Across that year, group profit rebounded 180 percent to £8.6 billion ( billion), recovering from last year’s £5.9 billion write-off against Turkish and Spanish telcos, on 8.4 percent higher revenue of £44.5 billion.

But Verizon Wireless in the U.S. was Vodafone’s only global geographic constituent to post higher service revenue - in its core Europe, it fell 3.5 percent to £28.3 billion.

But there’s another writedown hit - Vodafone is knocking £2.3 billion off the value of its Indian operations thanks to “the award of six new national licences in the market one year after our entry and the resulting intense price competition”.

Funny kind of pessimism - in the big, developing country, Voda attracted 32 million new Indian customers last year alone, taking it up to 72 million and leading income there up 14.7 percent.

Service revenue in Voda’s native UK dipped 4.7 percent thanks to Europe’s enforced mobile termination rate cut, which is affecting all operators there, and the decline in the last quarter slowed to 2.6 percent.

Things are maybe looking up - Voda says that last quarter in that year shows the global economic slowdown has “diminished somewhat”, because services income was down “only” 0.2 percent.

The carrier says 50 million of its 341 million customers are active data users, 31 million of them on mobile internet. And, incidentally, Indian data revenue came in at £169 million last year.

Release | Slides | Financials

Total revenues dropped 43% year-on-year to $4.19 million. Revenues from India Online dropped 45% y-o-y to $3.08 million.

“As we had said in our last earnings call, we have taken a number of steps to improve the customer experience on our site, including the removal of ads from our home page, reduction of intrusive and non-contextual ads on other pages, as a result of which we expected a reduction in our revenue in the upcoming quarters. Accordingly, we saw a decline in revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 by 16% over the previous quarter and by 43% over the corresponding quarter in the previous year in US Dollar terms. However, we believe that these user–experience-improvement initiatives have started to show results and have helped us restore the growth in our user base, as measured by ComScore (NSDQ: SCOR) Media Metrix,” Rediff chairman and CEO Ajit Balakrishnan said in a statement.

Balakrishnan said the company will continue this strategy and invest in product development and brand building at the rate of $1-1.5 million in the next few quarters.

The company made significant reduction in costs, especially in raw materials, owing to lower newsprint prices. Total expenditure was down 21.8% y-o-y at Rs122.34 crore.

For the half year ended 30 September, the company posted a net profit of Rs176.92, up 66.51% from the year-ago period. Revenues during this period grew 11.31% at Rs467.47 crore.

The board declared a second interim dividend of Re1 per share.

Consolidated net profit for the period was Rs6.77 crore, up 25% from Rs5.41 crore a year ago. 

For the half year ended 30 September, the company swung to a net loss of Rs6.87 crore from a profit of Rs7.25 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal.

While revenues from the company’s mainstay exhibition business grew, its movie production and distribution unit proved to be a drag on revenues, bringing in just Rs1.23 crore during the quarter under review, compared with Rs30.25 crore a year ago. The newly launched bowling alleys business brought in revenues of Rs3.53 crore and profits of Rs84 lakhs.

A scheme of demerger of the company into two holding companies for news and non-news businesses is pending approval of the Delhi High Court. The next date of hearing the application is 10 April 2009.

NDTV informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that director Heramb Ravindra Hajarnavis has resigned from the company’s board of directors. Hajarnavis is a vice president at Goldman Sachs. The board has approved the appointment of Pramod Bhasin as an additional director. Bhasin is the president and CEO of Genpact, one of India’s largest business process outsourcing firms. NDTV has an equal stakes joint venture with Genpact called NGen.

Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy had also resigned from NDTV board recently.

On a consolidated basis, the company’s revenues grew by 17% y-o-y at Rs140.37 crore. Consolidated net loss narrowed by 28.3% y-o-y at Rs85.59 crore.

For the half year ended 30 September, net profit rose 18.74% to Rs250.36 crore.

The company operates 20 television channels in the four south Indian languages and 42 FM radio stations across the country.

