Hindustan Media Ventures Ltd (HMVL) Q4 FY23 Earnings Concall Transcript

Hindustan Media Ventures Ltd (NSE:HMVL) Q4 FY23 Earnings Concall dated May. 19, 2023.

Corporate Participants:

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

Ranga Prasad — — Analyst

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Presentation:

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Aaditya Mulani from the HT Media Group. I would like to welcome you all to our Quarter Four and Full Financial Year ’22-’23 Earnings Webinar. As a reminder, all the 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, Head, Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, Anna.

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Thank you, Aaditya, and a very good morning to everyone. On behalf of HT Media Group, I welcome you to our earnings webinar to discuss the financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year financial year ’22-’23. On the call with me today are Mr. Piyush Gupta, Group CFO; Mr. Pervez Bajan, Group Controller; and members of the Investor Relations team.

I trust you had an opportunity to go through the financial results of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited declared this Tuesday and HT Media Limited released yesterday.

Kindly note that our remarks will track with the presentation on this Zoom webinar. This presentation, along with the financial statements is available on stock exchanges and the Investor Relations section of our websites.

We start with a cautionary statement, kindly take this into consideration. As per practice, we do not provide specific revenue or earnings guidance.

Moving on to the slide, it gives our Chairperson’s comments on the performance of the Company for the quarter and “until the last first, your company witnessed a growth in its top line which came after two pandemic impacted years that saw a broader industry-wide slowdown. As a whole, our business saw an improvement in the year, despite concerns arising from sustained input cost inflation and supply chain bottlenecks. Geopolitical strife hampered supply lines across businesses and impacted raw material costs, especially in the first half of the year. The second half of the year witnessed a relatively subdued festive season on account of sluggish retail spending, but the year ended with an uptick in business sentiment in our key segments and a slight softening in raw material prices. On a full-year basis, our Print business posted revenue growth on the back of an improvement in advertising, as well as circulation revenue. The revenue of our Radio business has also seen robust growth owing to sustained strength in FCT and improvement in non-FCT performance. Our Digital business performance was at par and this business remains a key focus area for further innovation. Profitability remained subdued due to elevated input costs, led by newsprint, and business development expenses in the Digital business. Indian OTT space is one of the fastest-growing pillars of the media and entertainment industry. Hindustan Media Ventures Limited looks to tap this potential with the launch of ottplay.com, a platform which aggregates OTT content, with focus on abundance, convenience, personalization and affordability. In the current fiscal, we are focused on building on our growth momentum from last year as we navigate the larger macro environment, as well as the evolving media ecosystem. As always, our endeavor is to be a source of credible news and engaging content for our audiences.”

Moving on to the agenda for the call today. On Slide #4, we will begin with the performance updates with the comments on our consolidated financials for the fourth quarter and full-year financial year ’22-’23. This will be followed by detailed remarks on our Print, Radio and Digital businesses. We will thereafter open for a Q&A session.

With that, I hand over this call to Mr. Piyush Gupta.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Anna. Good morning, everyone. We will be tracking the presentation here. As you can see on the first slide, we’ve got a consolidated financial summary. For the fourth quarter FY ’23, our total revenues tracked to INR494 crores as against INR456 crores same period last year, a growth of 8%. EBITDA is, however, substantially down 75%, primarily due to certain investments that we’re making in OTTplay, and the elevated newsprint cost, which have hampered in this quarter. PBT margin, as a consequence, came to a negative INR34 crores to INR10 crores earlier. And net cash, however, still remains reasonably strong at INR935 crores, which is a decline of 14%. On a full-year basis, our revenues tracked to INR1,862 crores, which is a growth of 11%. EBITDA, however, because of the same reason which plagued us in the fourth quarter, came in at INR13 crores, which is a sharp decline. PBT, therefore, came in at a negative INR156 crores and net cash at INR935 crores, which I’ve articulated earlier. There is some commentary given in the bottom of the screen.

