D.B.Corp Limited (DBCORP) Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to DB Corp Ltd. Q1 FY27 earnings conference call. We have with us today the senior management team of DB Corp Ltd., Mr. Pawan Agrawal, Deputy Managing Director, Mr. Girish Agrawal, Director, Mr. Lalit Jain, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Mustaq Ali, Senior Vice President, Finance and Accounts. Who will be representing the DB Corp Ltd on the call today. The management will be sharing the key operating and financial highlights for the quarter ended June 38, 2026, 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 risk and uncertainties. Documents relating to the company's financial performance have already been emailed to you and are available on the website of the stock exchanges and the company's investors section. Trust, you have been able to go through the same. 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.

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Please signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Siparang Agarwal. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our Q1 FI 27 learnings call. We will begin with an overview of our financial performance for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026, followed by key operational updates across our businesses. We started our financial year on a strong note, delivering healthy growth in revenues, improved profitability, and continued margin expansion despite a challenging cost environment. Our consolidated total revenue increased by around 8% year-on-year to Rs. 6,220 million, reflecting steady momentum across our core businesses. More importantly, our focus on operational excellence and disciplined cost management translated into stronger profitability. EBITDA grew by around 19% year-on-year to Rs. 1,647 million, significantly outpacing revenue growth. Consequently, our EBITDA margin expanded by 250 basis points to 26.1% compared to 23.6% in Q1FI26, demonstrating the strength of a business model. A profit after tax increased by around 25% year-on-year to Rs. 1,007 million compared with Rs. 808 million in the corresponding quarter last year. This strong bottom-line performance reflects the combined benefits of healthy revenue growth, effective cost optimization, and sustained operational discipline. Our consolidated advertising revenue continued its strong trajectory, growing by around 10% year-on-year to Rs. 4,320 million, compared with Rs. 3,933 million in Q1 F526. The growth was broad based across key sectors and reinforces the continued strength of print advertising in the leadership markets. And another business EBITDA grew by 18% year-on-year to Rs. 1,499 million as compared to Rs. 1,270 in Q1 FI. At the same time, our circulation revenue remains stable at rupees 1,204 million, reflecting the continued loyalty of our readers and the strength of a market-leading publication despite an evolving media landscape. Our radio business also delivered an encouraging performance during the quarter. Revenue increased to Rs. 425 million from Rs. 392 million last year, while EBITDA grew by around 29% year-on-year to Rs. 148 million compared with Rs. 115 million last year. The strong profitability improvement highlights the continued recovery and operating leverage within the radio business. On the cost run, New Sprint Prize witnessed some upward pressure during the quarter, primarily due to broader macroeconomic and geopolitical developments. Despite this inflationary pressure, a continued emphasis on procurement efficiencies, cost optimization, and discipline execution enabled us to successfully mitigate much of the impact, resulting in healthy margin expansion during the quarter. Let me move on to our digital business. Digital continues to be an important long-term growth pillar for the company, and as of May 2026, our news applications recorded around 20 million monthly active users, maintaining Dhanik Bhaskar's position as the number one Hindi and Gujarati news app. Our continued investment in high-quality content, technology, and user experience are helping us strengthen user engagement, improve retention, and further expand our digital region. Good night. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Girish Agarwal for his comments. Over to you, Girish Agarwal. Thank you, Bhavan, and good evening, everybody.

Thanks, you all, for joining us today. This quarter has been another demonstration of the resilience and strength of our business. Newspaper continues to perform consistently, reinforcing its relevance as a trusted and effective medium for both readers as well as advertisers. Our performance during this quarter reflects disciplined execution across all our businesses, sustained market leadership, and our continued ability to deliver profitable growth. With that, now, I would like to open the floor for the questions and answer session. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. We now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, may have to start on one on the touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove 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 suffers. First question is from the line of Shalom, Gupta, from Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I want to know, like, circulation copies have date to around 39 lakh in Q4. Has the new circulation stream helped to stabilize or go the number in Q1, and what's the update outlook for the full year?

