DB Corp Ltd (NSE: DBCORP) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated May. 08, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Pawan Agarwal — Deputy Managing Director
Girish Agarwal — Non-Executive Director
Analysts:
Amit Doshi — Analyst
Rakesh — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Riya Mehta — Analyst
Falguni Dutta — Analyst
Agastya Dave — Analyst
Mohit — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to DB Corp Limited Q4 and FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing the star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
We have with us today the senior management team of DB Corp Limited; Mr Pawan Agarwal, Deputy Managing Director; Mr Girish Agarwal, Non-Executive Director; Mr Lalik Jain, Chief Financial Officer; Mr Kali, Senior Vice-President, Finance and Accounts; and Mr Pursun Kumar Pande, Head Investor and Media Relations, who will represent DB Corp Limited on the call. The management will be sharing the key operating and financial highlights for the quarter and full-year ended, 31 March 2025, followed by a question-and-answer session. Please note that some of the statements made in today’s discussion may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties, documents relating to the company’s financial performance have already been emailed to you and are available on the website of Stock Exchange and Company’s Investors section. Trust, you have been able to go through the same.
I now hand the conference over to Mr Pavan Agarwal. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Pawan Agarwal — Deputy Managing Director
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining the Q4 FY ’25 DB Corp earnings conference call. We will begin the call by highlighting the key financial performance for the quarter and full-year ended, 31 March 2025, followed by key operational updates. For FY ’25, we reported total revenues of INR24,212 million compared with FY ’24 revenues of INR24,821 million on an election-driven high base of last year. At a CAGR of 13% in the last three years, the advertising stood at INR16,899 million in FY ’25. The circulation revenue stood at INR4,734 million in FY ’25. Our EBITDA stood at INR6,270 million, reflecting an EBITDA margin of 26% with our print business continuing to deliver industry-leading EBITDA margin of 30% for the fiscal year gone by.
The next — the net profit came in at INR3,710 million, marginally lower than last fiscal, but registering a 38% CAGR growth over the past three years. The improvement in profitability has been driven by efficient cost management, favorable forex trends and soft new sprint prices. Excuse me. Coming to Q4 FY ’25, our advertising revenues faced headwinds. However, we are starting to observe encouraging signs of recovery and anticipating returning to our growth trajectory in the upcoming quarters. The total revenue for quarter-four FY ’25 stood at INR5,668 million as against INR6,418 million last year, which had benefited from the elections.
The advertising revenues came in at INR3,841 million as against INR4,457 million last year, while circulation revenue remained flat at INR1,172 million. The EBITDA stood at INR1,017 million and net profit for the quarter was INR523 million. Notably, our circulation strategy proved successful with an impressive addition of copies across markets during the quarter-four FY ’25. This was a result of our team’s robust ground level acquisition efforts and success of our innovative 14 crore leader scheme. Our radio business continued its strong run, leading industry growth with advertising revenues of INR1,663 million for FY ’25, a 4.5% Y-o-Y increase and EBITDA rising to INR558 million, up 1.3% Y-o-Y. With regards to our digital business, we are very happy with the progress as our MAUs increased further to $19.6 million as of March 2025, making Gani Bhaskar a clear digital news leader with the number-one Hindi and Gujarati news apps. Our focus markets have now increased to 14 states, including Uttra Pradesh and for our digital mobile app market outreach.
With this, I would now request Mr Girish Agarwal to update us on the operations., over to you.
Girish Agarwal — Non-Executive Director
Thank you, Pawan. Good evening, everybody, and thanks for joining us. Our full-year results reflect a slowdown, especially in the quarter-four. This decline is primarily attributed to two key factors. One, high base effective, which was stemming from the last year’s election-driven surge, which we saw last year and the challenging economic conditions in the Q4, especially in Q4 because in Q1, Q3, we were in a good shape.
However, there are some encouraging highlights what we still see is that starting this fiscal April, we are observing, observing a decent improvement in the market. Like in April month, we saw a double-digit growth, a strong double-digit growth in the advertising. The other notable and reassuring achievement has been the growth in our circulation number. As you know from last couple of years, the circulation number has been on a weaker ground. We were also contemplating what is to be done. Finally, we thought that now we need to go all-out since the new sprint prices are supporting us to gain some more copies.
