Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd (NSE: SHEMAROO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Jan. 30, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Mr. Hiren Gada — Whole Time Director & Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Amit Haria — Chief Financial Officer
Hiren Gada — Chief Executive Officier
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Purvangi Jain — Analyst
Devansh — Analyst
Harshit Mishra — Analyst
Aryan — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 and 9 months FY 2026 conference call of Shemaru Entertainment Limited hosted by Valorum Advisors. 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 Star then zero on your touchstone phone. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Purvangi Jain from Velorem Advisors. Thank you Anne. Over to you.
Purvangi Jain — Analyst
Good afternoon everyone and a warm welcome to you all. My name is Parvangi Jain from Valorum Advisors. We represent the investor relations of Shimaru Entertainment Limited on behalf of the company, I would like to thank you all for participating in the company’s earnings call for the third quarter and nine months ending of the financial year 2026. Before we begin a quick cautionary statement. Some of the statements made in today’s call may be forward looking in nature. Such forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated.
Such statements are based on management’s beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the management. Audiences are cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward looking statements in making any investment decision. The purpose of today’s earnings conference call is purely to educate and bring awareness about the company’s fundamental business and financial quarter under review. Now I would like to introduce you to the management participating with us in today’s earnings call and hand it over to them for their opening remarks. We have with us Mr. Hireen Gada, CEO, Mr. Argya Chakravarti, COO and Mr.
Amit Harya, CFO. Without any delay, I request Mr. Amit Harya to start with his opening remarks on the financial highlights. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Mr. Amit Haria — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Purvangi. And good afternoon everyone and welcome to our earnings call for the third quarter and nine months end date for the financial year 2026. Let me first start by giving you some of the key financial highlights after which our CEO Mr. Hiren Gadda will give you some of the operational highlights. For the third quarter of the financial year 2026, the revenue from operations stood at around 161 crores which declined by 2% year on year the company reported an EBITDA loss of 67 crores while the net loss stood at 55 crores. For the nine months of the financial year 2026, the revenue from operations stood at around INR 444 crores which declined by around 8% year on year.
The EBITDA loss for the period was around INR 178 crores for the period while the loss stood at around 147 crores. With regards to the new initiatives, expenses in the third quarter of the financial year 2026amounted to 34 crores. Adjusting for this investment, the EBITDA loss from existing operations for the quarter would have been around 33 crores. The same expenses in the nine months of the financial year 2026amounted to 99 crores. Adjusting for this investment, the EBITDA loss from existing operations for nine months would have been around 79 crores. Digital media revenues for the third quarter stood at approximately 81 crores, registering a year on year growth of 14%.
Traditional media revenues for the quarter were around 80 crores which was down approximately 14% year on year. Now I would request our CEO Mr. Hirin Gadda to give you operation highlights for the period under review.
Mr. Hiren Gada — Whole Time Director & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Amit and good afternoon everyone. For the period under review, we continue to witness pressure on our traditional businesses. The re entry of major broadcasters on Free Dish, a packed sports calendar and continued softness in FMCG advertising further intensified headwinds across the traditional media segments. This decline negated the growth we witnessed in our digital business. We are cautiously optimistic about a gradual recovery in FMCG advertising spend in the coming quarters with the impact of the GST rate cut now stabilizing. In other updates for Shimarumi Gujarati, the company released six new titles during the year.
Sorry during the quarter spanning movies, web series and plays, the platform also saw world digital premieres of movies such as Jai Mataji, let’s Rock, Auntie Preneur, Shub Chintak and Vicky Kibara Hindi Dub on YouTube the flagship channel Shimaru Khirmigane surpassed 74 million subscribers during the quarter, while Shimaru Entertainment crossed 61 million milestones. Our entire portfolio of channels garnered more than 9.5 billion views during the quarter reflecting sustained digital engagement. As you must be aware, our margins are under pressure due to ongoing accelerated inventory charge offs, a strategic initiative we began eight quarters ago which we expect as guided earlier to end by the end of this financial year.
It is also important to highlight that these charge offs are purely accounting adjustments and do not affect the monetization of our content or our ability to generate free cash flow. Looking ahead, we remain committed to strengthening our balance sheet, driving operational efficiencies and positioning the company to unlock Substantial long term value. With that, I open the floor for the question and answer session.
