Info Edge (India) Ltd
NSE:NAUKRI
Info Edge (India) Ltd
NSE:NAUKRI
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Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are about to start the conference. Vineet, we have 100 people with us. We can start the conference now.
Thank you, Anand. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Info Edge India Limited Quarter 3 FY '25 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us today from the management, we have Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Vice Chairman; Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter and Managing Director; Mr. Chintan Thakkar, Director and CFO.
Before we begin, we would like to draw your attention towards the detailed disclaimer included in the presentation for good order sake. Please note that this conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Now I'd like to hand over the call to Mr. Hitesh Oberoi for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, Hitesh.
Thank you, Vineet. And good evening, everyone, and welcome to Info Edge's earnings call for the third quarter of FY '25. We will start with an update on stand-alone financial performance, then cover segment results in more detail, along with the commentary of these business. And finally, we'll have time for Q&A.
For the stand-alone business in Q3 of FY '25, billings were INR 668 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 16% and revenue was INR 672 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 13%; billings and revenue, including Zwayam and DoSelect were INR 690 crores and INR 694 crores, respectively, a Y-o-Y growth of 16% and 13%.
Operating profits at the standalone level grew by 20% year-on-year to INR 263 crores, and the operating margin expanded by 249 basis points to 39%. The stand-alone business generated cash from operations of INR 346 crores in Q3 of FY '25, a Y-o-Y growth of 27%.
In Q3 of FY '25, the cash generation from the recruitment business was INR 333 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 20%. The nonrecruitment businesses at an aggregate level were also cash positive and generated a cash of INR 13 crores in Q3 of FY '25 versus a cash loss of INR 3 crores in the same quarter of the previous year.
In the 9 months -- the first 9 months of FY '25 for the stand-alone business, billings were INR 1,898 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 14% and revenue was INR 1,967 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 11%.
Billings and revenue, including Zwayam and DoSelect, were INR 1,957 crores and INR 2,024 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 14% and 11%, respectively.
Operating profits grew by 15% Y-o-Y to INR 742 crores and the operating margin expanded by 126 basis points to 38%. The stand-alone business generated cash from operations of INR 781 crores in the first 9 months of FY '25, a Y-o-Y growth of 17%.
The recruitment business generated cash of INR 812 crores in the first 9 months and the cash losses from the nonrecruitment businesses were reduced by 75% from a cash loss of INR 79 crores in the first 9 months of FY '24 to INR 20 crores in the first 9 months of FY '25.
EPS before exceptional items, net of tax and deferred tax for Q3 FY '25, stood at INR 20, a Y-o-Y growth of 21% and was INR 58 in the first 9 months of FY '25, a Y-o-Y growth of 19%.
The cash balance of Info Edge, including wholly owned subsidiaries at the end of December '24, stood at INR 4,290 crores. The headcount as of December '24 end was 5,883. The Board of Directors has approved entering into a contribution agreement to commit up to INR 1,000 crores from Info Edge or through wholly owned subsidiaries to IE Venture Investment Fund III. This fund will primarily focus on investing in early-stage tech-driven start-ups in India. Key investment areas include consumer Internet platforms, software products, SaaS businesses and AI-led and AI-enabled platforms and products, amongst others.
The Board of Directors has also approved the split of existing equity shares. Each equity share with a face value of INR 10 will be subdivided into 5 equity shares with a revised face value of INR 2. The primary objective of this share split is to enhance liquidity in the market and to encourage greater retail investor participation.
Both these proposals are, of course, subject to the approval of the company's shareholders. Moving on to segment price performance. We'll start with the recruitment business. In Q3 of FY '25, billings grew by 15% to INR 494 crores and revenue grew by 12% to INR 505 crores.
The operating profit improved by 15% Y-o-Y to INR 298 crores, and the operating profit margin was 59%. Cash generated from recruitment operations was INR 333 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 20%.
In the first 9 months of FY '25, recruitment billings grew by 13% to INR 1,417 crores and revenue grew by 9% to INR 1,471 crores. The operating profit improved by 6% year-on-year to INR 838 crores and the operating profit margin was 57%. Cash generated from the recruitment operation in the first 9 months of FY '25 was INR 812 crores.
The key operational highlights of the business are as follows: The billing growth rate of 15% Y-o-Y in Q3 was broad-based across all segments with the IT segment growing by 16%, non-IT by 17% and the recruitment consultant segment by 9%.
Key non-IT sectors like BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing and infrastructure grew at a double-digit growth rate. The GCC segment has also grown well and now contributes to about 12% to 13% of all Naukri billings. The JobSpeak index on a Y-o-Y basis has also consistently improved over the last 4 quarters, progressing from minus 10% to minus 4%, then to plus 5% and reaching 7% in the most recent quarter.
This trend reflects a gradually improving hiring environment, along with a better macro environment as reflected in the JobSpeak Index, our niche and adjacent businesses have also continued to perform well.
Our niche and adjacent businesses such as iimjobs, Naukri Gulf, Naukri FastForward have all shown good growth in Q3 FY '25 as well with Y-o-Y billings growth of 29%, 21% and 21%, respectively. Zwayam and DoSelect combined also registered a billings growth of 18% on a Y-o-Y basis.
AmbitionBox and JobHai, which began monetization in Q4 of '24, continued to grow and showed improved performance in this quarter as well. Although still small, these businesses hold great potential and could grow substantially over the next 4 to 5 years.
Our employer branding solutions offered across platforms like Naukri, iimjobs, Hirist and AmbitionBox, have been well received by our clients. We are working on strengthening these offerings further and expanding our market penetration.
On the job seeker side, our Naukri platform now hosts around 104 million resumes and has been adding an average of 19,500 resumes per day in Q3 -- and added an average of 19,500 regimes daily in Q3 FY '25. From the recruiter side, metrics like searches, CV views and invites also continue to grow.
In summary, our recruitment business continues to grow across all customer segments, complemented by strong performance in our niche and adjacent businesses. We remain optimistic that this positive momentum will carry forward into the upcoming quarters as long as the economy stays bouyant.
