Entertainment Network India Q3 Earnings: Digital Growth and Radio Market Leadership

stood at excluding digital stood at 23 crores translating into a nebida margin of 18%. The company continues to

maintain a robust balance sheet with a cash balance of rupes 372 crores as on 31st December 2025.

Let me turn your attention to segment wise performance. To start with our nonFCT segment with the even with the

festive shift the demands was spread across Q2 and Q3 whereas in the previous year the entire festive season was in

the Q3 even with that our event and IP business continued it strong trajectory growth of 10.5% building on the level of

at least recent quarters. onto our digital business. Digital remains a central pillar of our

long-term growth strategy and continue to scale meaningfully during the quarter. Revenues from digital business

reached rupees 30.8 crores, contributing close to 50% of our radio revenues, up sharply from 27% in the same quarter

last year, underscoring the rapid expansion of this vertical. This performance was driven by an expanding

user base and deeper engagement on the Ghana platform supported by continued investments in content and user

experience. Total investment in digital business during the current year at YTD level stood at 29 crores reflecting a

significant 22% decline compared to the same period last year. As part of our long-term strategy, we have increased

our marketing investment to accelerate platform adoption, enhancing brand visibility and driving a sustained user

engagement. This reflects a calibrated approach to growth balancing scale with cost discipline over the quarter

reinforces our confidence uh in the digital strategy. The radio segment coming to the radio segment the radio

industry continues to face a tough advertising environment like all other mediums. Advertising actively remained

weak partly due to a strong base in the same period last year and the festive shift. While the demand has now started

to show early signs of stabilizing, advertisers remain cautious which has kept a pressure on all traditional

mediums including radio. We continue to outperform our peers retaining our position as a market leader in the in

the industry with a strong 25% volume share. In summary, the strength of our diversified portfolio, the rapid scale

up of digital and our disciplined approach to investment reinforces our confidence in the growth trajectory of

the business. We remain focused on the execution and long-term value creation. With that, I would like to hand over the

call to the moderator for the Q&A session. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. We will now begin

the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone

telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are

requested to use handsight while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the

question Q assembles. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a

question. The first question comes from the line of Magna, an individual investor. Please

go ahead. Hello. >> Yes, good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. Uh I had a couple of

questions. Uh I wanted to know what is the Ghana revenue for this quarter. >> Yes. And the other question

>> um and uh I wanted to know how um our inventory utilization is like and uh the FCT and NFCT split for this quarter.

>> Okay. Ghana revenue for this quarter almost about 20.7 crores and our capacity

utilization is around 75%. >> For radio 75 okay and what is your volume growth for uh this quarter?

>> It's remain almost flattish uh this year. >> Okay. And uh have your rates increased

this quarter? more or less remain in the same rank but as I said you know there's a festive shift so there was some bit of

drop in the inventory uh levels and that could have put pressure on the pricing but more or less in the flattish range

ma'am >> okay and uh if we compare it to precoid levels

>> it's still a drop as I said in the last previous years al previous meetings also it's about almost about down 25 to 30%.

Okay. And this time your FCT and NF uh CT split how is it like? >> So our overall business uh radio now

contributes to about 51%. The non-ra business is 49%. >> And non-radio includes uh digital uh

what all does it include? >> Digital and our solutions business. >> Okay.

Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. The next question comes from

the line of Ronaksha from Securities. Please go ahead. Right.

>> Can you first of all highlight what are the gross margin and admit margin for that non assessed business which we

earlier used to highlight in the presentation? >> Uh Ron can you be clear? I I just missed

you. >> Yeah. So can you highlight the gross margin or a margin for the non-estive

business which we are really used to highlight in the presentation? So the gross margins right this year has

been around 27.2%. Okay. And for the quarter >> just for the quarter I said

>> okay. And and for the AITA margin sir >> AITA margins are about about 18.6%.

>> Got it. Got it. And sir uh from the marketing span perspective if we see last few odd quarters it has ramped up

uh drastically. So how we see uh it tend to pan out over next uh two audience. >> See the way we look at this uh this

quarter there has been a sudden shift in the marketing because we we look at a balanced growth in our subscriber

numbers. So to balance out we we we went with a little higher marketing expense compared to the quarter but we remain in

as per our plan of overall marketing spends what we want to do as a disciplined approach. So we balance

growth and the spends simultaneously we remain committed to get Ghana break even in the few quarters going forward.

