UTV seeing FY08 sales at Rs 400 cr

Published on Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 14:05 | Updated at Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 10:07 | Source : Moneycontrol.com

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UTV Software Communications has announced its second quarter numbers. It has posted consolidated net profit of Rs 17.5 crore for the quarter ended September 2007 as against Rs 4 crore in same quarter of last year and Rs 9 crore in previous quarter.

Ronnie Screwvala, Chairman, UTV says that he is seeing UTV’s FY08 sales at Rs 400 crore. Screwvala says that gaming business will contribute Rs 35 crore and movies will contribute Rs 225 crore in FY08.

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He informed that it has been 4 weeks since the launch of UTV’s new television channel Bindass, and the initial response to it has been positive.

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Ronnie Screwvala:

Q: What has gone right this quarter?

A: Basically our gaming business is kicking in and our movies we have had a good quarter albeit the fact that Q3 and Q4 is where big releases are coming in but we still had a good Q2 and that is primarily for movies and gaming.

Q: Your margins are at 24.5%, is that sustainable for the rest of the year?

A: 20% plus is definitely sustainable.

Q; You have movies lined up for H2, what kind of year-end targets have you set out in terms of revenues and for the bottomline?

A: Overall in our earnings particularly last year we had Rs 170 cr base and we are looking at atleast 2.25 times growth on that, going up to Rs 400 cr. Essentially that is going to be based on the fact that we have got 6 large movies being released.

We have just released Telgu movie, ‘Athidhi’ this week. ‘Jodha-Akbar’, ‘Goal’ and ‘Welcome’ are our 3 big releases outside of an international release Aamir Khan’ Taare Zameen Pe’. So in the next 2 quarters I don’t think anyone in motion pictures will have bigger releases than us.

Q: Which of your three segments are giving you best margins at this point of time?

A: Motion pictures and games.

Q: Could you divide the sources of your profit for the full year in terms of movies, gaming and your other interests?

A: If we were looking at Rs 400 cr topline for the year-end then we would be looking at Rs 225 cr of that coming from movies, Rs 100 cr from television, Rs 75 cr from gaming.

Q: How has the performance of Bindass been and any inorganic plans on the move?

A: Bindas has been only 4 weeks in its launch. Bindass channel and Bindass movies both have got a promising start from that point of view and its early days so I wouldn’t like to talk about other television channel but it has made a good start and a good brand impact.

That is the first of rollout of the other channels, which will start in December, January and March of the coming year.

Q: When is the business channel coming on?

A: We haven’t formally announced our intent and so I wouldn’t like to speculate.