So, if you can just move on? Now, if you go by business unit, we look at our Print business. On the Print business, our ad revenues for the quarter came at INR269 crores, a growth of 8%, with circulation revenue growing 12% at INR60 crores. Operating revenue, therefore, at INR374 crores, a 5% growth and operating EBITDA declined by 65% to INR15 crores. On a full-year basis, the Print revenue was INR1,062 crores, which is a 12% growth. Circulation revenue at INR236 crores, which is a 18% growth. Operating revenue at INR1,434 crores, which is a 13% growth and operating EBITDA came in at a slightly negative INR2 crores.

Moving on, we break it into English and Hindi. On English, in the fourth quarter, our revenue grew 17% to INR154 crores. On a full-year basis, the growth was 15% at INR588 crores. Circulation revenue at INR16 crores with a growth of 64% and for the full-year, it was nearly doubling itself from INR28 crores to INR54 crores.

Moving on, now we track Hindi. Hindi, for the quarter, our ad revenues came flat at about INR116 crores. On a Y-o-Y basis, it was a growth of 8% at INR474 crores. Circulation revenue, again, flat on a quarterly basis. On a full-year basis, there was a marginal increase of 5%.

Looking at our Radio business. Quarterly revenues came at INR36 crores, which is a 18% increase. Operating EBITDA, however, came in negative as opposed to INR1 crore same period last year. Full-year, however, was a very different picture. Full-year, we saw our revenues soaring 42% at INR144 crores as against INR101 crores earlier and operating EBITDA came in at INR6 crores.

Lastly, our Digital businesses in this — in HT Media Group remained flat with a top line of INR32 crores and a bottom line of negative INR22 crores for the quarter. On a full-year basis, again, it was flat at INR133 crores, with a bottom line of negative INR75 crores.

With that, we come to the end of the presentation. We open the session for question-and-answers.

Questions and Answers:

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

Thank you, Piyush. We will now begin the Q&A session. You can click on the raise hand option, which 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 questions per participant, so that we may be able to address questions from all participants present. We will wait for a few moments before the question queue assembles.

The first question is from the line of Ranga Prasad [Phonetic]. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.

Ranga Prasad — — Analyst

Good morning, everyone. I hope I’m audible.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yes, you are, please go ahead. Good morning to you.

Ranga Prasad — — Analyst

I’m an investor from Hyderabad. My name is Ranga Prasad. At the outset, let me say that I’m very disappointed with the financial performance of both HT Media and HMVL, particularly, HT Media. See, earlier we were told that the poor performance was mainly due to a sharp increase in newsprint prices. But now there has been a sharp decrease in newsprint prices, also shipping costs have come down to 80% controlled [Phonetic]. In spite of all this, we’re showing steep losses, both operationally, as well as non-operating loss. In fact, I am shocked with the non-operating loss over INR103 crores has written off this year due to write-off in a subsidiary and impairment of deposits given to inter-corporate deposit. I like to be shed on these write-offs. There has been a — while there has been some turnaround in the Print business, the — on the Digital Media front and on the Radio front, we are seeing sharp losses. And until this turnaround, I don’t see any possibility for the Company to show a sharp rebound in profits. So I’d like you to give some road map as to when we can expect some turnaround in these two segments also.

