last year. Sequentially, it was minus INR 14 crores last quarter, and therefore, it's an improvement of 73%. Key highlights, if we go, ad revenue declined on Y-o-Y basis, which is led by volume, I just explained that on a Y-o-Y basis earlier. Circulation revenue has improved on Y-o-Y and sequential basis, led by increase in realization per copy. And operating EBITDA loss on account of higher newsprint prices.
A little deep dive into English. Our ad revenue came in at INR 160 crores as against INR 176 crores, which is a decline of 9%. And versus the previous quarter, it's a growth of 9%, second quarter being INR 147 crores. Circulation revenue at INR 15 crores versus INR 7 crores, which is a gain of 122% and sequentially a gain of 18%. And in key highlights, retail, auto, BFSI grew, while real estate, FMCG and education remained muted. Circulation revenue increased -- improved on the back of better realization per copy and higher number of copies.
Moving on to Hindi. We can see a 16% decline, revenue coming at INR 123 crores. And sequentially, it's a growth of 1%, where they remained flat on circulation revenue. Again, it's flat at INR 45 crores, both sequentially and on a Y-o-Y basis. And key highlights, auto, health care, durables grew, while retail, education, FMCG remained muted.
A quick look at our Radio business. Revenue grew handsomely to INR 42 crores from INR 34 crores same period last year, which is a growth of 21%, and sequential basis, it's a growth of 27%. And operating EBITDA came in at INR 7 crores, which is a growth of 50%. And operating EBITDA margin came in at 17%.
A quick look at the Digital, which is sitting in HT Media Group. Our revenues came in at INR 28 crores as against INR 36 crores last year, a decline of 23%. And margins were negative with a negative INR 4 crores EBITDA.
I think with this, we come to the end of the presentation. I hand it back to Aaditya and Anna.
Thank you, Piyush. We will now begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of [ Ranga Prasad ].
Let me say that I find it very heartening to note that the price of newsprint is finally falling. Hope you can see further sharp falls in the price of newsprint in the coming quarters. Could you please [indiscernible] on what is the average price of newsprint used for Q3 and how you see it pan out in the coming few quarters? That's for the first question. Do you want me to continue with the second question or wait for your answer?
Yes, why don't we answer that first, and then you can go to the next question.
Q3 on a consolidated basis, the rate was about 65,000, and the next quarter, we are hoping to see about 3% improvement on this.
Do you see the trend of newsprint prices coming down consistently? Or is it -- do you expect it to just...
Yes, we are seeing the trend of it coming down consistently.
[indiscernible] also?
Yes.
Second question is on the expenses front. As far as expenses go, I find [indiscernible] of a sharp rise in other expenses, which have increased sharply from Q3 last year and even as compared to Q2. On a stand-alone basis, other expenses have gone up from INR 100 crores last year, in Q3 last year, to INR 108 crores in Q2 to [indiscernible] expense of INR 124 crores in Q3.
As a line item, these other expenses are equal to combined expense of raw material and employee costs. I think it will be very helpful and will add to transparency of other expenses if we have a breakup of the other expenses. And do you see any chance of improvement in the coming quarters on this front?
Yes. So on other expenses, when the detailed financials are issued, we always give a detailed breakup, but I will talk about the major variations this time. It's partly on account of advertisement and sales promotion costs. Now this is largely because we've had some big events happening this quarter vis-à-vis sequential and last year, both in Print and in the Radio business, and therefore, there is an increase in cost on account of that.
There's also investments which are happening in the [indiscernible]. The last business, which is a new initiative that we have done, the cost of that also sits in this, and that's also accounting for about half of this cost increase.
So thanks, Anna. So Mr. [ Ranga Prasad ], I think if I just have to add my 2 bits. Clearly, one part is the investment in HT Labs that we are doing, which is giving rise to some increased spend that we are seeing here. And secondly, with the COVID restrictions opening up [indiscernible] happening, there are certain events that we are conducting, which is giving rise to certain expenses, which are booked in the other expenses line, which is increasing. But they have a corresponding revenue, which is also [ sitting ] up sales.
You mean we can expect the revenue to come in, in the coming quarters?
Well, most of the revenue has come in this quarter, and some revenue might be, which is linked to the deliverable if it comes to the subsequent quarter. But the bigger point that I'm trying to make is because we are comparing with the second quarter of last year, when on-ground events were not happening, we were not conducting on-ground events, and hence, these costs were not coming. Now that it is coming to business as usual, on-ground events will happen, and we will be committing some expenses on that. But those are directly linked to our revenue incidents, which were booked in our ad revenue or in our other revenues.
Okay. Now I also find that the finance costs are increasing quarter-on-quarter. In fact, they've gone up from INR 10 crores to INR [ 17 ] crores.
For 2 reasons, actually. Well, finance cost, one of the reasons is that Ind AS 116. So whenever most of our rentals, which are given, which are negotiated from multiple of our offices, have to undergo Ind AS 116 treatment. And what typically happens is there is some part which is kept in the operating expense. And when you renew a long-term agreement, in the initial date of the agreement, a big amount is booked in the finance cost. So it's basically a Ind AS 116 arrangement. Of course, the second arrangement is the borrowing is definitely more expensive than what it was about a year ago. But it's a minor impact of that, but also Ind AS 116 impact coming into the finance cost line.
Now I hope with the fall in newsprint prices and the rise in other expenses, that in the coming quarters, we can come back to profitability.
For sure [indiscernible]. Look, newsprint prices in a normal situation would have fallen much more sharply than they are falling right now given this whole geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine. Because if you go back to the commodity cycle of 2017, '18, I mean what went up in 2 quarters came down in 2 quarters also. Right now, it's coming down a little gradually. We are very sure of the direction that the newsprint price will only soften from here on.
But will the [indiscernible] be as sharp as it was when it was going up? We don't think so because right now, we are seeing it continuously come down. But in the next 2 quarters, we are very sure that it will be another 10%, 20% down from here on. And of course, there is some inventory that we always carry from the business, and those things are adjusted on a weighted average basis.
[Operator Instructions] Thank you all. With this, we come to the end of the Q&A session. If you have any further queries, please reach out to the Investor Relations team. Our contact details are given in the investor presentation and are also mentioned on our website. I now hand over to Piyush for closing remarks.
Thanks. Yes, thank you, everyone, for joining our investor call. We definitely hope for a better set of results. As I said, that the commodity prices are indeed coming down and the revenue demand pickup should hopefully see through the economy with the GDP predictions given by Reserve Bank and the World Bank [indiscernible] 6%. We look forward to seeing you in a quarter's time. Thank you all so very much, and have a great day.