Hindustan Media Ventures Ltd (NSE: HMVL) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Jan. 28, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Yash R — Analyst
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Presentation:
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. This is Aditya Malani from HT Media Group. I would like to welcome you all to our quarter three financial year 2526 earnings webinar. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen only mode. After we are through with the presentation, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions. I now hand over to Ms. Anna Abraham, HD Media Group’s Deputy CFO, Chief Financial Officer, HMVL and Head Investor Relations. Thank you. And over to you Anna.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Aditya. Good afternoon everyone. Warm welcome to our earnings webinar for. The third quarter of the financial year 2526. Joining me on today’s call is Head. Of Financial controllership and taxation Mr. Parvez Bajan and members of our Interrelations team. We will start the call with a. Brief presentation on the results of HD Media and Hindustan Media Ventures following which we will take any questions that may be there. Before we start. Just a quick reminder that we do not give provide specific guidance on projections and there is a disclaimer about any forward looking statements. Coming to our Chairperson’s message on the. Results for the quarter and I quote. The third quarter of the financial year. Saw the company make consistent operational progress characterized by stable top line performance and a steady growth in overall profitability. These results reinforce the effectiveness of our. Ongoing operational initiative to strengthen our businesses. Our core print segment continues to demonstrate. Resilience, posting growth on more than an annual sequential basis. This performance was largely driven by strong growth in advertising, particularly in our English language titles, alongside steady circulation revenues. The combination of these gains and the. Disciplined approach to cost is translated into meaningful growth in profitability. The radio business continues to navigate a. Challenging market environment where revenues and margins pressure performances remain stable on a sequential. Basis the year on year Revenue contraction is primarily a reflection of the high. Base effect from the previous year’s event lend risk. We are proactively recalibrating our business operations. Within Rayo to ensure the segment is better aligned with the current. Our digital business delivered a strong performance during the. Quarter with revenues rising and margins improving. This trajectory validates our commitment to scaling. Our digital first offerings while maintaining a clear path towards profit growth. Looking ahead, we remain focused on sustaining. The momentum seen this quarter across our. Business portfolio by leveraging the enduring strength of our established print mastheads, recalibrating our radio offerings and further scaling up our. New age digital platforms. We continue to reinforce our commitment to. Delivering product, trusted journalism and high quality content to our diverse audience. End of quote. This slide covers the agenda for the. Day we’ll start with a brief overview of the consolidated performance followed by the business unit performance on print, radio and digital. Coming to the consolidated performance, revenue was stable on an annual basis and improved sequentially. There’s been improvement in margins and the. Cash position continues to remain robust. So we reported the total revenue of. 532 crores which was flat versus last year and 7% growth sequentially. EBITDA came in at 51 crores and. A margin of 10% which saw an EBITDA improvement of 9%. PAT before exceptional is at a 17 crore with a margin of 3% and net cash remains robust at 945. Similar number as was reported to last quarter. Coming to business unit performance and starting with print and print. English print overall saw positive momentum with. Sequential gains led by the uptick in ad revenue coupled with resilient circulation based. There’s also hot healthy margin expansion seen for this segment. Ad revenue came in at 301 crores. Which is an 8% growth versus last year. A marginal decline versus the previous year basically because of festive shift. Otherwise it’s been a healthy revenue numbers for the quarter. Circulation numbers came in at 53 crores. Which is holding steady. Putting the overall operating 395 crores which is about 2% growth. Operating EBITDA for the print business came in at 64 which is a 15% margin versus the 11% margin we have. Coming to print. English advertising revenue on a YOY basis. Was almost flat for English print and as I mentioned this is despite the change in festive days this year versus last year. Last year all the festive was in quarter three. This year it got split between between quarter two and quarter three. Despite that English came with a good advertising revenue number of about 179 crores which is also a sequential growth of 16%. Circulation revenue remains steady on a sequential basis and on an 8% growth on a yoy basis. Coming to brunt. Hindi. Hindi saw a marginal decline of 4%. Again this is a basically basic tech, otherwise have been strong and even on a sequential basis it’s kind of flat. Circulation revenue at 38 crores is holding. Steady even for India. Coming to Radio Radio is seeing a. Big drop in revenue to 34 crores which is primarily driven by the high base effect from a big event that we had in the days sequentially you can see it’s a 5% revenue movement with operating EBITDA holding at about the 5 crore loss. Digital There is significant growth on a. Yoy basis where the operating Revenue came in coming at 67 crores and 30% growth sequentially. Also there’s a 9% growth. The segment is reporting losses at 23. Crores, but margins are significantly improved both on a sequential as well as on a biobial basis. We are now. We can now open the floor for questions. So over to you.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Thank you, Anna. We will now begin the Q and A session. You can click on the raise hand option which will enable the moderator to unmute you for posing your query. Please introduce yourself before posing your query and kindly restrict to a maximum of two to three questions per participant so that we may be able to address questions from all participants. Also, as is the ambit of this call, please be mindful to pose questions pertaining to the listed entity HT Media limited And those within its consolidated structure. We will wait for a few moments while the question queue assembles.