I’m also surprised that in the Digital segment, we’re showing a very small investment of about INR13 crores, but the loss is about INR76 crores. So it looks as though we are showing all our expenses as a revenue loss. So shouldn’t we be capitalizing some of these expenses as a capital item because we can expect a certain stream of revenues to flow in net figures. I’d like you to say something on that, too. Anyway, disappointed with the whole performance. I hope things will improve from now on. Thank you.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Thanks for the question, Mr. Ranga Prasad. So much as you are disappointed, obviously, we’re looking for better results ourselves. But let me give you a certain flavor of our results for the quarter and indeed for the whole year. You specifically mentioned about English. As you are aware, our English newspapers, primarily they’re in Delhi, Bombay and Chandigarh, apart from that, we do have presence in some of the cities. Now, in places like Delhi and Bombay, though the newspaper prices, as I’ve already highlighted, are very escalated. You mentioned about the shipping cost, which has come down, but you have to understand that this is not a real-time impact, which comes to the P&L right away because there is some inventory, which has to be built up for continuing operations. So the impact of shipping costs and, of course, the commodity cost, which has come down now, you will see in the subsequent couple of quarters, that is absolutely a forward conclusion, but it doesn’t happen on a real-time. But, however, apart from just the input costs, one of the other big problems that has been plaguing us is on our yields. The pricing that we had pre the COVID in big — if you talk about HT, in big markets of Delhi and Bombay, still hasn’t come back. As a matter of fact, in places, it is short by 20%, 25%. Now, that’s really what is hampering our revenue and taking away the operating leverage from the P&L.

Now, as we embark on the next fiscal year, and we’ve already completed now the month of May nearly, there’s a big program on yield improvement that we have put in place, which is — which we are hoping to unlock the value and go back to our pre-COVID yields. The paper price is, of course, coming down, which you will see translating into EBITDAs and, therefore, PBT and PAT in the coming year. But with the revenue uptick, you will see the profitability come back to a pre-COVID at a very robust level.

So I will just stop there. There were further questions you had asked about the Digital segment. I will ask — request my colleague, Anna Abraham, to give you a color on those. Anna?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

I think there are two questions. One was on the impairment and the other was on the Digital segment. First, addressing the impairment question, the impairment has — is actually in the stand-alone results, therefore, it is not impacting the consolidated results at all. So that’s the first point. And why does that happen? Because over time, on a consolidated basis, whatever has been the business performance of those underlying subsidiary has already got reflected. However, at a certain point of time, we also, on a stand-alone basis, have to take a fair valuation of the investments per se, and that — subject to that, the impairment has been taken.

The critical reason Radio, you mentioned Radio is in losses, but you would have seen that Radio performance have been consistently — on a quarter-on-quarter, we’ve been reporting very, very healthy revenue growth. And for the full-year also, it’s north of 40%. And the Radio has improved substantially from the loss position of last year to a profitable position this year. In the current quarter, there is a marginal loss on account of one-off spend that we have incurred for a particular reconsulting arrangement that we had undertaken. Otherwise, the underlying business itself is profitable. Having said that, while there has been significant improvement in the Radio business because this was a one medium, which was slow in recovery post-COVID. But this year, we’ve seen that coming. We have seen volumes come back. However, the — like I said, recovery was slow, it was delayed by a year, while it’s a fixed license business. So from the accounting and the valuation point of view, given the discounting and the period to which it gets discounted, etc., we had to take some impairment. But, again, I repeat, it is not impacting consolidated results. It is only on the stand-alone results.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

If I may just add on, Anna. Mr. Prasad, on the Radio, your point is absolutely valid. Yes, we’ve taken an impairment in the stand-alone result, which is all consequent to our Radio performance. Though the Radio performance has substantially improved this quarter and the growth is close to 40%. But given the fact that impairment testings have to be done in this quarter, there is a substantial impairment, which has come. This is all on our Radio One. And with this and the growth that we are seeing in Radio, we are very hopeful that this is the last time that we have seen this impairment. And from here on, Radio will go — grow strength to strength. So I would like to give you a comfort that Radio, I think, has seen the worst of time. But you have to understand the background in which the FM Radio business across has been impacted. If you look at various other radio operators, their profitability indeed has also been impacted. And this is one sector which is directly linked to the performance of various MSMEs. And what COVID did to MSMEs is taking a slightly longer time to recover, but we are very hopeful now that we have seen a 40% growth in this year. Next year, we will again have a stupendous year and a profitable year on our Radio segment.