Moving over to the Real Estate segment. In Q3 of FY '25, billings growth improved by 16% to INR 103 crores and revenue grew by 17% to INR 104 crores. Operating losses were reduced by 67% to INR 5 crores versus INR 15 crores in Q3 of FY '24. This improvement was driven by revenue growth and controlled operating expense increases, resulting in enhanced operating leverage for the business.
Cash losses from the operation were INR 3 crores versus INR 7 crores in Q3 of FY '24. In the first 9 months of this year in the real estate business, billings growth improved by 15% to INR 291 crores and revenue grew by 18% to INR 305 crores. Operating losses reduced by 39% to INR 33 crores versus INR 54 crores in 9 months -- in the first 9 months of last year. And cash losses from operations were INR 24 crores versus INR 43 crores in the first 9 months of last year.
The key operational highlights of the 99acres business are as follows: For 99acres, billing growth in Q3 was driven by growth in both the number of billed customers and average billing per customer. Broker billings grew faster than developer billings.
Live new project listings grew 9% in Q3 and live resale plus rental listings from brokers grew 20% year-on-year in Q3. In the upcoming quarters, 99acres will continue to focus its investments on growing its user and client base and deliver a superior platform experience to help the users make the right real estate buying decisions.
Moving over to the matrimony business. In Q3 of FY '25, the billing growth momentum continued. Billings grew 36% to INR 28 crores and revenue grew by 24% to INR 27 crores. Last year in Q3 of FY '24, the business introduced shorter duration products, leading to more revenue being recognized within the same quarter and less carried forward to future quarters.
As a result, the Y-o-Y revenue growth rate in Q3 of FY '25 was lower than the Y-o-Y billing growth rate. Marketing investments increased slightly in Q3 ahead of the post Diwali wedding season in North India and were supported by social and content marketing to enhance brand recall.
While Y-o-Y marketing expenses remained flat, spending rose by INR 5 crores sequentially. The operating losses on a year-on-year basis reduced by 51% to INR 7 crores. The business generated cash from operations of INR 80 lakhs in Q3 of FY '25 versus a cash loss of INR 11 crores in Q3 of FY '24.
In the first 9 months of this year, matrimony billings grew by 34% to INR 79 crores and revenue grew by 30% to INR 80 crores. Operating losses were reduced by 81% year-on-year to INR 10 crores in the first 9 months of FY '25 versus INR 49 crores in the first 9 months of FY '24. Cash loss for the first 9 months was INR 5 crores, a year-on-year improvement of 89%.
Key operating highlights for the matrimony business. In Q3, the business team continued to build on its monetization efforts to grow billings. The new paid plans introduced in the previous quarters continue to enhance value realization and drive sales conversions. Additionally, more paywalls are being tested to improve monetization while maintaining customer engagement. The team is actively working on developing new strategies to enhance platform monetization while increasing efforts to drive traffic in core North Indian markets. Providing a high-quality matchmaking experience on Jeevansathi remains a top priority. We plan to make further investments in enhancing our matchmaking algorithms to deliver better outcomes for users.
Key metrics such as acceptances and 2-way chats on the platform continue to grow and demonstrated a strong performance.
Moving on to the education business. In Q3 of FY '24, billing was INR 44 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 12% and revenue grew by 3% to INR 35 crores. Operating loss from the business was INR 1 crore. The business generated a cash from operations of INR 15 crores in Q3 of FY '25.
In the first 9 months of FY '25, billings were INR 111 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 13% and revenue grew by 11% to INR 111 crores. The business achieved breakeven at the operating profit level in the first 9 months and generated INR 10 crores in cash from operations.
Within the Shiksha business, in the first 9 months of FY '25, the domestic business grew by 26% year-on-year, and the study abroad business declined by 16% year-on-year, leading to an overall business growth of 13%. Domestic private universities and colleges continue to expand their course offerings beyond engineering with more choices available to students. The emergence of new private universities in India presents an opportunity for Shiksha to further expand its footprint.
We are investing in creating more comprehensive student trendy content and building deep domain expertise in this segment. Stricter restrictions for study abroad students in Australia and Canada, higher visa rejection rates for those aspiring for studying in the U.S. and a decline in job prospects for students abroad have reduced student interest in going overseas.
On the AI front, our continued focus -- our current focus is on 3 key AI priorities: number 1, enhancing existing products and using AI; 2, developing new AI-powered features in existing products; and 3, building future-ready products. In line with this, we continue to upgrade our database product with AI and machine learning, resulting in an 8% to 10% increase in recruiter productivity.
Similarly, new AI models for job search and recommendations have driven a 10% to 20% year-on-year improvement in job seeker engagement. As shared on the previous call, AI-powered features like mock interview and resume maker continue to get traction with monthly active usage of 11 lakhs and 12 lakhs users, respectively.
Our AI initiatives are increasingly becoming the foundation of our business, driving growth across all verticals, whether recruitment, 99acres, Jeevansathi and Shiksha.
In summary, our sustained investment in AI-based innovation is strengthening our competitive edge while delivering greater value to our users and customers.
Moving on to the consolidated financial highlights. At the consolidated level, the net sales of the company stood at INR 722 crores in Q3 of FY '25 versus INR 627 crores for -- in Q3 of last year. The total comprehensive income was at INR 3,182 crores in Q3 of FY '25 compared to INR 2,624 crores in Q3 of FY '24.
Profit before tax without exceptional items in Q3 was at INR 417 crores compared to INR 185 crores in Q3 of FY '24.
To summarize and reiterate our mid- to long-term outlook, we're enthusiastic about the growth opportunities across all our verticals. Following several quarters of subdued demand, our recruitment business is now showing sustained growth, with growth across all segments, IT, non-IT and consultants. To diversify and expand our client base, we are strengthening our go-to-market offerings and acquiring new clients and focusing on the GCC segment, non-IT sectors and by increasing our presence in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
Our niche and adjacent businesses, iimjobs, Naukri Gulf, FastForward, Zwayam, DoSelect, AmbitionBox and JobHai are performing well and unlocking new growth opportunities. In 99acres, we are focused on expanding our user base, enhancing the platform and providing valuable content to support informed real estate decisions.