The first question is from the line of Yash R. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Yash R — Analyst
Yeah, hi.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Yes, you’ll have to. Yes, yes, now you’re audible. Yeah.
Yash R — Analyst
So I was just trying to make a sense of the numbers, particularly for the print segment. Hello.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Yes, yes you are audible.
Yash R — Analyst
Okay, so my first question is with regards to the revenue. Now there seems on a consolidated basis for the print segment there has been an uptick in other operating income because circulation and your ad revenues are relatively flat. So what has happened over there for both for English and there seems to be an uptick in HM wheel as well.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Yeah, we have other operating revenue as it has seen some uptick while the. Ad revenues and circulation. This is. I mean of course there’s quite a. Few components of that Java scrap sales, all that which comes in there. Additionally there’s also four feature that we. Get from our AFE benefits as well.
Yash R — Analyst
Okay, so which has contributed more? Is it the outside work or is it the 4 feature which is which might be a one time thing.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
For which it tends to be a little bit consistent because quarter to quarter there could be a very distinct but it’s a standard part of our standard operating arrangement with regard to that particular business. So it tends to be consistent. We’ve seen marginal upside across lines.
Yash R — Analyst
So I’m sorry, I mean it’s still not clear. So what has led to this uptick? Is it more more of outside printing? Because I mean since you’re saying that the for feature is more or less.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Consistent both outside printing and for feature as seen. I was reacting to your comment saying that for feature is one time I said some level tends to happen.
Yash R — Analyst
Okay. Okay.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Sometimes it could be a little plus or minus, but it’s a consistent.
Yash R — Analyst
Okay, now coming to the HT English part. The revenue I believe has gone up by around 7 crores. But the operating profit has gone up by around 17 odd crores. And I mean the savings in DVC I think are around hardly any 2 or 3 crores. So what has led to the reduction in costs which has driven up the profitability of HT English?
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
For English, there’s pricing growth and therefore. That automatically improves margins. Newsprint continues to be lower than last year. That also helps in margins. And we’ve been very tight on all. Discretionary spends as well.
Yash R — Analyst
Overheads is what you’re talking about. And sorry, discretionary spend. So that would be like promotion and all that.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Yes.
Yash R — Analyst
Okay. And just one last question. The HML staff course, I believe salaries have. Salary costs have gone lower as compared to previous year by around 3 or crores. What is the reason behind it though? It is in line with what we had in Q2.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
And there is. You’re seeing Q3 versus Q3. Right. Just give me a minute.
Yash R — Analyst
Yeah.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
There are some incidental, there is some reverse reversal which was there with regard to variable payout. That is partially the reason. And some savings in certain other lines of business. Apart from print, which is coming. Apart from print. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. That’s about it from mine. Thank you.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mehul Patak. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Can you hear me?
