In an interview with CNBC-TV18’s Sonia Shenoy and Reema Tendulkar, RK Agarwal, CFO, Jagran Prakashan, discussed his company’s fourth quarter earnings.
Below is the transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18.
Reema: Could you help us with what the advertising growth was in the quarter gone by and the revenue growth seems quite sluggish, there was hardly any growth. Can we expect a pick up in your growth in the coming quarters?
A: Yes, growth will pick up in coming quarters. Q4 has to be seen keeping in view the factor that on year on year basis there was muted growth because previous year had a very high base. If you recall, we recorded steep growth in Q4 of the previous year on the back of elections and also huge spend prior to elections by all the political parties on branding prior to election.
So Q4 of the previous year should not be taken as the yardstick for judging growth in this Q4. Yes, January and February were bad but from March we have been consistently recording growth for past three months at a rate exceeding 12-13 percent. So I expect Q1 to be far better in terms of growth as compared to Q4.
Sonia: Last quarter your ad revenue growth was around 6 percent odd on a year on year basis. What was the ad revenue growth in this quarter in Q4 and how much will it be in the first half of the fiscal?
A: First half should give us growth exceeding 10 percent in the FY15-16.
Sonia: What was it in this quarter?
A: This should give slightly higher growth in the range of about 11-12 percent.
Reema: In January-March quarter your advertising growth was 11-12 percent?
A: No, I am talking about Q1 of FY15-16.
Reema: We want to know what the advertising growth was in January to March quarter.
A: In January-March quarter, it was muted at about 2.5-3 percent.
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