We are also developing new offerings aimed at strengthening our secondary business while enhancing our position in the primary new home segment. Jeevansathi's shift to a premium model has been successful in driving top line growth and moving the business closer to breakeven.
Shiksha's domestic business remains on a steady growth trajectory and is already profitable. Across all our businesses, we are advancing the deployment of AI machine learning to enhance search and recommendation experience and for the development of new features and products.
These efforts have improved user engagement, boosted productivity and increased operational efficiency. Our robust cash generation and healthy cash results remain a significant strength, enabling us to navigate market cycles effectively. We continue to evaluate the best strategies to deploy this cash to maximize shareholder returns. We are confident that these efforts position us well for sustained growth and success in the coming years.
Thank you, and we are now ready to take any questions that you may have.
Thank you, Hitesh. Anand, we can start with the questions. I guess we already have few questions in the queue.
We have. Yes. Thank you so much, Hitesh and Vineet. The first question is from Vijit Jain from Citi. Vijit, go ahead and ask your question.
Sir, I have 2 questions. One, thanks for disclosing those data points on billings between IT, non-IT and recruitment firms. Just looking at that data and looking at the Y-o-Y growth there, it looks like the recruitment firms appears to be trailing IT since 2Q '24, right, 6 quarters in a row.
This is despite non-IT being higher than IT. So it seems like the IT part of recruitment consultants must be seeing a pretty sharp slowdown. Since these are pretty correlated with IT, should we see this leg of the business to meaningfully recover from here? I don't know if that's very complicated, but it looks like recruitment consultants is up 10%, IT services is up 17% and non-IT is up 17%. The recruitment should converge with the IT side, right, in -- eventually?
[indiscernible] IT hiring continues to improve. I'm sure if it gathers more momentum going forward, then recruitment firms, which sort of work closely with IT companies, should also benefit. And as and when that starts to happen, then our business from them should also start looking up.
So generally, Hitesh, do you think the direction for the recruitment firm side is up or the direction for the IT side is down from here?
I have no idea, I have no idea. I mean, see, like I have said in the past, see, what had happened after COVID was that there was a wave of digitization that led to massive growth in IT hiring and then things slowed down suddenly. And as -- and a lot of the companies, including ours, were caught napping, we had all over hired and we had built a bench. And then over time, people got rid of their benches they did not replace the people who are leaving.
Now at least all of us are at a point where if people leave -- as long as we want to maintain the headcount we have, people need to replace them. So at least replacement hiring has started in all companies -- in most companies. Campus hiring is also picking up everywhere.
Now there are, of course, a lot of unknowns. There is -- a lot will depend on some -- on how much sort of business picks up for IT companies going forward. So I don't know how this will play out. What we have seen over the last few quarters is that our business has -- our JobSpeak Index, our business has improved quarter-on-quarter from -- we were perhaps flat 4 quarters ago. From there, we have now at plus 15% levels in IT, right? Recruitment was also negative perhaps 4 quarters back. Now they're growing at least 9%. So if this momentum continues, then things will look up from here on.
Got it. My second question is just looking at the customer base, there's a double-digit growth there for the first time again in a while. So is -- I mean, is that part benefiting from all those new cities you went into, new office openings. Is that playing a role into it? And what is the -- if you can talk a little bit about some of these newer customers that you've onboarded if there's anything different about these?
So you're right. See, the economy is growing, and there are more companies doing business than earlier. And we continue to sort of reach as many companies as we can. We've opened new offices, like you said, that's also helping. We are getting more inquiries online than earlier. So we have a whole setup to convert all these inquiries into customers over time.
So in a growing market, in a growing economy, normally, you sort of customer acquisition also grows, pricing also gets better and existing customers also hire more. So I would -- so the market we are in right now is perhaps a moderate market, it's neither hot nor cold. It's business as usual in most segments.
Thanks, Vijit. Next question is from Sachin Salgaonkar from Bank of America.
Congrats on a great set of numbers. My first question is on 99acres. Hitesh, we've consistently seen margin improvement out here. It looks like competitive intensity is also not as intense the way it was in the past. Looking at the current trends and some of the new products what you're looking to launch, is it fair to assume that going ahead, this margin should be in a consistent positive territory? And again, any general thoughts on what could be the steady-state margin in this business?
So you hit the nail on the head. You said that competitive intensity does not -- competition seems to be rational. That's true. That is the case at this point in time. The market is reasonable. And we have also done a few things at our end, which have resulted in margin improving. Our marketing has become a lot more efficient than earlier.
So we spent a lot less money on marketing this quarter compared to Q2, and we're able to get the same kind of growth and this should sustain going forward as well. I can't predict what competition will do going forward. If it remains -- Q4 is normally a very good quarter seasonally for us, right?
Q3 is, in fact, the weakest -- a weak quarter. So if we continue to execute well, competitive intensity remains similar, then Q4 should be good. Now going forward, actually there are 2 parts of our business, there is a new home business and there is a resale and rental business. On the recent rental side, we continue to execute well, and that has been the case now for about 7,8 quarter, at least. And we are very happy with the way we are doing in that segment.
On the new home side, we're not very happy with our performance internally. We are working on a few things. But we have not seen the kind of success we would have wanted to see. So going forward, if the market remains reasonable and if competition -- competitive intensity remains reasonable, then this year, if all goes well, 99acres will -- on a cash basis, will get close to breakeven. And if you are able to grow our business in high-teens next year, then it should make some money, but it's very hard to say as to how things will play out. Like I said, a lot will depend on what competition does next year.
Got it. Any general thoughts on steady state margin, looking at your peers in other countries?
Too early to comment on that, I think.
Fair point. Second question, and clearly, we're seeing you guys using AI a lot and...
May I just -- see, on projected margins for a business like 99acres, it's got roughly similar cost heads and cost structures as Naukri, marginal sort of differences. So you've got technology, you've got servers, you've got marketing, you've got a sales team and so on, right? And you've got head office costs.