At the time of writing, the Sun TV scrip was trading at Rs332, up 3.59% on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The company has tied up with Dutch production firm Endemol to launch the game show Deal Or No Deal in regional languages (via Business Standard).

During the quarter under review, the company added 0.41 million subscribers at an average acquisition cost of Rs2,635. Average revenue per user slipped to Rs139 from Rs142 during the previous quarter.

The company’s gross subscriber base was at 5.9 million at the end of 30 September.

Revenues from out-of-home and event management businesses also grew 36% y-o-y to Rs16.99 crore, the company said in a statement. Total expenditure dipped marginally (1.6%) to Rs176.58 crore.

In a statement, JPL chairman Mahendra Mohan Gupta said he expected the OOH and events businesses to turn profitable during this fiscal.

Other income was up by Rs4 crore to Rs7.88 crore. Tax expense was also higher at Rs5.6 crore, up from Rs3.8 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal.

Raw material costs were down 15%. This, and a marginal decline in advertising and sales promotions cost contributed to lower overall costs even as employee costs and depreciation/amortisation were higher. HT Media did not effect a company-wide cut in salaries. 

Circulation revenue grew 28% to Rs47.9 crore. Ad revenues of the publishing segment declined mariginally from Rs283 crore to Rs282 crore.

In a statement, the company said Mint has achieved “strong growth in revenues” without specifying details. HT Media also publishes Hindustan Times and Hindustan. The mobile marketing JV with Velti Plc. has commenced operations.

We had a brief telephone conversation with HT Media CEO Rajiv Verma shortly after the results were announced. Excerpts from his comments:

You have posted a strong result. Are we at least back at 2007 levels?

Cost side discipline is what is working. We had put in place significant cost cutting measures about eight months back and those efforts are paying dividends now. Revenues are still under pressure and that is obviously linked to the larger economy’s performance and the confidence of our advertisers in their businesses. The good news is that the economy is starting to look up and I think our advertisers are going to start spending again now. I can sense the confidence coming back and that should translate into good news for us.

Thankfully, out cost cutting measures are mostly structural and they are here to stay. So when the revenues come back, we will be in a very strong position.

What is your outlook on the revenue front and does it worry you that newsprint prices are showing an upward trend again?

Not really. Newsprint prices are not going to go up in the same way as last year. Those prices were a result of a set of extraordinary circumstances. Structurally we have put in place measures that will help us accomodate some cost inflation on newsprint and other raw materials.

On the revenue side, cover price increases are helping and we still have a lot of room to raise cover prices if necessary.

During a downturn, ads are always the first to go and last to come back. So recovery may be gradual, but I have no doubts that advertisers are going to spend again soon.

The company said it proposes to acquire the regional entertainment channels currently under group firm Zee News Ltd. The acquisition will be funded by issue of new shares of Zee Entertainment to shareholders of Zee News, the company said in a statement.

The arrangement is seen to be part of a move to put in place clearer lines of ownership between the four brothers of the Goel family that owns the Zee Group. More details from The Times of India.

DNA, which launched operations in July 2005, posted a loss of Rs120.8 crore during the first year of operations. For the second year, or fiscal ended March 2007, losses went up to Rs164.1 crore and for the 2007-08 fiscal, company posted a loss of Rs150.4 crore. Figures for the latest fiscal was not available. The company has maintained in the past that it will likely break even by 2010.

The company achieved a 15% reduction in marketing and distribution expenses, which helped keep total expenditure only marginally higher y-o-y. There is a more than 100% rise in other income.

The radio broadcasting business of Radio Today Broadcasting Ltd will be hived off from that company and merged with TV Today. As per the scheme approved by the board, for every six shares held in Radio Today, shareholders will receive one share in TV Today. As a result of this merger, promoter holding in TV Today will go up by 1%, the company said.

Full financials.

UTV promoter Ronnie Screwvala told Reuters that he will consider selling a minority stake in the group’s business news channel UTVi. contentSutra reported in May that UTVi was in talks with Bloomberg TV for a partnership that will involve content sharing, co-branding and a stake sale. We subsequently reported that Bloomberg was also in talks with NDTV Profit for a partnership.