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Yes.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Yeah. Good afternoon, Anna. I don’t know if Piyush is there or not.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
No, he’s not there.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Okay. Okay. No, no problem. I have a couple of questions. The first is how are we using AI in all our businesses today? And what is the future impact of AI that we assess, you know, in our business? Is it going to be positive, is it going to be negative? You know, and financially what will be the impact, you know, if you can share some perspective.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
So I might not be the, you know, the right person to share a full perspective. But touch on a couple of points. As we share. Because this is a very fine subject. Your voice is jarring a bit. No, I don’t know whether it’s my problem or problem at your end. I believe there is no problem that others are facing. Yeah. So it could be at your end. Because we just got information.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Okay, fine.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
I said I’ll try, try and touch upon it briefly because it’s a very large conversation and I may not be the most competent person to address it completely. But multiple Aspect of course there is a standard element of efficiency, productivity that. Is applicable to all industries. We are on the content side. It can be a tool for our editorial setup which we are utilizing very strongly. From an impact perspective we’ve seen there’s a. There’s a lot of AI being used and that could. One view is that could also put a high importance on credibility and trustworthiness of content which puts us in a good position if that is, that is the case. Because in that we are a trusted. Source of news and content. So that’s one perspective that’s emerging. There’s also certain regulatory framework that’s been proposed by the government which suggests that, you know, partners using AI will have to remunerate the original content providers in some manner which also seems to be. On the positive side. So from a code newsprint, I mean new print business, we are seeing it as an enabler which should help us, you know, expand into doing better offerings. Our credibility and trust factor puts us in a good position and as regulatory environment evolve, we should see a lot. More structure and you know, structure around the system.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Will it lead to massive productivity improvements and cost savings for us?
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
See, there is an element which every industry will see it, but I think the smarter ones are seeing about how do you kind of make it a revenue opportunity and not just a cost efficiency as with any automation. And there will be some element which. Comes through as we have seen in. Past cycles of any major technological change as well. But I think the larger opportunity is to see what can be done on. The business and revenue.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Okay, no, as an investor I expect that, you know, at least the editorial part entirely can be done by AI and you know, massively the people cost should come down any. But that’s not my question. It’s just a judgment call, judgment call.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
That I have, you know, that is. Subjective because within what differentiates you. So you have to stand with some differentiated proposition. Otherwise there is nothing. It’s like we have seen many waves of it. There was a time when aggregation of content was also positioned as a new way. And post Covid we have seen that also go through a long cycle. So those are very subject of God.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
My. My second question is I think you have is my understanding right that entire 39.9 crores of gratuity you have booked in the P l for quarter three.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
There’s an exceptional item of about 41.4. Crores which has been booked. And there is a note given in. The results also to that extent which. Is an impact of the new labor code.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Correct. So now is it reasonable to expect that this will get adjusted in CTC next year for all the employees? Because at the end of it, the money has to come out from the business only. So is that a reasonable expectation?
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
So there is, I think this labor code is a whole subject on its own. So difficult to kind of address it over this call. But as you may know, the labor law, what has been done as of now is a draw up of the carrying liability basis. The new laws, which is the. What is the regulation requires us to do going forward. The, you know, whatever is this thing is something which we will see how. To absorb in the overall cost of the business. You know, given keeping all perspectives of. Employees and stakeholders and the company the perspective. But this is an evolving regulation and. All companies are currently grappling with it at this point. Okay, but our request to the board is that it should get adjusted next year. No. So otherwise business is no position to absorb, you know, additionally cost like these. This is an annual cost. This is a aggregated cost across the years for the. So this is nowhere indicative of the future cost increase for any business. That’s the very nominal number. These exceptional items as being reported by all the companies are of a historical one.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
My expectation is that we.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
May we request you to please fall back in queue for any follow up questions.
Mehul Pathak — Analyst
Yeah. Okay, thank you.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, A reminder to all participants that you may use the raise hand option given on your screen if you wish to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Kirid Shah. Please unmute yourself, introduce yourself and ask your question. Yes, Mr. Kirit, you will have to unmute yourself. Yes. Okay, we’ll move on to the next caller. The next question is from the line of Yash R. Please unmute yourself.
Yash R — Analyst
Yeah, so my question is with regards to are we seeing an uptick in the pricing compared to previous year and how is it fared sequentially?