Now really similar -- in Naukri variable cost is only sales commissions, so therefore it's 93% gross margin. Likewise, in 99acres. So really, the question really is would it get similar margins like Naukri? If it gets for the same resource deployment, for the same effort, for the same cost, that gives the same revenue as Naukri? It will. So really, the uncertainty which Hitesh is talking about is that we don't know how much revenue we'll get for the -- for this resource deployment, and that is the unpredictable part and therefore, until we are clear on that, we can't really predict margins.
Pretty clear on that. Moving on to my second question. This is about AI, and thanks HItesh for highlighting some of the ways you guys are looking to use AI. Question out here is, let's say, from the next 12- to 18-month perspective, should we see more benefits on the revenue part with new products being launched or more benefits on the cost side with a bit more efficiency being utilized?
See, what we have done successfully over the last few years on the AI front is we have basically improved all our -- improved our search, our recommendation engines, our matching algorithms and as a result of which take a business like Jeevansathi, the number of acceptances, mutual sort of acceptances on the platform have gone up, right?
Similarly, the search experience and the -- on the Naukri platform is a lot better than earlier. The matching is a lot better. Now all these things help in the long run. Because in the end, what happens as a result of all this is that more people get hired or more people find matches through your platform. And somewhere, this is correlated to revenue, right?
So one can't say like, listen, this is having a direct impact on revenue because we don't charge on this basis. And it's not a new offering. It's not a new product. But as your platforms become smarter, becomes more efficient, as your -- as more people get hired through you or more houses get bought through you or more people get married through you, somewhere, it does reflect in revenue.
So this is something which we have been doing for a while now, and we've been very successful at. Now of course, we are also trying to develop new features and new products using AI and data.
For example, some time back, we launched a talent pulse offering in Naukri. And since then we've expanded the suite of products, data products we have. Now we do get revenue from -- some revenue from the suite of products we took to market a couple of years ago. And we are working on building new products as well. But on new products, it's very hard to predict whether they will be successful or not when we take them to market. So efforts are on. But the other piece, which is using AI to become more efficient, using AI to become faster, using AI to enhance existing offerings, that agenda will continue.
Okay. So your consol margins should continue to move up, right, because of the AI-led initiatives going ahead?
Sorry, which margin?
Stand-alone margins.
Stand-alone margins, in existing offerings, yes. As long as we look at revenue growth because revenue growth is also a function of the market and competition and many other things. Are we getting more efficient at delivering the same stuff? Yes.
And my last question is on GCCs. On the ground checks do indicate that in the last 6 to 9 months, we're seeing some good hiring happening around GCCs. And by the looks of it, the trend does indicate that the hiring out here is picking up. Directionally, I know this was a relatively smaller opportunity as compared to some of the IT services and others. But has this a potential of becoming much bigger than what it was in the past from an opportunity perspective?
Yes. And I'll tell you why. Because see, -- and of course, it will depend on how fast GCCs grow and how big they become. See, GCCs, when they're small, they don't use us. So when they set up shop in the country for the first couple of years, most GCCs start small, you may start with 50 or 100 people, then over time, scale up to 200, 300. Till then, they don't really depend on us for hiring.
It's when they start scaling up is when they start using platforms like Naukri a lot more. In the beginning, most of the hiring is done through [ pedantic firms ] and the likes. So now the biggest GCCs in the country maybe employee 50,000 people. And then there are a bunch of small GCCs in the country which have maybe 50, 100, 200, 300, 500 people.
Now so if the GCC market continues to grow rapidly and more importantly, the existing GCCs start to grow rapidly, right, the ones who are 100, if they go to -- want to go to 1,000, ones who are at 2,000 try and go to 10,000, decide to go to 10,000, then that will really benefit our business, number 1.
Number 2, so the point I was making is not so much the number of GCCs, it's how much the existing GCCs are likely to scale going forward, which matters more in the short term for us.
Secondly, see, what we have seen is, and I did talk about this a little bit. We have revamped and relaunched our branding offerings and we are seeing good traction in the market. And -- so now, see, there are lots of companies who are setting up shop, and they're not known in the Indian market. So give or take a couple of hundred companies, I don't think people know that what the other companies out there do.
So we believe that GCCs will want to, at least the new GCCs, want to invest in brand building, they will want to invest in generating, creating awareness about who they are, what they do, because they will want to attract good talent going forward. So that is another opportunity which we see emerging in the medium term.
Thanks, Sachin. Next question is from Vivekanand from AMBIT Capital. Vivek, go ahead and ask your question.
Hitesh, first question is on AI. I know you spoke about the good side of AI, but is there any tension that you get from AI or LLMs being disruptive to e-recruitment? Because your current model is on rupees per resume monetization. I mean it is solutions oriented, but there's still an element of card rate and you giving discounts and people searching through the database. Now what if the way technology evolves doesn't require the number of searches that are currently needed, number of CV views? So that's question one. And the second question is for -- yes, maybe I can ask that later you answer it, please.
Yes. No, no, you're absolutely right. See AI is an opportunity. And of course, if we are not able to capitalize on the opportunity and somebody else does a better job, then existing business models could get disrupted. So, so far, we haven't seen anything which worries us.
We worry more about the impact of AI on jobs, which could impact our business, right? But that, again, is a debatable topic. Some people think AI will result in more jobs getting created. Some people feel AI will result in jobs going away. So I don't have an answer to that question. But on the technology side, AI can be disruptive, and we are, of course, investing aggressively to see how we can leverage it for our benefit. Business models could evolve over time. So as the technology was, and that's something we are also -- we constantly think about.
Okay. That's helpful. Sanjeev, just on the current another INR 1,000 crore investment that is being planned in the AIFs, how much of your total INR 3,400 crores investment committed by the AIFs has been deployed? How many startups have been incubated across the 3 AIFs? And is there any thought given to recycling capital from your prior successful investments or even the AIFs themselves, which -- some of which are quite mature?
So I'll tell you. Rough math is about 40-plus, I think, 28-plus, I think 20. The 3 AIFs would be about maybe 90 to 100 companies, maybe 90, approximately, rough numbers, I'm doing the math in my head as I go along.