Sir, the circulation number in Q1 this year is around 38 lakh copies. With all our efforts, I think some of the impact of the summer also isn't this, but it would be in the range of 38, 39 only. I guess with all the efforts of circulation which our team is doing, we are able to maintain the number, and in certain places, we have been able to increase our market share also.

Okay, sir. And the next question is like about the annual you told around 20 million, 20 million as of Q4 or Q1?

In Q4, in Q1, the number is around 1920. So, the number has been hovering around the same 1920 million.

And when can we expect that it will contribute meaningful to the consolidated revenue rather than just user growth?

I guess this is a long-term, you know, investment call which we have taken looking at the growth in India and, you know, and future probability. So, we are looking at further monetization strategies, but right now the large focus is to develop the reader's base. So, that's what we are focusing on.

Okay, sir. That's it from myself. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Kavish Parekh from 361 Capital. Please go ahead.

All right, team. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on a great set of numbers. First question is on the ad income. Could you share some more color on this? Did it involve some one-off? How would you break down sectoral contribution to this growth? Would you also say that there was some impact of government contribution? If I recollect, November 2025, the government had increased, DAVP had increased prices by about 26%. So would you say there is some impact of the same in these numbers?

I think in this quarter, important thing is that every possible category has shown an upward growth, barring out education and automobile. Education was flat for a simple reason because NEET exam was announced null and void, and they did a re-examination in the month of July. Sorry, June end. Now, which means the result of NEET, which is going to come out in July or August, advertising around that result got shifted from quarter one to now quarter two. So that's the reason education was flat. Automobile was down, actually negative, because of the geopolitical issues, the fuel supply, the rates, and all that. So I guess that's the reason why most of the automobile companies were holding on to the advertising. Except these two categories, whether it's response or real estate or jewelry or hospitals or FMCG or government, everyone has contributed to the growth in a good manner.

Could you also bring down the contribution of the sectors?

Sure, I can do this for you. So, education, as you know, in the quarter one is the highest contributing sector. So, in the range of around 20%. Government was around 14-15%. Real estate was around 11-12%. Automobile came down from double digit to a single digit. Jewelry around 5%. Other car in the single digit.

And, uh, uh, any comment on, uh, the point that I mentioned earlier, DAVP price increase about 26% percent, uh, has that kicked in over the past two quarters, and is that also one of the reasons?

It is kicked in, that's the reason the government numbers are also growing in a double digit. Understood, fair.

Uh, secondly, what would be your outlook on new spring prices? Where do you think, uh, it, it can peak out?

New sprint price, if you see, in quarter one, we have seen around 13% hike. Now, quarter two also, we believe the price will continue to go up because in quarter one, we had certain stock lying up from the earlier quantity. But we clearly see an indication from Q3 and Q4, the prices will start coming down. So as of now, let's look at quarter two where the prices will suddenly go up.

Right, fair. And sorry, just hopping back to the previous question on advertising. What in your view is the core driver for such strong growth on the print advertising side? Because if I hear commentaries across the board, especially broadcasters, OneQ seems pretty soft for them given the macro challenges, a lot of advertisers held back on their spends. So how should we think about this? What led to such a strong performance on the print advertising side?

On a lighter note, I would say it's good, but on a serious note, good thing is that it shows that the effort made by the team and the confidence of the various categories on the print. So I think because of that, every possible category is growing.

And last question from my side, on the circulation side, if I look at a slightly longer term, at one point, if I go back two years, circulation used to be somewhere around 43, 44 lakh copies, that has come down to 38, 39. Structurally, that has seen some decline. While, of course, I appreciate the readership efforts that we are taking to maintain readership, it definitely still has come down. How would you, how should we assess the yield? Has that been realizations have been holding up or is it also very challenging to take price side from the realization side of it? If you could also put out the latest number of realizations.