And we did the scheme of INR14 crores. And I think after a long-time, there was a slight uptake in the overall numbers. I can’t say very encouraging numbers, but still uptick in the numbers. And based on that, we believe this whole year, we’ll continue driving this and there will be a growth in the overall circulation number. And this will also help us to arrest any kind of decline, which may happen going-forward in the circulation. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the outlook for India. We believe that the domestic economy is poised for consumer-driven growth in the near-to-medium term and this view is supported by the several positive triggers on the horizon, including the income tax relief measures that is expected to boost the disposable income, anticipated rollout of the eighth pay commission and the forecast of a normal monsoon, which will support rural sentiment and spending.
We remain focused on consolidating our market leadership, delivering consistent value to stakeholders and exploring meaning meaningful opportunities for expansion and innovation. With continued focus on our operational efficiencies, reader engagement and monetization strategies, we are confident in our ability to return to growth trajectory in the upcoming quarters.
With that, we could now open the floor for questions-and-answer session. Thank you once again for joining the — and over to you now. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
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 2. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles The first question is from the line of Amit Doshi from Care Portfolio Managers. Please go-ahead.
Amit Doshi
Yeah. Hi, good evening, sir. Sir, I mean, we understand that we have increased the copy of circulation number of copies. However, the same is not reflected in the — in the numbers. So can you share what exactly is the reason?
Girish Agarwal
We started this INR14 crores scheme in the first week of January and we started seeing some uptake happening from February and March. So if I see the Q3 and Q4, there is a growth. But suddenly from the last year Q4 to this Q4, it’s almost flat. But from Q2 and Q3, the Q4 numbers are better. And going-forward, you’ll see further reflection on that.
Amit Doshi
Okay. I mean in terms of percentage, what kind of circulation growth that we are looking at?
Girish Agarwal
Okay. We are talking about 2% right now,
Amit Doshi
Okay, and expectation for say next financial year ’25, ’26.
Girish Agarwal
Our expectations are much more, but looking at the practical because what’s happening, at the same time, there is a single — double single-digit or maybe 1% or 2% decline also in the few markets. So considering all that, even if we are able to close the market at 3%, 4% growth, that’ll be a big achievement.
Amit Doshi
Okay, understood. Especially the — your press release mentions that, of course, year-on-year figures are looking very negative in terms of ad revenue because of last year high base, obviously, especially because of the election campaign year that it was. But if you can just give some sort of a breakup of some color like what has been the reduction in the government revenue versus non-government revenue. So it gives some more color because the numbers is quite a different — I mean quite low in that sense.
Girish Agarwal
So if you look at last year, full-year, the automobile category were able to grow at 16%. The real-estate category grew at 17%. The jewelry category grew at 11%, the education category grew at 2%. The banking and financial services grew at almost flat. So other categories were negative. But the top of it was the government category and the political advertising, which went down by almost 25%. So I think that 25% hit was not able to take care by the others. Others and hence, we were overall down. And especially in Q4, because in Q4, what happened, my automobile also became flat, actually negative, 5% negative. My education became flat, my real-estate became flat. So because of that, I think the Q4, I don’t know for what reason the market was not really supporting the growth. You know, however, we were able to at least close the other categories on flat.
But yet because of the big blow on the government advertising and the political advertising which happened in the Q4 last year, we were not able to show the desired response and the growth.
Amit Doshi
Okay. So basically, you would want to say that the call is almost 60% 70% because of the government reduction.
Girish Agarwal
More than that because other categories did
Amit Doshi
— actually they actually grew, sorry, sorry, more than 100%. Okay, okay. Understood. Understood. Sir, you launched this English app in January 1st or second week, I believe. Any update that you would want to share in terms of the response or any — the MAUs that we saw a slight increase. So can you slightly give color on that?
Girish Agarwal
And English app received very well, but the numbers are too small, too small to be very honest.
Amit Doshi
Okay.
