Hindustan Media Ventures Limited

Piyush Gupta

Group CFO

Anup Sharma

CFO, Hindustan Media Ventures Limited

Anna Abraham

Head, Investor Relations

Pervez Bajan

Group Controller

2%

have the FY22 same period last year. As you can see, on a y-o-y basis, the total revenue grew by 2%, and in EBITDA there is a decline. It has come to INR -12 crores at a -3% margin. PBT comes at I

12 crore

y-o-y basis, the total revenue grew by 2%, and in EBITDA there is a decline. It has come to INR -12 crores at a -3% margin. PBT comes at INR -66 crores and a -15% margin and our Net Cash remains at INR

3%

e total revenue grew by 2%, and in EBITDA there is a decline. It has come to INR -12 crores at a -3% margin. PBT comes at INR -66 crores and a -15% margin and our Net Cash remains at INR 811 crores

66 crore

d in EBITDA there is a decline. It has come to INR -12 crores at a -3% margin. PBT comes at INR -66 crores and a -15% margin and our Net Cash remains at INR 811 crores. The key highlights are given on t

15%

is a decline. It has come to INR -12 crores at a -3% margin. PBT comes at INR -66 crores and a -15% margin and our Net Cash remains at INR 811 crores. The key highlights are given on the right-han

INR 811 crore

rores at a -3% margin. PBT comes at INR -66 crores and a -15% margin and our Net Cash remains at INR 811 crores. The key highlights are given on the right-hand side. The only other point that I would like to

INR 88.5 crore

ecided to move to a new tax regime, which has resulted in a write-off of unutilized MAT credit of INR 88.5 crores and a reversal of tax credit of INR 7.5 crores, which is related to the previous years. 3

INR 7.5 crore

esulted in a write-off of unutilized MAT credit of INR 88.5 crores and a reversal of tax credit of INR 7.5 crores, which is related to the previous years. 3 November 7, 2022

rs. 3

NR 88.5 crores and a reversal of tax credit of INR 7.5 crores, which is related to the previous years. 3 November 7, 2022 Moving on. Going into the business unit performance. For Print, our Ad revenue c

INR 269 crore

r 7, 2022 Moving on. Going into the business unit performance. For Print, our Ad revenue came at INR 269 crores at a 9% increase and on a sequential basis a 12% growth. Our Circulation revenue at INR 61 crores

9%

n. Going into the business unit performance. For Print, our Ad revenue came at INR 269 crores at a 9% increase and on a sequential basis a 12% growth. Our Circulation revenue at INR 61 crores, at more

12%

ce. For Print, our Ad revenue came at INR 269 crores at a 9% increase and on a sequential basis a 12% growth. Our Circulation revenue at INR 61 crores, at more than 21% increase, led by both print ord

“After the presentation concludes, there will be an opportunity to ask questions.”

“We will be discussing the details of the same through the course of our call today.”

“As per practice, we do not provide specific revenue or earnings guidance.”

“Now if I were to project out, now that's a little bit of hypothesis here.”

“So, going forward, do we expect to cross the pre-COVID levels because there is a large adoption of digital media?”

“So, in terms of your internal projections, how do you see the business going forward?”

“Having said that, we believe that we will be easily able to come to a very profitable situation or whether we'll be able to cross the peak or not cross the peak, I wouldn't like to hazard a guess.”

“We don't speculate on forward- looking forecast.”

“But suffice to say that the mere impact of the newsprint prices reverting back to median itself will be a very robust impact on the bottom line.”

“But going forward, it will depend on the pricing equation.”

Piyush Gupta

35

Anna Abraham

13

Aaditya Mulani

13

Sameer Joshi

5

Riya Mehta

5

Mehul Pathak

5

Dharmesh Sanghoi

5

Smiran Bhandari

4

Hari S

3

Ranga Prasad

3

Anna Abraham

As a reminder all participants shall be in listen only mode. After the presentation concludes, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. I now hand over to Ms. Anna Abraham – Head, Investor Relations. Thank you and over to you Anna. Thank you, Aaditya. A very good afternoon to everyone. On behalf of HT Media Group, I welcome you to our earnings webinar to discuss the financial results of the Q2 FY22-23. On the call with me today are Mr. Piyush Gupta, Group CFO; Mr. Anup Sharma, CFO, Hindustan Media Ventures Limited; Mr. Pervez Bajan, Group Controller; and members of our Investor Relations team. I trust you had an opportunity to go through the financial results of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited declared last Wednesday on 2nd November and of HT Media Limited released earlier today. We will be discussing the details of the same through the course of our call today. Kindly note that our remarks will track with the presentation on the Zoom webinar. This presentation, along with the f

Piyush Gupta

November 7, 2022 y-o-y basis. However, profitability of the Print business was significantly impacted by elevated newsprint rates. We are seeing signs of pressure easing on this front, although the benefit of this will flow only in later quarters. In the near term, the festive season provides further growth opportunities across business verticals as retail and commercial activity picks up in the ongoing quarter. Amidst considerable global economic and geopolitical churn, our endeavor remains the same – to be a source of credible news, and engaging content for our growing audience base.” Slide 4 gives the agenda for today. We will begin with the performance update with comments on our consolidated financials, followed by detailed notes on, Print, Radio and Digital business, further to which we will open for Q&A session. I will now hand over the call to Piyush to take you through the rest of the presentation. Over to you, Piyush. Thanks, Aaditya. Thanks, Anna. Very good afternoon to ever

Aaditya Mulani

Thank you, Piyush. We will now begin the Q&A session. You can click on the ‘raise hand’ option which will enable the Moderator to unmute you for posing your query. Please introduce yourself before posing your query and kindly restrict to a maximum of two questions per participant so that we may be able to address questions from all participants. We will wait for a few moments while the question queue assembles. 4

Piyush Gupta

The first question is from the line of Gunit Singh. November 7, 2022 Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I have a question regarding the loss that we are making since the last couple of quarters. Is this majorly driven by the increase in newspaper print prices? And could you please give some idea of how the prices have trended in the past 2-3 years? What is the outlook in terms of how the prices would trend for the coming couple of quarters? Let me just give you a little color. The losses are primarily on two reasons. If you look at the EBITDA movement versus the same period last year, one is the elevated newsprint prices. Newsprint prices in the current quarter have averaged around INR 66,000 per metric ton as against the same period last year was about INR 42,000. So, you can see that's about a 50% increase in newsprint prices. That's purely the pricing delta. And in terms of rupee crore, that is a cost hit of about INR 57 crores, which has gone into the P&L. Now if I were to p

Anna Abraham

Just to add to what Piyush has said, in the last couple of quarters, we, of course, saw a high impact on the revenues given COVID and how it 5

Piyush Gupta

November 7, 2022 impacted businesses across categories and especially in the retail business and the local businesses. We saw consecutively there is a growth, but it has still not come back to the pre-COVID level. So, just to accentuate the point that my colleague just made, which is on the revenue, we know that the volumes have been continuously recovering for the last, I would say, two quarters, since COVID had started to have a way. However, pricing still remains a challenge. So, somewhere the volumes are back to about 80-90%. In some markets of Hindi, they are actually above the pre-COVID level also. But pricing still is a big challenge, whereby market by market, we are anywhere between 70-90% of the pre-COVID prices. I hope that answers your question. Yes, it does in some sense. So, going forward, do we expect to cross the pre-COVID levels because there is a large adoption of digital media? So, in terms of your internal projections, how do you see the business going forward? Yes,