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
You are talking about ad pricing.
Yash R — Analyst
Yes, yes, sorry, I was in specific.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Yeah, both yoy and sequentially we are.
Yash R — Analyst
Seeing in the pricing. Okay. And what about the copies? I mean I see that the revenue circulation revenue has gone down versus previous year for Hindi and I believe it’s. That’s the same or there has been a slight uptick in the English part. So what is the drivers behind it?
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
It’s very marginal. That you have seen. In the last year. There was competitive pressure and there was. Therefore a lot in certain markets and therefore across publications there were a little more copy circulation. But it did have an Impact on. Pricing this time it’s now at a more reasonable level. So if you see sequentially it’s holding flat as well and there is marginal shifts. These keep happening as market to market. There are some attempts to increase copies etc but overall no issues. Pricing is holding, copies are holding it circulation revenue has been steady.
Yash R — Analyst
Okay. All right. And what about the newsprint rates? Do we have any update on that? Because there has been news in the market saying that prices are going to increase in the coming quarters, especially given the current geopolitical scenario.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Yeah, so we are. The market is indicating that there could be a potential shift in the newsprint. You know, there’s a gradual increase anyway. This commodity does the. It moves in cycles and we’ve been at the bottom of the cycle for some time. Currently we are still below last year. On for the quarter as well as on a YDD basis. This and I think pretty much next quarter also. You know, we are not expecting any major shift. And we have reasonable cover till the first quarter of next year. Then after we might see some upward move.
Yash R — Analyst
So I mean do we have any plans to mitigate or shift this impact be it increase in cover prices or probably, you know, mitigated by increasing our ad pricing.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
So. Yes, yeah. As you can, you know, like I said many cycles. So everything that happens on that particular cycle we will attempt to do consistently including optimizing buyings, optimizing mix of Newsprint, controlling consumption, etc. Etc. Pricing is a is there is will be a tougher part when priced in. The Hindi markets for sure. And at pricing doesn’t authority or never moved in that. But everything else that’s possible will be. Done because this industry does series cycles.
Yash R — Analyst
Okay. All right, thank you.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Thank you. We will try Mr. Creed again. He has raised his hand. And then move on to the next participant. Mr. Creed, please unmute yourself and ask your question. We are trying it one more time. Mr. Kirit, you can unmute yourself and ask your question. Okay, moving on to the next participant. The next question is from the line of trust, Shubham Jajodia. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Unidentified Participant
Hello? Yes, Mr. Am I audible?
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Yes, you are.
Unidentified Participant
Good afternoon. So last year in December there was this deal that Meta did with some news publishers in the US and are we expecting such kind of deals happen here as well? Are you guys have been approached by Meta, any kind of AI companies or are you guys seeing it as a viable and material potential revenue source for future and if that kind of opportunity do arise, do you guys see to negotiate you know, as we’re seeing kind of a change in our. The way traditional platform is evolving in this AI landscape.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
So I did kind of mention in. My response to an earlier participant’s question that government itself has today floated a proposal which requires platforms to compensate the original content creator for data used by them and which includes the AI participants. Yeah, but are you guys actively pursuing such kind of deals yourself? See, we are not seeing much uptick in our revenue growth where the stock performance has been very decimal. I mean post Covid, if you would. See there’s not much growth that is coming. So AI looks like a very good way to, you know, boost our revenues. So what are you guys actively doing to, you know, boost some bottom line there? We have conversations but you know, it’s not a. Not a need to share anything on this call.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations.
Thank you. Thank you all. With this, we come to the end of the Q and A session. If you have any further queries, please reach out to the investor relations team. Our contact details are given in the investor presentation and are also mentioned on our websites. I now hand over to Anna for closing remarks.
Ms. Anna Abraham — Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investor Relations
Thank you everyone. Thank you for participating in our webinar. It’s been nine months from an overall HD Media Group perspective. We hope to continue this momentum and come back to you with a good set of numbers for the next quarter. Well, thank you once again. Have a good evening.