Web18, the Internet and Mobile company of the Network18 group, has reported an operating loss of Rs. 7.189 crores for third quarter of 2007 (Q3-07), ending December 31st, compared to an operating profit of Rs. 2.11 crores for the same quarter last year. The losses are primarily due to a significant increase in the scale of investments over the past year; this is evident from the increase in operating expenses - at Rs. 24.8 crores for Q3-07, and 18.07 crores in Q2-07, compared to just Rs. 4.6 crores of operating expenses a year ago in Q3-06. An impact of the increase in investments is seen in operating revenues - Rs. 17.6 crores for Q3-07, up from just Rs. 6.73 crores in Q3-06, and increase of 161 percent. Some stats from the earnings release:

—The Web18 group of portals has crossed the 20 million pageviews per day.
—MoneyControl.com: Unique visitors to the site were up 30 percent from the last quarter. Pageviews increased by 63 percent. Time spent and pages viewed were up 17 percent from last quarter. They claim that moneycontrol was “ahead” of wsj.com, but that’s a hollow comparison: WSJ content is behind a subscription wall, while moneycontrol.com has open access.
—Cricketnext.com – Use of statistics module resulted in increase of visitors by 200 percent. No absolute figures there, but a 200 percent increase on addition of a stats module? I wonder what the base was to begin with

Homeshop18 had operating revenues of Rs. 16.31 million, up from Rs. 8.86 million for the last quarter, and is gearing up for the launch of a TV channel

Release (doc file) | Financials

Disclaimer: I own an inconsequential number of shares of Network18 Fincap