And then there's a balance sheet investments. There are other 7, 8 companies there, and then there's RedStart which is another, I think, [indiscernible] so maybe you're talking -- plus 10 companies that have -- we've done in the past that have gone under. So I would say -- and then there are the strategic investments, which I'm not counting here, right?
So I would say nonstrategic investments total would be ever done from 2007 onwards, whether through AIF or balance sheet or subsidiaries would be in the region of 120-plus approximately, rough math, don't hold me to these numbers. Do we look at recycling? Yes, we do.
But you see the point is that it's as and when exits happen. And early stage investing, and we'd like to be first checks in companies. Early stage investing often takes 8, 10, 12 years to sort of mature and give you a possibility of an exit, right?
At the same time, we like to hold on as long as possible as long as there's enough growth and momentum in the company, as is the case in Zomato and PolicyBazaar because I know what we also believe fundamentally is that if you have an investment in the company, you possibly have a future.
If you exit and take out cash, you've only got cash. And cash has no future other than 6%. At the same time, you could lose money if you make the wrong investments. We are cognizant of that fact. So yes, we are aware, we are conscious. We continue to invest. The operating business generates money. Some of that goes into investments and much of it does not.
Second, I'll tell you. See, we -- typically, when we do an AIF, roughly about 40% to 50% of the investable capital is earmarked for first checks into companies. The remaining 50% or 60% is for follow-on offering -- follow-on investments in the same companies. So when we run out of first check money, which is within 3 to 4 years of launching an AIF typically, maybe 3 years, that is when we launch a new AIF. So it's not as if the older funds don't have money, they have money, but that's earmarked for follow-ons in the old portfolio.
Okay. And did I get the timing right, the first checks are typically deployed in 2 to 3 years of the AIF being launched and then subsequent funding happens as capital cost happens?
Maybe 3 years, sometimes 4 years, but yes, within 3 years, yes, typically.
Okay. Great. That's helpful. Last question, Hitesh, on the non-IT recruitment revenue opportunity, from your vantage point, how big a revenue pool is there for you in the non-IT recruitment segment. I know you have mentioned in the past that there are there are discounts that you give, which are perhaps necessary for you to penetrate that market, acquire more users. You also mentioned that there's a lot of self-serve activity happening that people are logging on to your portal and becoming customers of Naukri directly. So can you walk us through how big can non-IT recruitment be in, let's say, dollar terms or, let's say, in terms of size of revenue pool 5 years, 10 years from now?
See, non-IT revenue is approximately 50%, 52% of our revenue in Naukri, the revenue we get from non-IT customers. Because in terms of number of customers, it's a much larger, ARPUs are lower. And -- see, what we've seen in the past is that whenever the economy grows sustainably at 6%, 6.5% for a prolonged period, we are -- have been able to grow our revenue at 20%-plus from the non-IT because non-IT is more indexed to the domestic economy as opposed to IT which is more indexed to what happens globally.
So that's what we've seen in the past. So if the domestic economy continues to grow at 6%, 6.5% per annum unless we get new competition, unless something changes, historically, we've sort of seen that business is able to grow at 20%-plus. Partly, like I said, it's because of new customer addition, partly, it is because we're able to take price increases in a hot market, and partly, it is because existing customers have -- there's more volume.
So that's what we've seen in the past. Now this assumes that nothing much changes in the world outside. So competitive situation remains the same, we don't launch new products and so on and so forth. So -- I mean -- so you can do the math, right? I mean 5 years from now, if the Indian economy continues to grow at 6%, 7% per annum, then this is what is likely to happen.
Of course, with AI, we are trying to launch new features, new products, we're trying to make the platform more efficient. In the past, I've always said that our platform is not as efficient for non-IT hiring as it is for IT hiring. So there's an opportunity there if we can sort of fix all those things and we continue to work on those pieces.
Okay. Very helpful. Just 1 last doubt that I had on the JobSpeak disclosures. So the JobSpeak data now captures the indexed searches as well by recruiters, right? And typically, searches translate into resume views, which then straightaway is accounted for in the database revenue that you have, right?
So ideally, the disclosures now, the JobSpeak that we get now should correlate more to recruitment billing, right? But what we see is that the recruitment billing tends to grow much faster or maybe it's much less volatile than JobSpeak. Why is that so? And what are the other variables here that JobSpeak isn't yet capturing?
So one, of course, you're right, a lot of the recruitment activity on the core Naukri platform is getting captured in JobSpeak a lot better than earlier, right? But in addition to this, like I mentioned in the call, we have all these new products and services adjacent businesses, which have nothing to do with JobSpeak. If we are growing in the Gulf or if the high-risk platform grows faster in a particular quarter or if iimjobs oes better or if the candidate services business grows faster, that is not getting -- or if our branding solutions, for example, even on the core Naukri platform are growing faster than the main business, then that will not get reflected in JobSpeak, right.
Pricing increases. Now let me -- in a hot market, it's easier to take a pricing -- it's easier to take pricing up. On the other hand, the opposite can happen in a slow market. So if JobSpeak starts to move up -- climb rapidly, then actually -- I mean, theoretically, it should be possible for us to take price increases as well, right? And the reverse may happen if -- on the way down. So it's -- there is -- I'm sure there's some correlation, but it's not -- but there are many other factors as well, which impact billing in a particular quarter.
Thanks, Vivek. Next question is from Ankur Rudra from JPMorgan. Ankur, go ahead and ask your question.
The first question is, if you can just -- maybe if you covered it already, I may have missed it. The IT billings growth number of 16%, how much of this came from the GCCs versus the IT companies this time? Was there a particular trend on one side versus the other?
We can't could break it up like that because GCC hiring also includes non-IT hiring. So it's hard for us to figure out. And we don't give that. We don't do that cut right now.
I know. But from a flavor perspective, is one stronger than the other or you're seeing 1 segment...
Yes, anecdotally, what I can tell you is that GCCs are perhaps growing faster for us. But I haven't -- we haven't looked at the numbers.
And Hitesh, are these larger GCCs that have begun to hire now in a big way or are these newer GCCs?