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 withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We’ll take our first question from the line of Devansh from internal Cap, please go ahead.
Devansh
Yeah, hello. Hi sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So I just. I saw that you changed the name from Chumbak TV to Shimaru Josh, and you rebranded it quite a lot. So how has that helped the company and what is the change that we have seen and how is that improved what we can get from there? Sure. Actually, if you refer to. So in the last quarter we had spoken about it a lot in detail. Basically, Chumbag TV was a channel which was originally. It was created for programming for kids and youth, which had animation and various other content.
And we decided to convert it into a movie channel, which is Shamaru Josh. And the 1st of September was the date on which we launched Shamaru Josh. It’s about roughly almost five months old. So the entire content, programming, distribution, branding, everything, you know, the positioning even on many networks, the local, the LCN numbers and everything has undergone. It’s still undergoing changes. In fact, as we speak, some new cable networks are being activated for the channel. So this is now a full fledged movie channel, which we have spoken actually at length in the last quarter’s earnings call.
Devansh
Obviously, movies is a big core strength for Shamaru and in a way this hits home where our core strength lies. So this in a way aligns very well with our Bollywood portfolio and adds one more distribution stream. As far as the channel is concerned, we’ve seen a steady growth in the. In the reach particularly and secondly on the programming on the TRP side, also including client count. So a lot of numbers are on a growth path. But obviously this is very early days. We are just five months old. I think it would be too premature to really, you know, put.
Because lot of, lot of the investment and distribution etc is still coming in place. Got it, sir. Okay. So now on a more general perspective, I just wanted to understand what the revenue and the EBITDA guidance would be for the. At least for the short term, I think. And because I was seeing that a lot of inventory write offs have been happening. So if we Remove that. How will it go forward?
Mr. Hiren Gada
So there are two parts to this, obviously, the inventory charge off part. I just want to kind of give a sense of the journey that if we have. So this is now the eighth quarter, so exactly two years of December 24, we were at December FY24, which is December 23, we were at around 727 crores inventory, which is currently in this quarter, which has come down to 417. So we have reduced inventory by. So that whole exercise that we started in terms of, you know, making the balance sheet light, I think we are. We have already walked a long distance on that and we have now one last quarter remaining, which is the March quarter.
So obviously, considering that March will also have the last part of the extraordinary write off, March quarter is going to be a lost quarter because there is going to be a accounting charge over there. Now, the way forward and how do we look at the way forward? So our annual operating plans for next year are still being kind of finalized as we speak, since we are in January. So we are not able to give a more crystallized picture or how we see the way forward, but directionally what we want to. In fact, I think I’ll ask Arvo to maybe, you know, talk about how we, you know, how we are looking forward to the next financial year and what, what are the factors that will come into play.
Unidentified Speaker
So Devansh, I think. Hi, this is Arbo here. So I think, as Hiren said, I mean, the extraordinary charge off and the inventory will continue into the next, into the quarter four of this financial year. So that quarter will be a loss in a challenge quarter because of this charge off. But as he said, we are in the process of, you know, going through our AOP and our planning for next year, but we are looking at, and it is right now difficult to give an absolutely clear picture, but we are definitely looking forward to the next year with a lot of confidence and positivity because of largely three factors.
One is this charge off obviously is going to end so in March. So in next year we will not have the impact of this charge off on our pnl. Secondly, there are two other factors which impacted overall business this year. Was one, the entry of the big four broadcasters in the Swedish GEC space, which was something which created a bit of uncertainty in the market in the first six, seven months of this year, coupled with a reasonable quite soft advertising scenario, especially from the FMCG advertiser. However, that part of the four entry of the big four broadcasters have now stabilized and there are not going to be any further large disruptions.
So we will be able to plan significantly better going forward because we know what the situation is going to be. And if the advertising market improves slightly, even slightly, I think we would be looking at a significantly better bottom line and top line year next year. Right now that’s as much as we can say because once the planning process is over we would be able to give a much better picture maybe in the next couple of quarters.
Mr. Amit Haria
I will add just one more small point over there. Is that the way we are seeing digital having done this year, I think it’s obviously going to be a significant part of the focus already. It is. And even in the way forward there is a significant focus on the digital side through many different initiatives and already we are well poised in the current landscape itself. So I think we have a lot of positives and hope to look forward in the next financial year once this whole charge off gets over.