Anna, would you like to take the last question?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Yeah. The last question was on the midstream segment. The revenue that you are seeing is only of the businesses that we earlier had, and therefore, that is why you’re not seeing a substantial shift in revenue. The increase — substantial increase in costs that you are seeing is now because of the fact that OTTplay, we launched as a new business line. And it has now been clubbed along with the Digital segment. You talked about capitalization. So we’ve been in various discussions over the last year talking about the fact that we are incubating a few businesses and trying to come up with — as and when we are, on a revenue monetization plan, we will start reporting it as a separate segment. So this year, between all the experiments that we’ve had, we’ve now launched OTTplay, and therefore, the coming year is the real year where we will start seeing the revenue monetization. And in the current year, the nature of the business and the arrangements do not allow us to take it in capitalization, and that’s why we have transparently disclosed it as an operating cost.

Piyush, if you want to add anything?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So Mr. Ranga Prasad, now that we have classified that into our Digital segment. Let me speak a little bit about OTTplay. This is a business that has been in beta stage for about six to nine months. And now since we’ve understood this space, we have decided to commercially launch down on this thing.

What exactly is OTTplay? As you understand, OTT is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the Indian media and entertainment industry. It is growing at somewhere between 18% to 20% as against the other media properties, which are growing anywhere between 10% to 15%.

If you look at subscription Video-on-Demand, that side is expected to reach about INR16,000 crores to INR17,000 crores by 2026, and it is growing at a very healthy clip. With that, we believe that all the demand drivers, the smartphones, the various peripheral devices, the smart TVs, etc., being in play, broadband being available to the masses and 5G being launched in India, with this space is now ripe for aggregating. As you are already aware that various spaces, which have already been aggregated, you take a case of financial products, you take travel, various other places, food, various of these places have been aggregated and running a very successful business. However, OTTplay, which is growing at a very fast clip, is ripe for aggregation. We’ve been working in this place for quite some time. And now that we have got the proof of concept, we are investing behind this function, which is sitting in our Digital segment of the business, and you will see results coming out in this year. That’s basically what I wanted to say about OTTplay.

Let me also give you a few points why we believe that OTTplay will be successful. If you look at from a consumer standpoint, now from a consumer standpoint, consumers are very frustrated that they have to navigate across multiple platforms what to watch. I mean, OTT started in India about 10 years ago. But right now, there is a proliferation of multiple platforms and customers are struggling there. The recommendation of individual platforms are largely irrelevant because the customers’ profile are not carried across the platform. So the genres, etc., lost in one platform to the other platform. And with the subscription that people have to pay for individual platforms, it’s a very costly proposition. We are trying to solve all these problems from a customer point of view by bundling multiple OTTs and serving him on a single login, where his profile remains — the content that a particular customer wants to watch travels to him, and he gets at a very economical price. There are also problems on the platform side that we are trying to solve here. I mean, for every platform, the cost of content, the cost of acquiring customers, etc., is very expensive. Here, because we are into a media space, and we are selling advertising and we are selling subscription, we will optimize that particular piece and drive some value. So that’s what we are trying to do with OTTplay, and that is the expense that you are seeing in the P&L.

Ranga Prasad — — Analyst

Thank you very much for a very detailed explanation on the Digital side. Now, one thing that you’ve not yet addressed is the inter-corporate deposit written off about INR51 crores. I hope it’s a one-time earning cost [Phonetic] and we may [Phonetic] not see any further impairment in this typical print deposits.

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Yeah. So when is addressing impairment, I was actually addressing both because both impairment in equity and impairment in corporate deposits is linked to the Radio business. It is — so the business gets valued and whether we hold the investment in terms of equity or whether we hold it in terms of debt, both will get corrected base with [Phonetic] an underlying valuation. And therefore, it is that Radio impairment itself, which has led to the impairment in the ICD as well.

Ranga Prasad — — Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much for the clarification.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Mr. Prasad.

