Listed Internet company Info Edge on Friday announced a consolidated net loss of Rs 116.5 crore for Q3FY23 versus a profit of Rs 4,601.9 crore year-on-year, owing to a one-time expense.
The company has incurred an exceptional expense of Rs 411.8 crore versus a gain of Rs 2,280.4 crore in the same quarter a year ago, mainly due to concerns around uncertainty of funding environment for recently-acquired 4B Network.
Exceptional items, or one-offs are costly events that have an impact on a company’s bottomline but should not be misread as a continuing trend.
Overall billings recorded in this quarter grew 16.5% year-on-year, to Rs 566.7 crore. Out of this, classifieds portal Naukri contributed nearly 76.7% to overall revenue for the quarter-ended December.
While Naukri reported a rise of 17.8% in its billings to Rs 362.7 crore for the quarter, Info Edge management cited a slowdown in IT hiring as a concern.
“While we are seeing a slowdown in IT hiring, the non-IT hiring market continues to be strong,” Hitesh Oberoi, managing director and chief executive officer, Info Edge said in a statement.
According to calculations by Mint, Info Edge’s Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization) rose 61.3% to Rs 188.5 crore, compared to Rs 116.9 crore in Q3FY22. Margin rose to 32% versus 27.7%.
Among Info Edge’s other verticals, 99Acres reported a revenue of Rs 72.9 crore for the quarter-ended December against Rs 58.6 crore, a rise of 24.4% year-on-year. The digital residential realty advisory continues to report quarterly losses on an Ebit level.
According to the company statement, Jeevansaathi - Info Edge’s matrimonial platform – reported a loss of Rs 25.3 crore due to an impact from a new strategy to drive traffic.
State-owned Life Insurance Corp (LIC) had in December announced raising its stake in Info Edge to just above 5% via an open market purchase.
Shares of Info Edge ended Friday’s session at Rs 3,810.85 apiece, down 0.4% against Sensex’s decline of 0.2%. The stock has declined 17% in the last one year. Q3 results were announced after market hours.