Girish Agarwal
So we are still giving some more time to team to at least have some respectable number where we can come and talk to you on that. But however, I’m happy to talk about the numbers of the Hindi and Gujarati app. So if you look at the Hindi and Gujarati app in the March of ’25, the number which are disclosed by the comp score, we are jointly at around 19.6 million MAUs, which was higher than the January ’25. And the most heartening number is that in the app number, if we are at 19.6 million, the number two-player, which is is at 2.6 million. So we have — you can see the lead difference from 2.6 million compared to 19.6 million.
Amit Doshi
Right, right, right. So you believe now this number 20 million is a fair number that you have achieved because the kind of gap that you have between number-one and number two before you kind of start monetizing in a slightly larger way. I mean, you have never disclosed your digital plan so-far, but just trying to understand in terms of your mind in terms of the number of MAUs that you would look at before taking some.
Girish Agarwal
The target is that we must go to 50 million MAUs. But at the same time, for monetization purpose, we are doing certain experiments in different markets, different cohorts and we are getting a decent response, you know, but we will not take any blanket call till the time we have a critical mass, which we believe is still a long way to go.
Amit Doshi
Okay, okay. And sir, any — what is the reason for sharp jump-in other expenses?
Girish Agarwal
Two things. One is the circulation promotional expenses, which went up. As we mentioned to you, we did this deto INR14 crores scheme. And we have decided that this year — full-year, we are going to run some schemes or other. Maybe this is a summer, fall month, we will not do much on the April, May, June, but starting from the August onwards, we will do again some circulation scheme to make sure that their circulation is either growing or staying intact. That’s one. And second thing we are doing on digital promotion in various markets. So that’s the two costs, which is largely. Apart from that around INR20 crore cost is the — is the regular expenses increase in the system.
Amit Doshi
Okay. Okay. Okay.
Girish Agarwal
If you look at the number, the total cost of other expenses went up by almost INR98 crores, INR97 crores, correct? So in that INR97 crore INR20 crores of routine expenses increase in productions and other things, then CP is a big cost and digital promotion is a big cost.
Amit Doshi
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And
Girish Agarwal
If you look at —
Operator
I’m sorry to interrupt. MR. Ahmed, could you please call-back in the question queue for further questions? Yeah. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rakesh from Nine Riverse Capital. Please go-ahead.
Rakesh
Hi, sir. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Hi, sir, just wanted to know — just wanted to know on the digital piece. We — from the last couple of years, we are feeding that business and now it has become a sizable business, it has grown very well. First of all, congratulations on that. So I just wanted to understand when are we are thinking to monetize that or first is when we are thinking, second, what is the way — will it be through the advertising or will it be through the subscription model? What is our thought process? Because we have seen couple of companies in the India, which are focused on advertising, couple of companies focused on subscription. What is our thought process on this piece? That will be very helpful.
Girish Agarwal
And as we mentioned to you earlier also, that company is experimenting in different markets, different cohorts on the monetization. And so-far the response has been decent. Currently, we are at 19.6 million MAUs, which we believe should go substantially going-forward, go up. Yes. And then only we should be able to take a call whether we want to do a blanket monetization. And as far as the advertising and circulation subscription goes, I think it will be a mixed strategy.
There’ll be a subscription revenue and also advertising revenue. So it has to be a mix of both, sir.
Rakesh
Okay. Okay. And sir, with respect to the other expenses you mentioned, the increase in other expenses is led by circulation expense or promotion that we were doing plus the advertising with respect to the digital and there are other expenses you mentioned. Can you please talk about that again? I couldn’t understand that.
Girish Agarwal
Out of this INR97 crore INR98 crore increase in the expenses, roughly around INR20 crores are the routine expenses increase like the production cost, traveling cost and all that. And there is a big chunk of similar amount from these circulation promotion expenses for the entire schemes, for the surveys and all that. Then there’s a large chunk on the digital promotion.