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Piyush Bangar. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Hello. Am I audible?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yes, yes. Go ahead, Piyush.

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Okay. So good morning, everyone. My name is Piyush from Vijit Global Securities. And my first question is, what is the newsprint prices right now? And do you see any further fall in the prices?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Piyush. So let me try and take this question. Currently, our newsprint prices are about INR60,000 a metric ton. And as we are looking out next year, we are already seeing that softness happening. So we are very hopeful that these prices will come down about 10% to 15% from here on.

I’ll let my colleague, Anna, to elaborate on that.

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Yeah. The INR60,000 metric ton is what we are looking for the running quarter. What we closed the quarter four is at about INR64,000 a metric ton.

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Okay. So that INR64,000 is the average price of the newsprint of [Technical Issues]

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

We lost you, Piyush. If you could just repeat your question?

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Okay. Okay. So my second question — am I audible right now?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Yes.

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Okay. My second question is, what is the average price of newsprint in your inventory for this quarter and as well as for the whole year?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Okay. The consumption rate for the quarter is roughly at about INR64,000. And in the next quarter, we are — we think it will come down by about 7%, 8%.

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Okay. Okay. So I have another question. My next question is, can you provide me the bifurcation of other income hedge along with the amount in FY ’23?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

If you could give us a minute?

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Yeah, please.

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

So the biggest component of this is the profits that we have made on sale of properties in the current year from the portfolio that we hold as part of our ad for property business. And that accounts for the major number here, as well as — and because we manage some sales — some of the holding properties also saw MTM gains on that. So the other income is primarily the MTM gains on financial instruments — in financial instruments and property that we are holding.

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Okay. So can you please share the percentages of the share of the profits from the property business and the other…

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Yeah. We couldn’t get into such level of details, but it’s broadly all on MTM gains on the — this financial — agreement that we hold.

Piyush Bangar — Vijit Global Securities — Analyst

Okay, okay. Thank you.

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

Thank you. We have another –. Ladies and gentlemen, a reminder to all participants that you may use the raise hand option on your screen if you wish to ask a question. The next question is from Yash R [Phonetic]. Please introduce yourself and ask your question. Mr. Yash, you are not audible. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Hi, Piyush. Good morning.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Yash. Good afternoon.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Yeah, hi. So I have a couple of questions. The first one is with regards to the employee cost that we are seeing in HMVL, it has gone down from INR40 crores in the previous quarter to around INR37 crores. So what’s the reason behind this? I mean, it’s around 7%, 8%, if I’m not mistaken, yes, it’s all that much.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, yeah.

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

You’re looking at quarter-on-quarter or Y-o-Y?

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

No, I said quarter-on-quarter. It has gone down from INR40 crores to around INR37 crores.

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Yeah. Yeah. There is a one-time reversal in this quarter, which otherwise the employee cost is flat.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay. What would that be, if I can — I mean, if you can just let us know what exactly that is because I think this has happened last year as well?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Every year…

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yash, let me just give you a color on this thing. Most of the employees have a part of fixed and variable. And depending on the performance within a certain group, certain part of variable will be paid or will not be paid. So those true-ups happen typically at the period end. So this is something — the magnitude of this might go up and down depending on the performance and has the payability of variable cost, but it will happen every quarter.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Sure. Okay. My next question is with regards to the return that we’re carrying on investments with the rates going up.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Well, Yash, I think that’s a great question. So let me give a moment. Now, you’re obviously sitting in the financial market, you know the last year, RBI did indeed raise the repo rates by about 2.5 percentage points, and you know how the bond yields tracked, etc. So last year was a very, very tough year and probably one of the tough years in the last decade that we have seen such a sharp gradient decrease. So in that last year, our yields are approximately tracking the FD yields and we did not go beyond that. But as we step into this first quarter, we’re already seeing the mean reversion happening and you’ve seen the bond yields are coming. Of course, we’ve churned our portfolio quite substantially, but you have to understand that you have to take care of the long-term, short-term capital gain requirements, etc. So our treasury is now, again, having substantial mark-to-market gains in the coming quarter. But last year, we have tracked close to FD yields globally.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