Yes, yes. So a lot of the large GCCs had frozen hiring. So some of them have started hiring again.
Okay. If the growth momentum continues the way it is, we haven't really had a meaningful amount of price increases for the last couple of years. Is there a chance you might take a meaningful price increase in calendar '25?
Only if the market -- only if you have a hot market for hiring. So we are more likely to focus on customer acquisition in the core Naukri business. On growing our adjacent sort of businesses faster, higher penetration for those products. If the job market becomes hotter than it is today, talent becomes hard to get, then that makes it easier for us to take price increases.
Okay. Last question is on the new fund. Is there any change in the mandated focus versus the previous funds?
Sanjeev, that's for you.
No. It's still early stage tech.
Okay. No change in terms of what you'll go after within early stage tech also?
Well, within early stage tech, it will depend on what the market is like. See, the way we do it is we don't do a top-down, we do it bottom up. We meet a few hundred companies. We look at a few hundred companies a quarter and then decide to invest in 2 or 3. So we'll see what -- we'll look at what's bubbling up from underneath, and then we take a call. But in general, a few trends are kind of emerging, I think it's pretty clear that AI is going everywhere. So no matter which sector, which company you invest in, there will be an element of AI in there.
Next question is from Nikhil Choudhary from Nuvama. Nikhil, go ahead and ask your question.
Hitesh, first one on the recruitment side. We have seen some data point basically, especially on JobSpeak some slowdown, especially on the IT hiring. The data for last 2, 3 months had been quite muted compared to the acceleration we were seeing in earlier months. And second, on non-IT side, while most of the company are calling out some slowdown due to macro and other stuff, we have seen our non-IT remained very resilient, right?
So just color on overall demand outlook, especially for Q4, which is one of the most important quarter for us. And Hitesh, we had favorable base for first 9 months, right, while Q4 won't be the same. We saw acceleration in Q4 of the last year. So do you think demand continued to improve and we would be able to deliver the, let's say, mid-teen double-digit growth or even higher in coming quarters?
So let me answer the second question first. Q4 is a seasonally strong quarter, but Q4 last year was weak as well, right? So it's not as if we have a high base. The base is high because of seasonality, not because Q4 last year was a great quarter. So -- as far as your question on hiring, see non-IT, it's very sectoral. There are some sectors that are doing well and some sectors which are perhaps not growing as fast.
On the whole, business is okay, right? It's not like I was saying, it's not a great market, but it's not a bad market either, right? It's somewhere in the middle. As far as IT is concerned, you're right, we saw some recovery. And after that, things have stabilized. It's not as if things moved up, have continued to sort of move up month-on-month. Having said so, it's a very volatile world, it's very unpredictable.
Things change very quickly, especially in some sectors. For the first -- for example, for the first 3 weeks of this quarter, IT, every -- all hiring was slow, but the last 2 weeks have been good, right? I mean, unless I'm looking at the number of jobs, et cetera, on the platform and commenting on.
Now will it sustain going forward, who knows, right? So I don't know. I mean it's a little unpredictable. On the whole, it seems like the market is stable. It's not -- neither moving up, not going down from where it was 3 months back, that's how it looks like right now.
Got it. Second one, bit on medium term. We have seen IT companies for the first time this quarter talking about the Gen AI efficiency is finally coming. And they expect, finally, they will have disconnect between hiring and revenue growth, while, for the last decade, it was broadly the same despite of AI.
But -- and more or less, for the first time, there is a comment that they will -- this will lead to a change in the business model, revenue per employee going up compared to employee addition. Do you think we also need to reinvent or might need to change our business model, especially in light with Gen AI efficiency coming in 1 of the biggest market for us?
[indiscernible] trying to do, see we have been investing in AI for a while now. And earlier, it was classical machine learning and now it is more Gen AI as well. We are also looking at agentic AI and to see what we can do with it.
So one is, of course, we are trying to make our processes more efficient, our processes faster -- in some areas, we are managing with fewer people, in other areas we are trying to get people to deliver faster. What used to take 6 months, can it be done in 2 months, 3 months.
In other areas, we are seeing opportunity and we are hiring people to benefit from those opportunities, which AI has made possible, which were perhaps not possible earlier, things which are not possible earlier.
So where will we end up as a result of all this, I don't know, right? And also, I guess, where Indian IT companies will also end up will be a function of where they see opportunity, how much they want to invest in those opportunities. And of course, there will be some areas where they'll become more efficient as well. So that's the -- I mean, that's my feeling. I mean, I -- did I miss anything? Did I answer your question or...
Yes, yes, Hitesh, broadly. Just last point in terms of -- while I agree what Sanjeev said that it's difficult to predict the margin of a business like 99acres. Just want to understand you as a management, would like to keep margin of non-recruitment business at a, let's say, breakeven level? Or internally, you would like to focus on making it further more profitable?
So I think the way we operate is, we look at where we can invest, right? We look for ideas. We look for opportunities. And then we try and make those ideas happen, those opportunities happen. Like, for example, we are investing aggressively behind our blue collar business now. I mean, we're investing more and more with every passing year. We started monetizing it a few months back and we are losing a lot of money right now, but we see an opportunity, so we are likely to increase our investment going forward in the blue collar business, knowing very well that it will not generate a lot of revenue in the short term.
Similarly, in 99acres, there are areas where we see opportunity, we're going to invest a lot more than we were earlier -- investing earlier. We will not be irrational. Like I said, it's more idea driven, it's more insight-driven and the margin that we will end up with is going to be a function of what revenue growth is going to be like after making these investments, which is harder to predict, right?
So that's how we operate. Now would we want to make money in the business? Of course, we would want to make money. Would we want to make it -- get high margins? Of course, we want to get high margins, but not if we think it is going to hurt the business in the long run.
Thanks, Nikhil. Next question is from Abhisek Banerjee from ICICI Securities. Abhisek, go ahead and ask your question.
Yes. Again, thanks for improving the quality of disclosures every single quarter. The new presentation is really helpful. Most of my questions have been answered, just had a couple of bookkeeping type questions.