Devansh
Got it. Glad to hear. Thank you so much.
That’s it from my side.
operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Yajit Shah, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir, just had a couple of questions sir, how much inventory has been written off this quarter and how do the numbers look without that write off or charge off and how much inventory is still left which will be written off in the March quarter. So in the past also we have said that the inventory write off that is taking place, the accelerated write off is in the region of 30 and 35 crores. And on that line for the Q4 also around that number would be written. Off around 30, 35 crores for both Q3 and Q4.
Mr. Hiren Gada
Yeah, each 30, 35. 35 for Q4.
Unidentified Participant
Also sir, I was looking at the balance sheet figures and we have 270 odd crores of inventory left in the September quarter. So if I total both of these to 70, so 400 crores more of inventory will be on the balance sheet. Is that like usable good inventory or will that eventually be written off or reduced?
Mr. Hiren Gada
Just to correct that, as I spoke in the earlier answer that we are on, as of December we are down to 417 crores inventory and we have one more quarter to go. So we’ll end somewhere below 400. I don’t know. So where it will end now to answer your question, I don’t think there is a question of good or bad. I think we have spoken or discussed about this in the past also that there is, you know, this is, all of this is Valuable content which gets monetized across various medium on a daily basis, monthly basis and yearly basis.
So this is merely an accounting policy, does not reflect accounting estimation change. It does not reflect the monetization potential or the cash flow generating ability of this content or inventory. So this is, I mean movies like Jabbi Met or welcome or you know, Kolmal or FIR era, Firi, etc. Which we own perpetually or many movies which we own long term rights like Houseful and Mutsha, Shahadi Karogi and you know, many such movies, I think arguably as you will appreciate, have a very strong consumption momentum across television, across YouTube, across various media. So there is no doubt in our minds about the ability of the value of this content.
In fact, arguably I would actually say the value is substantially higher than what, you know, what will remain or what in fact even was at the starting point of this, which is why we were always comfortable. But this whole thing was done because there was a lot of feedback. So we thought that we’ll take this one time exercise and get the whole balance sheet, you know, in a, in a better place.
Unidentified Participant
Okay sir, got it. Thank you so much and all the best.
Unidentified Speaker
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vishal Malada, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi, am I audible?
operator
Yes, you are. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. I actually had a question that I guess in the last quarter you had mentioned about some syndication deals that were deferred. So can we get some update on those deals please?
Mr. Amit Haria
Yeah, in fact we had that time also mentioned that those deals have actually been closed subsequently and some of those billings, even by the time the earnings were announced, those had actually materialized. So all those deals actually went through and it’s part of this quarter’s revenue.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, that answers my question. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Hetvisha and individual investor. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir, I just wanted to know that is it safe to assume that the viewership share number stabilized after the re entry of the big players in the FTA earlier this year?
Unidentified Speaker
So yeah, I mean when they did enter there was a fall in the viewership share. Subsequently, in fact, it has not only stabilized, we’ve actually clawed back some of the lost viewership in the particularly in this last December quarter.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Also, can you give me an outlook on the advertising spending, particularly by the SMCG companies? So now that they have dealt with destocking their inventories.
Mr. Amit Haria
Well, we have so Two things I would say intuitively, you know, after a long spell of weak demand and this destocking, you know, things, I think the overall FMCG industry is looking forward to growing back and that should ultimately lead to spends coming back. You know, it’s anyone’s guess on the time frame because you know, we are on the other side of the business and not on the, you know, on the FMCG side of the business. But however, you know, as Orgo was referring to our plans that we are building for next financial year, we are actually, you know, building the assumptions on a, you know, on a continuation of a moderate, soft to moderate kind of environment and not really on a aggressively optimistic environment.
If it, you know, we all want that to happen and if it, you know, does materialize, we’ll take it with both our hands and we are fully prepared to encash and monetize. But the cost building and various other aspects into the organization for next year will be based on a moderate kind of an assumption and not some aggressive growth assumption on the advertising spend side.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, that’s it from my side. Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Before we take the next question, would like to remind participants to ask a question. Please press star n1 on your phone. Next question is from the line of Harshit Mishra, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Harshit Mishra
Hello. Thanks for the opportunity. Tell me what is the debt levels? As of NMFY 26.