Rakesh
Okay. Okay. Understood, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Best wishes.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Chaudhary from JM Financial. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, hi, sir. First question is, so you spoke about the revenue decline, which has happened in Q4 outside the government as well, like fuel sectors have been flat and sectors like automobile have actually seen a decline even in Q4. So what really since then has changed like April, you’re talking about seeing a double-digit growth. Do you
Unidentified Participant
Think is it happening due to maybe a low-base or the ad spends are actually coming back since then?
Girish Agarwal
To be very honest, confusing because in the month of January, February, the market was down. March onwards, we saw some uptake in March and April has been a good month-in terms of education, real-estate and jewelry. Also one of the reason why April was good because Akshay this year was on — it was in April, 30th April. Last year it was on 11th of May. So maybe some benefit of went in the month of April also.
Unidentified Participant
All right, understood. So we’ll have to see probably for another month or two before we can actually establish whether the uptake is actually happening on a more sustainable manner or —
Girish Agarwal
But if I look at the base of government advertising of last year, which is ’24 25 and the other market, I think this year, we are — we should be in a decent position.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, okay. And sorry, just one more question was last year Q4, what percentage of total ad revenue was government advertising?
Girish Agarwal
Last year, I don’t have the exact percentage, but that was the highest chunk because just before the Luxa by election.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Understood. All right. Thank you all the best.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Riya Mehta from Investments. Please go-ahead.
Riya Mehta
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I would like to ask that how was auto doing for us? Because I think you mentioned it was negative 5%. So what kind of absolute amount of auto adds are we seeing?
Girish Agarwal
So if you look at the annual number for the automobile category, we grew at around 16%.
Riya Mehta
That’s right.
Girish Agarwal
Yeah, if you look at the annual number. But when you look at the quarter-four, the auto was negative by 3%, 4%, 5%.
Riya Mehta
I’m hoping that this year auto
Girish Agarwal
10% of our revenue, 10% of our total land revenue, auto last year was 9% of the total revenue.
Riya Mehta
9% of total revenue. Okay. And I think what we saw negative during the year or maybe during the quarter was real-estate and education, but is it generally that this quarter Q4 is not heavy for education?
Girish Agarwal
No, no, no, no. This year, in fact, we were surprise, education and real-estate should have grown much higher. But I don’t know, there was a lull in the market in the month of December, Jan, February. All the three months are bad.
Riya Mehta
Okay. Sir. And the kind of I think last Q4 we had mentioned that around 9% of the ad growth was coming from our election spend. So that will come on a broad-based basis around INR35 crore to INR40 odd crores. So is my calculation right?
Girish Agarwal
I don’t remember the exact number, but the overall, if you see last year, we have grown — we have gone down by INR62 crore in our advertising from — from a base of INR1752 crores, we went down to INR1,689 crores, which is a INR62 crores decline and the government decline was more than this
Riya Mehta
Okay. So maybe some part of it was election driven and some was even organic government advertisement spends have gone down. Is it fair to assume?
Girish Agarwal
I really can’t say we have to see this year whether the other numbers have gone down accordingly or not?
Riya Mehta
Okay. So April, we are not seeing any decline in government spends.
Girish Agarwal
No, no, no.
Riya Mehta
Okay. Okay. I think that’s it from my side. I’ll join the queue for the questions.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alguni from Financials. Please go-ahead.
Falguni Dutta
Hello. Yeah, good evening, sir. What were the — what was the number of copies in circulation for Q4?
Girish Agarwal
Around 40 lakhs.
Falguni Dutta
Okay. And what were the new sprint prices for Q4 and how are they now?
Girish Agarwal
So the Q4 prices this year is at around 47,500, okay, which is down by almost 4% over last year. And going-forward, we believe that this price should stay or come down by maybe 1% or so.
Falguni Dutta
Okay. And they would be almost similar now, is it?
Girish Agarwal
Yeah, slightly declined possible, maybe 1% or so
Falguni Dutta
Okay. And sir, any comment on the dividend?
Girish Agarwal
Yeah. So we to make as you know, last year — last two last year, it was 55% for the payout. This year we did 58% of the payout. So our policy continues like this.
Falguni Dutta
Okay fine, sir. Thank you. That’s all from my side.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Augustia Dev from CAO Capital. Please go-ahead.