One is, if you see the 9 months of FY '25, what would you see as the realization -- average realization improvement from per client vis-a-vis how much has come from addition of new clients in terms of recruitment revenues?
We don't disclose it for the intermediary period. We normally do it for the full year. But like Hitesh has mentioned in the previous calls as well, in the first 9 months, in the earlier quarter, it will be mostly driven by volume than by ARPU growth.
Understood. Understood. But see, I was trying to understand, last time, Hitesh had actually called out that despite not taking price increases per se, there was a realization improvement, which happened because companies were hiring more senior people, right. So is that trend still continuing? That is what is actually to get to.
No, no, one second. We don't get more revenue because somebody has hired a senior person versus a junior person, right? So that doesn't change, unless I'm getting something wrong, Hitesh?
See, we have value conversations with customers, and we have analytics around how much they potentially benefit from the platform that helps us negotiate with them in our negotiation. It's not as if we price like that. So -- but at a macro level, this year, we have grown the number of customers also. We have seen volume growth also and pricing growth has been very, very modest.
Okay. Understood. And 1 more point is that we saw exceptional loss of about INR 60 crores, which was mentioned on account of something moving from being a subsidiary to this thing, an investment instrument. So why the loss was recognized, I mean, is there a down round which happened? If you just could explain that part.
Yes. I think if I understood the question correctly, you're referring to the impairment that we have done, and we have shown it as an exceptional item in this quarter. So that represents 1 of the subsidiary companies that we have, which has the brand Coding Ninja, and when we invested, we had certain expectations and at that point in time, the valuation of ed tech companies were very different than what it is now. Although the company is actually doing well in terms of narrowing the cash burn as well as they are growing Y-o-Y 30%-plus.
So although they seem to be doing well, but as compared to the projections that we had at the time we invested versus what it is today, I think there's a gap in the value of the asset that we are carrying in our books of accounts. That's why in consultation with auditors and following the conservative prudence and principles of conservatism, we have chosen to impair to the extent we thought that the value looks more realistic to where it stands.
So Abhisek, just to add regarding your point of reclassification of 1 company from a JV to financial investment, that was not this quarter, that happened last quarter, that was for quarter 2 [indiscernible] where an external investor came in and we became -- we instead of -- like majority shareholder, we got diluted. So it was for the previous quarter, not this quarter.
Got it. Got it. And in terms of the demand outlook in the recruitment business. So if you look at the total number of headcounts in the top IT firms, about the top 10 IT firms. In FY '24, probably our number has gone down about 4%-odd, right? And there was a lot of stuff written there. And I mean, in terms of improvements from -- improvements from AI, people have often quoted a number of about 20% improvement in that efficiency. So do you really see there's more room for jobs to be cut if AI improvements continue or do you think it will just...
IT services companies?
Yes.
See, I don't know. I mean to each his own and I can't comment on what -- how different companies are going to navigate this. GCCs have been talking about their headcount growing because that's a very different ball game. Jobs are moving from overseas to India. AI is also creating opportunities. So it depends on how much you want to sort of leverage those opportunities. There are many companies, big tech companies, they may be cutting headcount in some areas, they are hiring in other areas.
So that's also happening. So it's difficult -- and see, our revenue is a function of gross hiring not net hiring, right? So if attrition rates move up for some reason, that also benefits us, right? So even though the company stays at the same headcount, but the attrition rate starts to climb, for some reason, it could be that GCCs start hiring from IT services companies and IT first services companies are forced to replace the people who are leaving, okay? That also helps us because it's a function of gross hiring and not net hiring.
Thanks, Abhisek. Next question is from Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Amit, go ahead and ask your question. [Operator Instructions].
Okay. So my question is on the recruitment segment. Obviously, you have mentioned that you're investing in the platform, which is a blue collar hiring platform which is JobHai and AmbitionBox. So as of now, in terms of the revenue contribution, what is the contribution of JobHai and AmbitionBox in terms of overall revenue and billings? And also, we are seeing that the billings growth for the iimjobs, the Naukri Gulf, and Naukri FastForward is much higher than what we are having at the consolidated level in the recruitment segment.
So if you can elaborate more in terms of what are the opportunities we see in the medium term here? And also, you mentioned about a lot of AI being offered. So in terms of the pricing impact, how we are seeing the AI impact on pricing from the pricing perspective? So the increase in the realization that we're seeing is mostly AI-led?
Yes. So JobHai and AmbitionBox, they are very small today. We just started monetizing them this year. So this year, our revenue from JobHai plus AmbitionBox will be less than maybe INR 20 crores, INR 25 crores in total, right? So these are very tiny platforms, but they're very strategic for us in the long run.
And we will continue to invest behind them. JobHai, this is the first year of monetization and AmbitionBox, again, we've been -- we've started monetizing only a few months back. There's a core Naukri business, and there are these adjacent sort of verticals like iimjobs, Hirist, FastForward, Naukri Gulf, et cetera, et cetera. Together, I think they account for about 20% of our collections in -- or in that ballpark in the recruitment business.
In some of these verticals -- some of these verticals have been growing faster than the core business because the core business was very slow for the first few quarters. And in these -- in some of these verticals, not in all of them, because the FastForward business, for example, is more job-seeker oriented.
There is a penetration game also which is still playing out. So it's not as if we are -- unlike the Naukri business where penetration levels are very high. Here in some of these verticals, penetration levels are low. So we are trying to get more and more customers on to our platform as well. So we want these. I mean, at least we will aspire to and want to grow these adjacent sort of verticals at a faster clip than the core Naukri business.
As far as AI is concerned, AI is basically mostly being sort of deployed on the core Naukri platform, right? And if we are -- and if you do a good job, then what should happen as a result of that deployment is that our platform should become more efficient and more effective and if companies were -- all things else remaining the same, if companies were hiring maybe 40 out of 100 people through our platform earlier, we should be able to take this number from 40 to 45 or 50, number 1.
Number 2, we should be able to help them save time as well and get them to hire people faster because they should be able to find the right candidates faster. Now this is a journey, okay? It's not as if we change the algorithm and things start to work. We have to keep iterating, keep testing, keep deploying new stuff, see what's working, what's not working, we get feedback, we change things, et cetera, et cetera. But we have been investing, and we've seen some good results.