Of the five verticals the company does business in, four turned in a loss and the fifth—television production—reported 23% lower profits this quarter. The bottomline has also been hit by Rs10.41 crore losses in broadcasting, a vertical that was consolidated only from Q2 of last fiscal. Losses widened year-on-year in both new media (233%) and games (192%). Films segment swung to a loss of Rs9.59 crore during the quarter under review from a profit of Rs24.76 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal. No films had released during the period under review due to a standoff between producers and multiplex owners.

Revenues from films dropped from Rs93 crore to Rs26.5 crore this quarter. Revenues grew in TV software, Internet and gaming segments. A y-o-y comparison is not possible in broadcasting.

In a statement, the company said Q2 will continue to be negative, while Q3 and Q4 will be positive and the company hoped to post positive results for the current fiscal. During this fiscal, the motion picture unit will release 12 films.

cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">

	1Q 2009	1Q 2008
EPS	-Rs6.82	Rs6.59
Net Income	-Rs23.33 crore	Rs19.88 crore
Revenue	Rs115.36 crore	Rs137.07 crore

“A fast digitizing country has led to an upside on the subscription revenues and going forward, we see exponential growth from this revenue stream as well,” chairman Subhash Chandra said in a statement. 

Earnings. Release.

During a conference call today, managing director Raghav Bahl said advertising slump has still not bounced back even though it has been showing signs of recovery in the past few weeks. “By October this year, we are hoping advertising to recover significantly,” he said. Elections and budget coming back to back has contributed to higher costs in the news operations, he said.

Revenues from Web18 grew 8% to Rs14.2 crore. The division posted a net loss of Rs8.5 crore, up 6.25% from the year ago period. Responding to a question on why revenues haven’t grown more despite the company claiming In.com to be India’s second largest portal, group CEO Haresh Chawla said In.com was posting higher revenues but that has been offset by a “dramatic decline” in the revenues of Moneycontrol.com, the group’s financial portal. Chawla attributed this to Moneycontrol’s high dependence of the financial sector for advertising. Advertising from the financial sector has slowed to a standstill, he said.

Talking about the Capex requirements of the company, Bahl said the company did not forsee any new capex needs apart from continued funding of projects it has already undertaken. “The only new forseeable requirement is the print project when and if we decide to get into that segment.” Bahl said that even if the group decided to get into the print space, that would not be done this year.

“Our focus right now is only to turn all group companies into cash positive operations,” he added.

Fielding several questions about the launch of ET Now and if the company anticipated viewer attrition, Bahl said his channels faced competition in all genres and expects the new entrant to expand the market rather than eat into the marketshare of existing players.

IBN18 MD Sameer Manchanda gave an analogy: “The general news genre grew from a Rs120 crore market to a Rs450 crore market in three years.

The company said it added 2.09 million subscribers during the fiscal under review. The total subscriber base was 5.07 million as on 31 March. The company claimed a 42% share of the DTH market.

“In the present environment, Dish TV has delivered a strong performance in terms of revenue growth and has further consolidated its leadership position in a much more competitive scenario,” chairman Subhash Chandra said in a statement.

For the year ended 31 March, net profit was down 6.61% at Rs91.63 crore.

In an interview with CNBC TV18, Jagran’s chairman and managing director Mahendra Mohan Gupta said the ongoing quarter was also good for the company and he expected to report higher revenues ahead.

Anand Shah, an analyst who tracks the company for Mumbai-based brokerage Angel Broking Ltd, said the result was largely in line with expectations. “It is a good set of numbers. Advertising is still weak, but is gradually picking up. Margins have expanded quite a bit due to savings in newsprint prices, resulting in a much better bottom line. The outlook remians positive.” Shah has a neutral recommendation on the stock with a target price of Rs80.

On Tuesday, JPL closed marginally up at Rs80.25 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Benchmark Sensex gained 0.55% to close at 14,957.91.
Full results. Press release.

