Want Zomato to break even in 6 countries this yr: Info Edge

Info Edge, which owns online job portal Naukri.com, is seeing a pick up in growth and is maintaining high operating margins in most of its businesses, Chintan Thakkar, CFO of the company tells CNBC-TV18. He is of the view that competitive intensity is coming down in the real estate business — 99acres.com. However, Thakkar says the company will continue to invest in realty as renting of space, particularly in some cities, is doing well despite the shrinking market. On Zomato's growth, he says the business will expand as well as break even in six countries by March 2016.Below is the verbatim transcript of Chintan Thakkar's interview with Sonia Shenoy & Reema Tendulkar on CNBC-TV18.Sonia: In the quarter gone by your recruitment business which is Naukri.com had a good revenue growth of 20 percent and a good margins improvement as well. But the question everyone asking is whether this will be sustainable in the second half of the year. Can you give us an update on that?A: In general if you see it and if you have a year-on-year (YoY) comparison of where our business is as compared to where it was last year and since then growth is picking up and we seem to be doing better than what it was last year. However, same is the position as regards to margin given our dominance in this kind of job portal business. We are able to maintain high operating EBITDA once we start growing more than 15-17-18 percent and that trend seems to be steady, consistent and that seems to be helping us.Reema: The problem pocket - 99acres. The good thing last quarter was at least your EBITDA losses narrowed on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis and that in the conference call you indicated is due to a decline in marketing spend as the competitive intensity reduced. Is that sustainable? Do you believe that the worst of the EBITDA losses on 99acres is behind us and there will only be improvement at the EBITDA level for your real estate arm?A: Let me clarify that EBITDA losses are not necessarily a bad news because there is an investment happening in this portal and the investment usually happens through profit and loss (P&L) and that is why you see losses. Not necessarily it is a bad thing but given where we are in the real estate business in terms of the overall real estate market still seems to be dull given the fact that competitive intensity seems to be coming down. I would say that we would still continue to invest in this business but it would not be something which would be irrational.Sonia: Update us on Zomato because that is the service that all of us use personally. You did mention in your conference call that you are expecting to double your revenues in Zomato in FY16 versus about Rs 100 crore in FY15 and you will add six new countries by March 2016 and that's interesting. Are you on track with that expansion and how has the revenue trajectory been?A: So far we are on track. So far as revenue trajectory is concerned, we have high expectation of that business. However, to clarify, six countries is what we are saying that we want to see that the kind of start breaking even this year - that's the target which we are running and we are hoping that we will be able to achieve that and so far we seem to be on track for that.Reema: What about revenue growth in 99acres. Earlier it use to grow at 30 percent then in the last two-three quarters it slowed down to 10-15 percent mark. Given the real estate market is dull, as you pointed out. Is that the revenue growth we should expect?A: The overall market is shrinking, the new project launches are 50 percent of what it used to be and the same is the position so far resale is concerned. There are some pockets, some cities and certain areas like rental which still seems to be doing well. So even if we grow in double digit in this kind of market, I think it is a great performance because the market has shrunk so much.Sonia: Give us some numbers for the second half of the year in the recruitment business, in 99acres and Zomato. What kind of growth do you see? Do you continue to see 20 percent growth in all three verticals?A: We do not give any guidance, so I do not want to give out a number for Q2 but so far whatever we have seen in the first two months of our business this quarter, we seem to believe that it would be a good quarter.