And what about this year?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

The start has been very, very encouraging.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

No. I mean, what’s the number, if I can get that?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Well, number you will find in the printed results once we release out. I mean, treasury income is already sitting in there, but I think that math is very easy to be done, but as I said, it’s close to the FD yields.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

For current year as well, then previous year?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Current year, I just told you. Current year, are you talking about FY ’24, aren’t you?

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

No, I’m talking about FY ’23.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

FY ’23, close to FD yields. That’s what I said.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay, okay. Pardon me. All right, that’s about it.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

The next question is from Sakshi Chhabra. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Hi. This is Sakshi from Swan Investments [Phonetic]. Sir, I wanted to just understand that what is the total expenditure we have done so far on OTTplay? And going forward in the following years, what sort of expenditure will be incurred on that platform?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Well, Sakshi, as I was just articulating to one of the earlier participants earlier on, for the last six to nine months, OTTplay has been in a beta stage. Hello?

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Yes, sir.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, you can hear me, right?

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Yes, yes.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Sorry. So I was just articulating the last six to nine months that we’ve been in the beta stage — okay. Yeah. So look — Anna, would you like to…

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

So, the most of the significant change that you’re seeing in the cost line is on account of OTTplay. And as Piyush said, we’re going to be investing behind this business quite a bit. So we don’t give forward guidance on specific numbers. So we would be able to share what the numbers would be, but this is the investment of the future, and we’ll be investing on that.

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Okay. But in the previous year, can you quantify what was the total expenditure you would have done from this platform?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

We wouldn’t want to get into specific details. Maybe you could just go by the trends on the spends variation as we explained.

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Okay. All right. Also, can you explain a little more as to how the platform will work like what would be the — your revenue drivers for this platform?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

So Sakshi, let me take that question. The way the platform is going to be — we’re going to be bundling a substantial amount of OTT plays into a single login proprietary app called OTTplay, which we have already tested for the last six, nine months. We’ve already closed our content arrangements with quite a few major OTT platforms and some of the other conversations are in work at this point in time. One — and we’ve already taken this product to market in some micro markets where we’re already reaching out to customers who have either multiple OTTs or who are currently don’t have OTTs and still watching content, let’s say, on a cable TV and would like to get access, we are offering them on a bite size, as well as annual package — I mean, monthly packages and annual packages where they can subscribe to a OTTplay, get access to 15, 20 OTTs and watch that content seamlessly across the platforms without going into those platforms for a subscription, of course. So right now, the big effort that we are doing is taking the product to various end consumers, and that is what we are doing.

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Okay. And can you like divulge as to what would be the price point that you would be launching this at?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

So multiple price points, Sakshi, depending on users because there are different set of users we are addressing is there are different channels that we are going through. So a monthly OTTplay subscription can range anywhere between INR200. And thereafter, depending on where we are getting that user from. And so, it starts with INR200, goes all the way up. But suffice to say, the whole will be much less than the sum of parts. So if you have to get those OTTs by subscribing to them, you’ll be paying a fraction of that.

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Right. I understand that. But in terms of the content, will you be able to — like will you just be providing some part of the content that is available, say, like on a Netflix or an Amazon Prime? Or will they be able to get access to the entire sort of content that would have been available had they subscribed directly?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

So once the OTT is on our platform and it’s bundled into OTTplay, you will get access to the entire content on that particular OTT without anything.

Sakshi Chhabra — Swan Investments — Analyst

Okay. Okay, understood. Thank you.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

You’re welcome.

