In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Vijay Thadani, VC & MD of NIIT, spoke about the results and his outlook for the company.
Below is the verbatim transcript of Vijay Thadani’s interview to Prashant Nair & Reema Tendulkar.
Reema: Could tell us what happened this time around? Your revenues have come down to only 2 percent your margins have crashed to about 3 percent was there an element of one-off and what is the picture looking for quarter four?
A: Our corporate learning group continues to grow at a very steady and nice space which is 14 percent but on a constant currency basis; but they had an impact of exchange rate. Our retail business or the skills and career business did have the effect of demonetisation. Even though I would like to believe that a digital economy is fundamentally very good for our business because more people would require to be trained. So, we believe it is a transient phenomenon; we are already beginning to see the recovery in the later part of last quarter and the first part of this quarter, but we have to wait and see as the things stabilises. Those are the two key reasons.
There were a lot of underlying initiatives which we had taken on the 'Go Forward' part of the business which have done exceedingly well which is likely training.com which has already got 23 courses and Rs 1.5 to 2 crore of revenues booked as well as 225,000 visitors, in 100 days, they have been around.
As well as the DigiNxt curriculum which is our curriculum meant for the new wave of IT applications and IT professionals, frankly it beat even the demonetisation wave because it was ahead of its target. So, those are some of the good things which have happened but those things will take time to pick up. The impact of this will be partly felt in this quarter also.Prashant: On the corporate learning side how much will the growth be in this financial year?
A: We had guided for 15 percent plus and we remain committed to that. We are already at 18 percent at the end of three quarters.
Reema: If you could tell us on your skills business because this quarter revenues have come off quite significantly, down 13 percent and I remember in the prior quarter too there was de-growth in your skills business. Could you tell us the guidance on that?
A: I think the skills and career business of course faced the brunt of this environmental change. However, having said that the recovery process has started and in the coming quarter we should see positive growth and that will put us back on the growth track.
We were expecting to grow substantially, but given this quarter’s things, our growth targets would have to be revalued and we have to see how quarter four pans out as far as this business is concerned.
However, the underlying fundamentals are strong and the intrinsic demand increase which these moves have caused will benefit us in the medium and long-term.
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