Agastya Dave
Thank you very much for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Girish Agarwal
Yes, very much, sir. Good evening.
Agastya Dave
Thank you very much, sir. Sir, can you can you share the annual number for circulation revenues value
Girish Agarwal
Almost the same, almost the same in the line of around
Agastya Dave
Okay. Okay, perfect, perfect. No, sir, I wanted the actual revenue number, but it should be flattish, right?
Girish Agarwal
The revenue number circulation is roughly around INR473 crores.
Agastya Dave
Okay, perfect, sir. Thank you. Sir, I know most of my questions have been answered and you have explained everything fairly clearly. But as things stand now, sir, do you think for this coming year, you will be able to negate the entire drop that we will see in government — government expenditure because obviously this year there is no election. So again, there will be compared to last year, there will be some drop-off. So will we see a growth this year? Overall
Girish Agarwal
Growth for sure because last year the government advertising all happened till March because April Court of conduct came in picture.
Agastya Dave
Right.
Girish Agarwal
So we will have some, I think overall growth over the government advertising because when the court of conduct happen, even the state government advertising stops.
Agastya Dave
Right. Sir, how does this cycle actually work — work for you? Do we — how long do we take after Luxaba elections to catch-up to the Luxaba level of advertising? Because I’m assuming that every year the advertising is actually growing, if you like normalize it for elections.
Girish Agarwal
Yeah, but it’s a government advertising is very difficult to predict.
Agastya Dave
Okay.
Girish Agarwal
And it’s very difficult to predict the government approach advertising.
Agastya Dave
Sir, given the trends that you have seen so-far in the first-quarter, would you say that we will see probably double-digit growth overall for the company for this year or is it too early to say?
Girish Agarwal
Our endeavor is for that only, sir.
Agastya Dave
Perfect, sir. Thank you very much, sir. All the best.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mohit, an Individual Investor. Please go-ahead.
Mohit
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity.
Girish Agarwal
Good evening.
Mohit
This quarter, our inventory turnover has been high compared to previous quarters. Is it because the dealers are facing difficulties in pushing forward or is the consumer still hesitant to pick-up the newspaper and read as circulation revenues has also dipped and what I recall from previous con-call is that we were seeing positive response from the reader because of the various.
Girish Agarwal
As I mentioned to you from Q3 to Q4, we have seen some uptake in circulation numbers. Now it’s a task for our team to maintain and grow this number from here onwards.
Mohit
Okay, sir. And also, sir, there is an increase in cash every quarter. Are we looking an opportunity to deploy it
Girish Agarwal
Our — if you see dividend payout strategy has been the same, as I just mentioned. This year we paid 58%. Last year we paid 55%. So we’ll continue doing that, sir.
Mohit
Sir, on the acquisitions part, is there anything?
Girish Agarwal
If you have something in mind, please do let me know offline.
Mohit
Sure, sir. Thank you, sir.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Rakesh from Nine Rivers Capital. Please go-ahead.
Rakesh
Hi, sir. Thank you very much for the follow-up opportunity. Sir, with respect to the other expenses you mentioned, it was due to the promotion expenses with respect to the digital as well as the circulation. What will be the — so what we should take at a growth for the other expense in the coming year, it will be what number?
Girish Agarwal
Sir, whatever is the Q4 number, if you analyze that for the next year, it will be slightly lesser than that only.
Rakesh
Okay. Okay. Okay. And sir, any your thoughts, again, I’ll come to the digital piece. So you said, what is the current profitability or the breakeven — has the breakeven reached digital Business or what is the loss or something you can talk about digital business?
Girish Agarwal
Sir, I’m from — based on our Board recommendation, we took the request to all the investors and took the liberty of not disclosing the digital numbers in detail considering the competition around and hence we are not disclosing those numbers, sir.
Rakesh
Okay. Okay, sir. Sir. Thank you very much and all the best.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you sir.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Amit Doshi from Care Portfolio Managers. Please go-ahead.
Amit Doshi
Yeah. Thank you. Sir, you mentioned that the price you expect it to be slightly same or lower. With this rupee appreciating, do you believe there is a likelihood of kind of returning, I mean reversing the price trend? And I also noted that the COGS, the ratio of gross margin, there is a bit of a hike. So is it because of new prices or something else? So just wanted to confirm on that.