>> Okay. And from the Ghana's perspective earlier we were highlighting that around 60 odd% of the users are now into the

new pricing. So how much it has improved uh from the current quarter's perspective?

>> Last quarter I had said about 54%. This now it's about 66%. >> Okay. Got it. Thank you.

>> Thank you. >> Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and

one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Prashant, an individual investor. Please

go ahead. Uh sir, do you have any plan to spin up the company uh digital business from the

rest of the business due to the nature of um due to the profitability of the business? Is there any plan for spin up

the digital business? >> Uh good question Prashant but it's too early to say about this. Um we we want

to build the business first make it profitable. So one milestone at a time. Um in future nobody knows right now but

as of now as I say uh we remain committed to delivering profitable growth and to get the first get the

digital business profitable first. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you.

>> Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a

question. The next question comes from the line of Rahul Gowankar, an individual investor.

Please go ahead. >> Yeah. Hi Yatish, my name is uh Rahul. Uh just wanted to ask you a few questions

uh regarding your performance. Uh you have mentioned that the market share has increased in the last quarter compared

to the previous quarters in your radio business. So earlier it was around 25%, so has it

gone up from there? >> So on radio volumes uh it remains at 25%. Uh that's what I said that the

remain leaders in the in the industry and our market is robust 25% on the volume basis.

>> Okay. >> Value wise it would be higher but on volume basis it remains at 25%.

And uh because of the traditional radio business are other competitors of yours kind of uh shutting shop or or how are

they because the revenues of other companies are dwindling uh in this business.

Yes, I agree. That's largely been the media landscape as this this year and particularly because of the festive

shift lot and and overall uh the uh economy remains m muted. Lot of media companies have seen a very muted quarter

this year. On the radio front, yes, couple of companies have not had a very good quarter. Really really uh poor

numbers on that. I would not want to comment on the performance. uh on closures there yes there has been one uh

radio station which has not closed on but sold to another player so in that regard still remains robust because

somebody is still buying the radio company so it's not doomsday or people are closing down but yes somebody wanted

to start a new business so they have taken over the cafem from TV today got sold to another radio player

>> okay and uh in your this quarter results your other expenses have increased from uh uh to uh from to 39 cr rupees from

basically 31 cr rupees quarter and quarter and year on year. So why is there such a sharp increase in the other

expenses as well as production expenses? So two things, one is on the marketing front on Ghana, we spend little more on

on this quarter compared to the last year quarter because we were we were in a building phase and and there were

market requirements and competitive uh performances also which were happening. So it pushed us to increase our

marketing spend on Ghana to remain to drive our subscriber growth and also fight out competition and

>> Okay. So it's rather and you can look at it as an investment rather than an expense.

>> Yes. So we balance our and and we look at our investment on Ghana very carefully. So on quarter and quarter

basis we keep reviewing and and the where we feel we do it we remain disciplined on that because our aim is

very clear to get a profitable path and a journey very very soon on that. Okay. Regarding the subscription charges, uh

what I believe I'm hearing and understanding is that has the annual plan been reduced from 600 rupees to 300

rupees by Jio Savan as well as Ghana or the subscription levels are at 600 rupees.

>> So in any industry you know there will always be a competitive uh tactical offers going on. In fact, it started

with Spotify which reduced its price for a couple of months to 399 which led to another competition driving to $4.99.

>> But I think it's more a tactical offer. I don't think price plays a role of going straight to growth. We have seen

that and I don't think at at that price business model works. So we are very clear that we don't reduce the price. We

came under little pressure. our marketing spend went up but we remain focused of getting at the right price

and we believe there are enough subscribers available at at the right price and not too undercut on the price.