Mr. Hiren Gada
The debt level is around 110 crores. Sorry, 310 crores. My bad. 310 crores for 9 months ended 26.
Harshit Mishra
So just a follow up on that. So as of H1FY26 it was around 295 crores. So why has it increased and what is the further reduction plan?
Mr. Hiren Gada
So the debt, we have the debt in the form of the, in the form of CCN OD facility. So as per the utilization of the same, the debt level goes up and if you can see from the financials, we had an operational loss also in this quarter which have pushed a requirement for the cash, cash requirement of the company.
Mr. Amit Haria
And this we have indicated in the last quarter also that given the softness in the advertising revenue there is a certain, there is a certain shortfall in the revenue. Obviously to wind down costs takes its own time which we are in the process and we have done some already a lot. But there is a gap which we have in fact indicated this last quarter itself that the debt is likely to go up. We are hopeful that it should stabilize around these levels. As far as we See, year is concerned obviously. You know, as we shared in the earlier question, the outlook for next year will be completely different even in terms of operating cash flows.
And you know, the accounting part anyway will be different. But operating cash flow also we are very confident for next year’s thing which large part of the cash flow generation will go for debt repayment.
Harshit Mishra
Okay sir.
operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Aryan, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Aryan
Hello sir. Am I audible?
operator
Yes, please go ahead.
Aryan
So. So can you give me an update on the inventory levels at the end of nine months, FY26. And where will we end up at. The end of FY26?
Mr. Hiren Gada
So inventory level for the nine months is around 417 crores. And we should end it around 400. Near 400 crores. Below 400 is what we expect to add.
Aryan
Okay sir. Okay sir. That’s all from my side. Thank you sir.
operator
Thank you. Take our next question from the line of Devansh from internal capital. Please go ahead.
Devansh
Hello. Yeah, hi sir. So we spoke about the business before this but I just wanted to have a more of an industry outlook. And what you were expecting, can we expect the traditional segments revenue to pick up and overall what is your industry outlook as such? Yeah, ergo will. So.
Mr. Amit Haria
So I think the overall direction in which the industry is moving is now almost clear. There is a serious increase in the digital part of the business. And traditional business will continue to be under pressure. The issue is the quantum of the pressure. And all that will depend on how well the advertising market opens. The traditional businesses also are dependent a lot on the traditional advertisers which is the FMCG and the consumer goods industry. That has seen obviously a slowdown over many quarters now. But with the GST rates cuts and everything stabilized. We hope that.
But at an overall level traditional businesses will continue to stay under pressure and digital will continue to grow. That is clearly the writing on the wall. And I think it’s now established across the industry over now quite a few quarters. And that is a trend which is going to stay. And as an organization also we are preparing ourselves accordingly to ensure that we are part of the. We. We ride this wave which is happening.
Devansh
Right sir, one last question. So of VFX as a whole in the industry is growing quite a lot. So animations and all those kind of movies. So as you can. You must have seen that Avkar Narasimha did very good in the Bollywood blockbuster. So do you have any plans to enter into that segment? VFX as such.
Unidentified Speaker
Not really. In the. Immediate future, but it’s a continuous process. There are a lot of other things that we are looking at strengthening our overall digital offering both in terms of the content infusion in our digital video business, which is YouTube, as well as strengthening our offerings in our OTT platform which is largely around Gujarati content and also Hindi original content, which is where our focus will be right now. Because there is a lot of work to be done on that before we get into stuff like VFX and animation.
Unidentified Speaker
Right sir, thank you so much. I’ll just add one small part to that is that while this is the current position, but let’s just to remind everyone, we have already couple of very strong animation properties which have a very good traction across television and digital medium, which is Bal Ganesh and Gatotkach. So that is something. And that is something that we keep investing and adding more, more content around that in terms of further, you know, additional sequels or more episodes and things like that. So Balganesh is a very, very large and strong monetization property for us across all media.
Devansh
Right sir. Okay, thank you so much for that.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star N1 on your phone. As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Hiren Gadda from Shemaro Entertainment Limited for closing comments over to you.
Hiren Gada
Thank you everyone for participating in today’s earnings call. I hope we have been able to answer your questions satisfactorily. If you have any further questions or would like to know more about the company, please reach out to our IR manager at Valorem Advisors. Thank you.
operator
Thank you sir. On behalf of Shemaro Entertainment Limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines. There.