Girish Agarwal
See, as you know, 30% of my new sprint is imported. And now if the new sprint price get impacted because of dollar, then it will impact the Indian also because Indian new sprint can manufacturers do the parity on the imported one. So I really can’t comment on the volatility of the international market and impact on the rupee.
Amit Doshi
Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to confirm things you mentioned it is you likely to expect to reduce. So that’s the reason why
Girish Agarwal
I’m assuming it will stay the same, then we’ll have a benefit. But if the rupee depreciate, then it will be a problem.
Amit Doshi
Okay. Okay, okay. Okay, sir. Okay. Thank you and wish you all the best.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ria Mehta from Investments. Please go-ahead.
Riya Mehta
Thank you for the follow-up. Sir, my first question is in regards to the shipping and the freight. So basically, we’ve been hearing the availability of containers has been an issue. So are we chasing something on those lines and what kind of inventory levels do we have for imported papers?
Girish Agarwal
We also were slightly concerned on this. Based on that, we have done some stocking for the next quarter. So as of now, we don’t have much of concern on that, but let’s see how the next two, Three-Month goes.
Riya Mehta
Okay. So for 1/4 we are suffering we have sufficient inventory.
Girish Agarwal
Okay. Yeah.
Riya Mehta
Got it. And yeah. So apart from auto, real-estate and education, could you help me with what other sectors did good for this quarter?
Girish Agarwal
Unfortunately most of the other quarters went on a single-digit growth like healthcare single-digit, electronics, electrical single-digit, hypermarket went on a slight decline. Our entertainment cinema unfortunately went on a big decline. Most of the GE channels have stopped advertising because they are facing the heat. So yeah,
Riya Mehta
Got it. Okay. Thank you so much.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Kushy, an individual Investor. Please go-ahead.
Girish Agarwal
Yes, sir. Good evening. MR. Kushi.
Operator
Koshy, your line has been unmuted. Please go-ahead with your question.
Unidentified Participant
Hello. Hi, good evening, everyone.
Girish Agarwal
Yes, Ms Kushy, good evening.
Unidentified Participant
Am I audible?
Girish Agarwal
Just be a bit louder please.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. My first question to you is, what is the ad yield rate growth for the quarter and annually?
Girish Agarwal
Sorry, what is the
Unidentified Participant
Ad yield rate growth
Girish Agarwal
Ad yield rate growth, unfortunately is nothing significant. Nothing significant to be very honest. This is one area where we have to really work hard along with the industry to increase the rates
Unidentified Participant
Okay. So my next question to you is, as you have mentioned that 30% imported news in mix was the number quarterly or it was annually?
Girish Agarwal
Same. The generally number varies from 25% to 30% quarter-on-quarter.
Unidentified Participant
So this is quarter number, what would be the annual number?
Girish Agarwal
So as I mentioned to you, like for example, the Q4, the number was 7723. But if you look at the annual number, it was 75 and 25%. So it keeps varying from quarter-to-quarter. So the range is anything from 75 25 to 80-20 or 70-30,
Unidentified Participant
Okay. My next question is, what is the growth and contribution of government sector, BFSI and jewelry quarter as well as for the financial year?
Girish Agarwal
Okay. So government quarter actually has gone down as I mentioned to you. In fact, the whole discussion from last half-an-hour was this only that because of the election not being there, we lost quite a money from the government business. So unfortunately, that one. And other two category, which one you said, please, I missed.
Unidentified Participant
Yes, I’m jewelry.
Girish Agarwal
DFS, banking and financial services, there has been a 3%, 4% growth on that particular segment. And jewelry, there has been a growth of almost 11% quarter number growth jewelry is higher because the Akshay which was last year in — sorry, the quarter-four you talk about, yeah. So quarter-four, the jewelry growth was 14%, yearly growth is 11% back.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Thank you.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you
Operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants that you may press star and 1 to ask a question. The next question is from the line of, an Individual Investor. Please go-ahead.