Uh it might be a little patience game. It may not be a very fast growth in in the music industry but u having said

that I think there is lot of price elasticity available and the price headroom available to increase price. I

think it could be a short-term u competitive pressure which came they dropped price which led to this change

but I think everybody will be back to the original pricing. I don't think at that pricing the business is

sustainable. >> The thing is that probably if the prices have been reduced then the break even

time which you had previously mentioned that you would break even in the last in the next one or two quarters would that

be delayed? I don't think we have we have reduced price. We are going to be back on the

same price soon. It's not like we we reduce the price a lot. Uh it's just that our Q3 generally our subscriber

growth remains muted because of the business time we we started off. So if you look at our last year performance

also the Q3 numbers on growth on subscribers remain little muted compared to other quarters. Yes, a month or two

months here and there can happen because that may be competitive pressure or you know the marketing uh budgets uh taking

a toll because the marketing budgets on digital spends is not just about your music competitors. It's about the

overall ecosystem. You know if everybody starts spending more u then the price of performance marketing can go up. Like we

were thinking with real money gaming stop with with the ban coming in the prize will subside but I guess all other

platforms like short form dramas and other things also coming up that also put a pressure so the entire ecosystem

on the subscription revenue uh subscription economy uh puts pressure on the marketing monies also. Uh so but

having said that we remain committed we believe next two three quarters we have a path to profitability on that one or

month here and there but we should be there >> and we are not in a price drop game.

>> So basically uh would you like to talk more about your competition? I think so you you are just directly facing

competition from Jio Savan uh uh this uh your Spotify uh as well as Apple Music and YouTube Music. So, do these people

have an edge over NL or you as a company [clears throat] y'all guys uh because of your radio

services and your radio business and your uh events business and the times of India group you all have an edge over

these uh say Gio Savan who has a mobile app and stuff like that. So the way I look at this in the

industry ra is it's you know everybody has his own own advantages. We have a massive advantage of being present in 63

markets for us to advertise that our radio jockeyies who are about 150 are like your first case influencers. So we

have a massive strength on the media might and also for last two decades people in India have been listening to

music which has been curated by MI. So from that perspective, yes, we have a massive strength compared to a Spotify

or a Jio7 while Jio7 has a has a massive funnel of of Geommo. So everybody has his own advantage. But the way I look at

this industry, it's not like a Pepsi Coke fight that I need to you know get a competitive comp you have to gain from

your competition. There is enough subscribers available in India. If I was to look at video subscription, the

numbers are about 100 million. While in audio the numbers still stand at 50 20 million. So there is enough room

available. I think all players together can increase the size of the cake and have enough share. Uh generally with the

content being same on Spotify us and s people may not have multiple uh uh multiple subscription you know it's not

like a Netflix and Amazon Prime that you would want both. In this case you have one. So chances of gaining from

competition are less. It's about you know finding your own subscribers and in that case we have we are better placed

with our strength in tier two tier three markets with our radio network uh and and our s concerns it just helps us to

be in a better place to market it. Um so I would look at competition as increasing you know the the category to

improve to together increase the category and get people to spend on music. I think people in the past have

also spent on music a lot even though it was pirated music or all people have been tendency you know you bought CDs

you bought cassettes so it's just that in between for 10 years people were offering free so the behavior has

changed I think over a period of time people will value that music and will pay for it so I think all players are

looking at increasing the category rather than fighting against each other >> okay and uh see if you talk of Spotify

uh they are I think So in more than 60 countries and uh they have a market cap of uh uh in billions of dollars. Uh so

would you also foray into overseas markets where the NRI population is there or you'all are just kind of

seemingly want to focus on India because you all have such reserves of 300 350 cr rupees in your bank. Uh so you all guys

should go all out to try and promote yourself and uh try to create a spot for yourself.

>> So good one. So the thing is we as Miti we always we we are present as radio market in Gulf and New Jersey also our

radio stations are there. >> It's not that we are not present Ghana is present in more than 120 countries.

So it's not that we are not present. uh to give you a perspective for us it's wherever the south Asian uh population

is there we we we target them so it's not just Indian population the south Asian population because of Hindi Telu

music being very very famous Hindi Telu Tamil the Indian music industry being very famous across South Asian countries

uh so wherever there's a south Asian diaspora we focus on that just that you know compare our journey we took over