For the year ended 31 March, the company swung to a loss of $11.26 million from a net profit of $4.92 million during the previous fiscal. The company said the rupee depreciated 25% during the year under review. ““The continuing economic slowdown in the travel, jobs, matrimonial, shopping, consumer finance and real estate sectors in India continued to affect online advertising revenues, in particular revenues from other online companies in these industries,” chairman and CEO Ajit Balakrishnan said in a statement. The full financials are here.

During a conference call this evening, Balakrishnan said this was a “very challenging time for companies in India that are dependant on online advertising”. At the end of the fiscal under review, the website’s registered userbase stood at 78 million, a 19% increase from the year ago period. The company has $45.6 million in cash and liquid assets at the end of 31 March, a 2% increase from the beginning of the quarter. The company has cut its head count from 350 to 325. “We have hired close to 25 tech people and reduced around 50 from all the other departments, so in a sense we are becoming a more tech-oriented company,” Balakrishnan said. Head count cuts helped reduce operating expense during the quarter by 24%, from $6.12 million to $4.63 million.

New interface:

Rediff is testing an interesting new interface (left, click to enlarge) at ia.rediff.com and world.rediff.com. “It’s a clutterfree environment, facilitates access from mobile phones, has less intrusive advertising and makes use of collective intelligence to aid content discovery,” Balakrishnan said. This would result in an increase of $1-1.5 million in operating expense for the next few quarters and revenues from the international sites will be depressed in the short term. “But we are committed to creating properties that delight the customer. Money will follow,” Balakrishnan said, adding that he has spent 80% of his working time in recent times on the new interface. When asked if the company was considering introducing the new interface on the main homepage, if it proves to be a success with international traffic, he said: “I hope so”. “We have to test and perfect several new social features in the new design,” he added.

Investments:

The company has written off an investment of $125,000 in Vakow.com, started in 2007 by IIT Mumbai alumni Rahul Gupta and Amit Upadhyay. “The two young people who were running that site have decided to move on and take up other jobs,” Balakrishnan said, adding that it is the only investment that hasn’t “gone as where all of us thought it would”. Balakrishnan was optimistic about the company’s investment in Bangalore-based Tachyon Technologies (of Quillpad fame), where the company owns 26% and mobile app firm Eterno Infotech, in which Rediff owns a 40% stake. Eterno has developed a product that allows newspapers to push their content on to mobile phones, Balakrishnan said. Rediff has also invested in Examville.com, a US-based study aids website, he added, without disclosing the investment amount.

Products:

Usage of Rediff’s video-sharing service iShare has improved dramatically, Balakrishnan said, adding that the company has licensed more than 100,000 songs and videos from music label T-Series. But the company is not introducing advertising on to the service in a hurry. “I’m hesitant to do anything more than a limited amount of prerolls,” he said.

The user base of Rediff’s financial portal Moneyviz was closing in on that of moneycontrol.com, he said.

Related

• Rediff Invests in SMS Community Service Vakow

For the year ended 31 March, net profit was down 41% at Rs85.23 crore. The company held the same factors were responsible for the decline. Total income grew 11% to Rs1,357 crore. Profit margin dropped to 6% from 12% during the previous fiscal. Print ad revenue grew 11% to Rs1,129 crore.

Consolidated net profit for the fiscal dropped dramatically to Rs90 lakh from Rs101 crore last fiscal. This is an unexplained segment and there should be more clarity post tomorrow’s concall. 

Operational updates from the company:

According to IRS 2009 R1, flagship daily Hindustan Times maintains leadership position in Delhi and NCR and grew 4% in Mumbai. Hindustan is fastest growing Hindi daily. Mint readership grew by 25%, soon to be launched in Kolkata.

Fever 104 FM becomes No. 1 station in Bangalore as well. Last week we reported that the station had broken into leadership position in Mumbai.

Jobs portal Shine.com crosses 2.2 million user registrations.

“We remain committed and are on course in implementing our growth plans which combined with the results they have already yielded, encourages me to remain confident of our performance outlook going forward,” HT Media chairperson Shobhana Bhartiya said in a statement.