Girish Agarwal
Yeah, slightly blur. Can you use the handset directly, please?
Unidentified Participant
Is it better now?
Girish Agarwal
Yeah. Like you mentioned all the factors know the contribution of each sector in-quarter four. So if you look at the contribution on the — I can give you the annual number a little better. So annually you see sorry?
Unidentified Participant
Yes, sure. Annual number would work.
Girish Agarwal
Yeah, annual number, government contribution was the highest with almost 20%. Then education was at, 12% 13%, automobile 9%, real-estate 10%, jewelry 6%, FMCD, another 5%, yeah, so and so forth
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Kumar. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity, sir. Just two questions at my end. I mean, the first one, you know you sort of mentioned the ad growth improving in April. So could you sort of help us, I mean, is this a base effect kind of thing because I simply remember consumption last year first-half was sort of slightly muted. The consumption economy was broadly sort of muted. Is there a base effect playing out in your opinion?
Girish Agarwal
Yes, you’re right. You’re right. This is a base effect also.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. And the second point is that see our last couple of years clearly the government focus has post-COVID, the government focus has also been a lot on the capex side and I think after some time, we saw fairly monumental changes in the income tax side and I think the finance minister talking about forgoing almost INR1 lakh crores kind of revenue will go into the hands of consumers on that account. And you will be sort of talking to CMOs on a fairly regular basis. Do you sort of get that sense of that money in the hands of consumer, I mean April and May, basically a little bit of opening of first things at the customer end and then at the corporate and is there — I mean, I know this just barely the beginning right now, but do you get that sense that things will sort of build-up as we go towards the festival season, things will sort of build-up better than certainly what we saw last year.
Girish Agarwal
So unfortunately, the quarter-four numbers, if you look at of the other industries also, has not been very good, whether it’s FMCG or auto and all that real-estate. So it looks like that the ground is stretched. Now all the measures taken by government In last couple of months, hopefully, they should work. As I mentioned about the AIDS pay commission and all that. So that money is yet to come out in the hands of people and then in the market. So I’m confident that going-forward, this will suddenly help.
Unidentified Participant
But in your conversations with your clients, do you sort of see any sort of — any of those green shoots see 4Q, any which ways, I mean that’s what is under the bridge now, right, because any which ways the tax — the income tax changes are applicable from 1st of April. So we’re talking April, May essentially. But now in your conversations with your clients, do you sort of see the consumers sort of opening up their purse strings a little bit on the back of, you know, a lower-income tax rates and some additional benefit that you know some tax benefit that they are getting starting to get from April onwards and
Girish Agarwal
People are hoping more that but on-the-ground, but not till March, but from yeah, people hoping for it.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, okay. My second — my last point was on the real-estate side, specifically, so again, you know all of us are more mature Tier-1 you know people. So at least in Delhi, Bombay, what we saw post-Diwali, a little bit of a correction in the real-estate market in terms of sentiment, in terms of pricing, in terms of volumes. But so two points really. One is that have you sort of also seen a little bit of correction in Tier-2, Tier-3? I mean, you’re sort of saying 4th-quarter real-estate was also down, advertising was also down. But again, what are the kind of trends incrementally that you are seeing? I mean, is that correction sort of over — are you sort of seeing some sort of again green shoots of recovery on the real-estate side as well in six months broadly basically.
Girish Agarwal
I think in Tier-2 — in Tier-2, 3, what happened, the real-estate guy did a bumper sale during Diwali. This Diwali was bumper for real-estate guys. And most of these are the owner-driven companies, owner, managed run company. So I think they had enough — so they went slow in their mind and if nothing happened for three, four months, they were not bothered about it. But from I think February onwards, they are all — they are all our concerned.
So April went okay. So let’s hope that should continue
Operator
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today’s conference call. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Pawan Agarwal
Thank you, everyone, for your participation and time on this earnings call today. I hope we have responded to your queries and we’ll always be happy to be of assistants through our Investor Relations department headed by Mr Prasun Kumar Pande for all your further queries. Thank you and have a great evening.
Girish Agarwal
Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. On behalf of DV Corp Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you