Ghana 2 and a half years back where the product was not so great the experience was not so great so it took us time to

build that while Spotify has been in the business for more than a decade. So for us to get the product right was

critical. You are absolutely right. The biggest subscription market globally is US. We intend to start focusing on that

market soon. It's a very very profitable subscription market uh which is US and North America. So that is the immediate

uh need for us. But as I said for us it's a step you know you can't just expand across the board and lose the

discipline while your product was still not ready >> with having the You think your product

is ready? >> Yeah, the product is ready. The content is at par with Spotify. So then you can

start looking. You know, you are looking at Indian market. Get the Indian diaspora of first. Get a basic number up

there. So now we, as I said, you know, the international market is is a given. It's the most profitable. US is the

biggest subscription market for any industry. So for us also remain the same. So our focus on international will

start going forward and which will give us more benefits also. >> Okay. Uh what about just a few thoughts

that uh say uh because y'all are also in the events business uh when you all sell tickets uh yall can give Ghana coupons

to the subscribers who attend the events uh in your business and people who probably advertise on your radio you can

give them Ghana coupons or vouchers to them also. So are you all doing such practices or it's more uh kind of uh

blatant in the sense that uh not too aggressive you know Ra maybe next time I'll get you on our marketing room also

thanks for all the advice we we do that we love doing it it's just that as I said you know the first two years have

been on the basic hygiene side you're absolut that's and we do a lot of concerts we could we start we started

doing that you know for super fans we can get them to meet the stars. So all that market strategies are in place as I

said for the last 2 years 2 and a half years if the important part was to get the product hygiene and the catalog

ready the app experience more ready because you know to get a customer once and

having a bad experience you'll never get the customer back. So the whole idea was to get the basic hygiene ready. All

these marketing strategies are in place. Some work, some don't work. You can work market wise, language wise, region wise,

you can work it out. But you're absolutely right. There are enough and more opportunities for us to drive uh

subscriber growth. But as I said, for people to spend money, you don't want to give an habit of free product. You know,

you need because that's where the industry because if it's available for free, why will people pay? So the whole

idea is to make them see value. If they see value in the product and they experience they have a better experience

they will tend to pay for it. So that's what our belief is. Yes we give trial offers in during concert during other

events but you are uh up to the point that you know marketing strategies will surely help. So thanks Rahul for that.

>> So >> Mr. Rahul uh Mr. Rahul thank you. You may rejoin the queue for the follow-up

question. The next question comes from the line of Chetan Chakar from M3 Investment Private

Limited. Please go ahead. >> Good evening sir. >> Good evening Chetan.

>> Uh so I just wanted to understand we've seen a spike in production cost this quarter. So any particular thing there

uh due to which that has gone up. >> Sorry come again. >> The production cost has gone up this

quarter. So just wanted to understand anything there that we should read into. No, so it's largely our events and

solutions business which has shown growth for that the production cost has gone up. So it's it's the production on

those lines. So it's in line with our AIA margins and on that. So not nothing to worry on that part.

>> Understood. And some early trends on the ad uh revenue growth for this quarter given we are seeing some of recovery in

the economy. >> Yeah. So there is some bit of recovery. Uh we seeing that not major. I would not

say we are very bullish on that. there is some bit of recur some base effect coming in some sentiments improving so

it's little bit there I haven't seen great on the sport side also if you look at you know I'm not looking at this

radio but when I look at the overall media scene I'm not seeing much growth on the even the cricket tournament

cricket world cup also so it's I would still remain cautious uh there is a base effect of last year because even last

year Q4 was not so great so it could be little bit of base effect and some bit of sentiments improving but definitely

better than the previous quarters Understood. At the last bit on 9 months, what would we have spent for Ghana?

>> So just give me one sec. Course so about 29 crores. Uh J.

>> Understood. And next year fair to assume. Yes sir. Am I audible? >> Yeah.

And next we are fair to assume that nature of this spend will change a bit because we are through with the

investment phase of getting the UIX in place the platform in place. So the nature of this P should change in FI27.

>> Yes. So it will be it will be more on marketing to drive subscriber growth as we break even in two to two two and a

half three quarters the nature of spend will largely towards marketing which will be on the CM3 level and not on the

CM1 levels. the gross margin we believe as I said you know 66% of our subscribers are gross margin positive so

hoping that number also goes up so the more marketing spend it will be more marketing spends

>> sure thank you so much all the time >> thank you >> thank you a reminder to all the

participants that you may press star and one to ask a A reminder to all the participants that

you may press star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last

question for today. I now would like to hand the conference over to management for closing remarks.

>> Thank you, Ena. Uh thank you ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to have you all. We remain committed to our driving

our profitable growth and creating long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you once again for joining this

call. Have a great day. Thank you. >> On behalf of Entertainment Network India Limited, that concludes

this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your