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

The next question is from Naveen Jain. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Yeah, hi. Can you hear me?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, hi, Naveen.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Hi. So this is Naveen from Florintree Advisors, Mumbai. I had a question on OTTplay, which entity will this business sit in?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Naveen, it’s sitting in HMVL.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Yeah, is it a subsidiary or it’s part of your stand-alone HMVL entity?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Part of our stand-alone HMVL entity. It’s a division of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Okay. Understood. Okay. Obviously, you are not sharing the exact amount of investment that you’ve done, but going by what we can understand about the trend, can we expect similar kind of investment in FY ’24 or given that you’ll be launching it in a major way this year, the expenses could be on a higher side?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

The expenses could be higher, Naveen, but as it was in beta, there is no revenue to back up the investments. So now though the investments will be higher, but revenue will be substantially higher. So investment to that extent will be mitigated. That’s the point I was trying to say when I said it was in a beta stage and now we’re taking it to market after doing the proof of concept that we have finished now.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Fair enough. And one thing was — so, let’s say, something like if I understand correctly, Sony LIV or ZEE5 is already on the platform.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yes.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

How does the arrangement work with them in terms of what do you pay them for aggregating the content on your platform? Is it like a revenue share out of the subscription income that you earn? Or is it some sort of a fixed commitment that you have? How will it work out?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Naveen, the latter. There is no revenue share here, it’s like a fixed commitment, but because these are deeply negotiated contracts, for a substantial period of time, there is a long-term contract on a fixed commitment that is done and there is no revenue share built here.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Okay. Like when you say long-term contract, what kind of like three-year, five-year kind of contract, is it?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Well, look, multiple OTTs, as I said, multiple negotiations are happening, Sony LIV and ZEE5 is already there on the platform. Those two contracts are also different. So there are multiple agreements that we are doing, which we believe will help our economic model the way we are carving it out, but there is no standard design to a contract.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Okay. Understood. And obviously, this is like a fixed commitment. So it will be a fairly — I mean, this year, because last year we were hardly operational for six months or so. So this year, this all kind of — this fixed commitment will come in, whereas revenue will take time to build, right? I mean, that is a fair way to think, right?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Well, yes and no. We are already in the market on the revenue side. As I said, we’ve started this journey now, so investments will step up, but the revenue will step up as well. Maybe there is a lag of a month or two, but it’s not going to hold on for six months or something like that. A month here and month there can happen, but not more than that.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Okay. Understood. So just one again, further question on this. So when I look at your app, right, OTTplay app, let’s say, a monthly subscription, one of the plan is about, let’s say, INR299 per month. And we know that you’re seeing market price is INR3,607 per month. So effectively you’re saving INR3,308 per month. So when you say INR3,607 per month, will you basically adding up the monthly subscription of all these platforms, which are — which will be available to me effectively, right? [Speech Overlap]

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. But that’s the only way to do it, right? So if you have to access all those platforms on a subsequent model, that is what you’re saying, you’re absolutely right, Naveen.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

This seems like great value it seems.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Okay. So just one final question from my side. On the — in the Print side, right, so last year on an overall basis seems to have been quite subdued, right? So what is the outlook we have for the coming year?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Well, let me answer that question in three parts. Of course, the newsprint price of the commodity cycle coming off, I think we’ve all discussed, so that will obviously be put on the cost line. But on the revenue side, Naveen, one big thing that happened and — was that a lot of copies got dropped out during COVID. And the race to build them up is a very slow but a very hardworking model which we are on. So this year, we will be doing a major impetus on building back our copies, I mean, substantially good copies in the markets that we believe have a good revenue potential and that journey we are already.

And on the ad revenue, as I articulated earlier, our plan of trying to shore up about our yields is definitely on. So those two drivers, building up the copies and working on your advertising yields are the two big factors that we will be driving this year.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Understood. Okay. So maybe a 10% kind of growth will be conservative or you will be aiming for a higher number? I know you don’t give exact guidance, but is this the way to think about it?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Naveen, I would like to give that guidance, but as I said, in a very tough market, building copies in a very competitive market and trying to push yields up going close to the pre-COVID levels, I this is a tough task, we are all it. Now, will that yield 10% or 5% or 20%, I would like to hazard a guess on that.