As far as pricing is concerned, we are not charging an extra -- charging extra for AI, right, right now. We're offering it to everybody. And what I have -- like I said earlier, it's not easy -- we've seen at least over time is that it's not easy to take prices up in a regular market. We can get your 3%, 4% increase. It's hard to get more than that in a regular market, in a slow market, of course, you end up discounting. As -- once the market starts to improve, the hiring market and then it's possible to take higher increases.
Okay. And my last question on the 99acres platform. Obviously, we are seeing improvement in terms of billings and profitability there. But what's actually missing there because we are seeing the best phase of the real estate market. But despite that, we have not been able to like monetize on that and still the billings from like from the new product listing is not up there as we would have intended to be. So what's not working out there?
Yes. So let me just break this up for you. So at a very high level, there is a new home market, and there is a secondary market and within secondary, I'm including the rental market. So the resale and rental market continues to do well for us. And our business has been growing at a reasonably healthy rate, and we are perhaps gaining share in that segment as well.
But it's less than half of our business, right? The new home market has been hot. And within the new home market, there is a new launch market, which is perhaps what you're referring to, and there is a regular sort of sale of under construction homes market projects which were launched maybe a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago.
We don't really have a very big play in -- or a good product to offer -- which we offer in the new launch space. So that market is actually currently not with us. It's with Facebook, it's with Instagram, it's with Google. We have a very tiny share. Not just us, but every real estate -- all real estate portals have a very tiny share of that market. We are working hard to see how we can increase our share of that market. And within that market also where we have seen a flurry of activity is in premium housing. In fact, affordable housing has been slow, right, throughout the country, okay?
It's not as if the affordable housing market is very hot. It's actually perhaps easier to launch and sell INR 5 crore apartments than it is to sell an apartment for INR 70 lakhs, INR 80 lakhs, INR 1 crore right now, right?
So it's -- I know there's a lot of buzz around real estate and prices have moved up and so on in some markets and so on. But it's not as if every segment of that market is doing well. We continue to do well in the secondary market. We continue to do well in under construction homes, we have still a long way to go before we crack the new launch market, which is where the big tech companies do really well [indiscernible] distributing very quickly.
Thanks, Amit. Next question is from [indiscernible].
Just a quick question for me. On the 99acres business, if you see the pace of the quarterly run rate of the revenue or the billings, it's been pretty steady quarter-over-quarter, but profitability has improved substantially. So could you flesh out what has led to that improvement? Where have you pulled the levers?
Yes, 2, 3 things. See, one, our costs -- our manpower cost has stayed -- has been under control. We have -- manpower costs have been under control. Our other big platform work is already done. And now, of course, we are improving things, but all the investments have already been made. And similarly, in our -- on the operating side -- on the operations side, on the sales side, I mean, it's not as if we're adding a lot of headcount. And I don't think we need to add a lot of headcount if the platform can deliver better going forward, and we can keep getting revenue growth. So there's a high operating leverage, number 1.
Number 2, our marketing has become a lot more efficient. And of course, early days, and this -- we saw some encouraging results in Q3, and we have to see whether that sustains going forward. But the platform is able to deliver a lot more inquiries and leads than earlier with lower marketing spend today than was perhaps the case 6 months ago. So that's also helping.
Salil, you can go ahead and ask your questions, Salil from Marcellus.
My question is for [indiscernible]. You mentioned that the impairment clarification [indiscernible] the business itself is doing well, but it takes value down, and that is why there's impairment. Now just help me understand, we do not have recognized this anyway at market value, right? So where does valuations changing, where is that...
Can I -- sorry, can I -- see, when at early stage, you go by potential promise and projections, right? Now if it becomes apparent that those projections are not going to be met in the near term at least, and you had valued it high and there has been correction in the ed tech market valuations. Then our true and fair conservative basis, you'll discuss with your auditors and they tell you to impair it and then you impair it. And that's how it is. Am I right, Chintan?
Yes, that's correct.
We don't argue a lot with the auditors. We mostly listen to them.
Okay. I have not 100% understood this, but I'll take it up separately [indiscernible].
If I just add a little bit, Salil, in case that helps you, that whatever is the DCF valuation that we do, and then there's a certain multiple that is being used and certain comparable cases that are being used. And those comparable cases when we made investment 3 years ago versus what the comparable cases and their respective valuations or what the new rounds of valuation happening in private and public market, I think they are very different. So all that goes into the calculation or the judgment that, that auditor helps us good. And basis that like Sanjeev said that on a very prudent basis, on a very conservative basis, we take the most conservative view of what is [indiscernible].
Thanks, Salil. Hitesh, there are question in the Q&A box. This is from Nitin Jain from UTI AMC. The first question, any plans to enter into new lines of business, given that tech is our strength either organically or through acquisitions?
See jobs, real estate, matrimony, stroke dating and education. These are the lines of business we are currently in. It's very unlikely that we will add a new category in the next few months, but never say never, who knows what is going to happen a year or 2 down the line. So yes.
And another point he has made is between Naukri, iimjobs, Zwayam, DoSelect and Hirist, what would you take -- what would be your take be on them cannibalizing each other to some extent?
So see, some of these are -- like Zwayam, DoSelect, et cetera, are software platforms. They don't compete with Naukri at all, okay? Iimjobs is our play in the premium MBA space, right? And the reason we acquired iimjobs is because, yes, some premium MBA hiring also happens through Naukri but iimjobs is perhaps a stronger player in that segment.
Very little cannibalization there in our view. JobHai is a blue collar platform. Again, that's not a segment Naukri is very strong in. It's not as if a lot of blue collar hiring happens through Naukri, which is why we are actually building a product in that space. Now at the edges there could be some over time, who knows. But they are actually different products, and they're targeting very different segments. The positioning is different. The proposition is different. Often the customer base is different, the user base is different. And that's how we're approaching them right now.
That was it on the questions side. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call. We now conclude this conference call. You may now disconnect the lines.
Thank you, and have a great evening.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you so much, everyone.