Naveen Jain — Florintree Advisors — Analyst

Fair enough, sir. Sure, thank you so much.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

The next question is from Yash R.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Yeah, hi, Piyush. So since we are on the topic of copies, where are we on the recovery versus pre-COVID for our HT English and HMVL?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

So, Yash, I would say broadly, let me just look up the numbers. Anna, you want to call out the numbers? Okay. So while Anna is pulling out the numbers, Yash, let me just give you two trends that happened during the COVID. Of course, when the copies were dropping, they were dropping across, but when the copies are building up, some copies will never come back, some copies are coming — readers who are taking two copies are taking one copy, so they are exercising their choice there. And, of course, new readers are far and few in between. So at this point in time, if I have to talk about copies between English and Hindi, in Print English versus the pre-COVID, we are at…

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

Overall, we are at about 15% of the pre-COVID number.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Of the pre-COVID — 15% below, I mean, we are 15% down versus the pre-COVID number, and this is the — these are the copies that we are trying to build up.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay. And what about the Hindi business, HMVL?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

This is overall.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay. But, I mean, English you said 85%, so HMVL is also going to be at the same level?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Look, I mean, English is slightly more sharper. So English copies are down 20%, 25%, Hindi copies are not so down so on and so forth. But average number is about 15%, 17%.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay. And now, for example, Bombay being a good market, especially for English, what’s the subscriber base percentage as to how many of us — or how many of the subscribers are on an annual this thing, subscription rather than on a daily basis?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Look, in Bombay, most of our copies are on a subscription basis, which are long-term subscription unlike Delhi, whereby we have a lot of line copies as well. But if you have to understand the model, this model is now slowly, which was, let’s say, till about five years, 10 years ago, pure line copy model as we call it on a monthly subscription is now gradually shifting across all publications, all markets to be a subscription model. So, Bombay, I would say, 60%, 70% of our copies or slightly more than that are on subscription model, Delhi is lesser, but then the model is shifting towards subscription now. But the good news there is, subscription prices are now gradually inching up, because when the ad revenues came under pressure, all the publications, including ourselves, we have taken pricing action on the copy side and the subscription price side.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay. And what about Pune? We had launched sometime back.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Well, Pune, I think the market for us — Pune is a bolt-on market to Bombay. So Pune market solves the purpose for a Bombay advertiser because those are very, very adjacent markets. So Pune, we don’t look at as a stand-alone market at all.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay. Just one more question, with regards to new age digital business that we have started reporting since last year, by last year, I mean, FY ’22, there were quite a few initiatives that we were hearing about. Some of them being NFT and something on content as well. So where are we on that?

Anna Abraham — Head, Investor Relations

So we have been talking about that we are doing multiple initiatives. So, yes, there is some bit on NFT, etc., and all of that. The — but those are all small at this point of time and nothing is a line of business. So the one — of the all the experiments, the one major line that we are betting now is on OTTplay, which we are, therefore, investing behind as well.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

But then those initiatives are still on the cards, right?

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Well, look, those things on NFTs, etc., that we had started reporting or telling about were really experiments at that point in time. We were just testing out the proof of concept, but I think as a business segment it will be OTTplay, and I don’t think NFT is the business segment at all.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Okay. Sure. Got it. Thank you.

Aaditya Mulani — Investor Relations

Thank you, all. With this, we come to the end of the Q&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 Piyush for closing remarks.

Piyush Gupta — Group Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, thanks, thanks for joining the call. And I know it’s been a very, very tough quarter. But as we just had a very good discussion around various levers of the business, which we think are all moving favorably, we should be in a position to report much more favorable quarters from here on. And I wish you all the very best, and thank you so much. Stay safe.