If you look at my realization, we are at a flat. There is no growth. Okay. Now, we are very clear we don't want to unnecessarily burden the reader by increasing the price furthermore. So, all our efforts are being made to make sure that we are able to grow copies. But unfortunately, rather than growing, we are able to maintain and lose maybe a couple of, you know, percentage points. That's the reason we don't want to take any price hike because advertising is growing. So we are in a better situation, position if we don't increase the cover price.

And could you let us know the latest cover price?

4.93 is the average cover price.

Sure. And will you have the number for 1Q26 and YOY?

YOY number was 4.9 again. So there's hardly any change.

Sure. Thank you so much, sir.

All the way, West. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from the land of Krushi, Parekh, from Bugle Rock. Please, go ahead.

Hi, sir. I think most of my questions were asked by Kavish and the participant earlier. Just a very small question that I have is that we have seen some dip in the subscriber base for the apps that we run.

I would not consider that as a dip because 20 million becoming 19 million, I won't really call it a dip because in the digital business, So, unless until it is substantial beyond 20, 20, 30%, 2, 3% moving here and there is hardly any number.

Right. No, so my question is actually coming from the perspective that I think one or two quarters back we had even discussed about how we are going about the activation of subscribers over here. So, it's coming from that perspective as well.

So we are looking at different markets like Uttar Pradesh is a market we are very focused on in terms of digital, since we don't have a print presence over there. We are editorially in all our digital platforms, we are doing a lot of things. We are doing a use of animations, a little bit of use of AI also there. So every possible effort has been made. And I think if you look at the, again, not to justify. But I think compared to the market situation, our numbers are doing pretty good, you know. But having said that, there's huge opportunity available. Uttar Pradesh government election will be there next year, March. So that's a big opportunity for us. And, yeah, let's hope a lot of news cycle comes our way.

All right. Wonderful. Wonderful. Just one small thing. Again, there was some decline in the other expenses, just a few crores. Anything structural, anything noteworthy over here?

No, no. I think every possible person in the company is trying to make sure that we save cost.

Good. All right. Thank you so much. All the best.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Next question is from Lion of Abhinav from Aqueras Investments. Please go ahead.

Congratulations on the great results. Thank you, sir. I have a question regarding on the segmental growth which you mentioned for education and auto. Can you give number or directionally for other segments as well?

I mentioned other segments all are doing good. Real estate is doing good. Jewelry is doing good. FNCG is doing good. Electronics are doing good. Banking is doing pretty good. So I think also, and this education also, because of the need shift that happened. So if I compare Q1 and Q2 put together, education will also be in a good growth.

And regarding the cash, how much are you planning to spend on Capex? I think in Q4, you had guided around 150, 160 odd crores. Correct.

Yeah, it's going to be around the same range also.

Okay. And another thing was, I just wanted to understand what was the driver for the margin expansion that we had year-on-year basis.

Sorry, what expansion?

Margin expansion on operating level, what were the key drivers over there?

Cost saving, top line going up.

Yeah, I understand cost saving, but any specific thing or any specific cost saving scheme which was done?

As I mentioned to you, see, we realize in our business, the large cost is newsprint, where none of us have any role to play. So, what we have is the other cost, traveling, admin, everything possible, you know. So, rather than only limited people sitting in HO looking at the cost, we have now taken it to all the team members. Everybody is trying to save costs wherever they can, and that's the reason we have been able to save some cost.

Okay. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from land of Lohat Saini, from Jairambal. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of numbers. Thank you, sir. I have one question. With the rapid emergence of micro drama platforms in India, could you share your thoughts on whether the existing Bhaskar series on the app, the Yannick Bhaskar app, can be a potential strategic growth opportunity for the digital business? Given the use of AI into short-format videos, how do you plan to advertise these last few years?

First of all, sir, thank you. You are really watching my app very closely. So, as you rightly notice, that we are doing a couple of micro dramas using the AI on our platform. And we've been getting good response from the readers. So idea is to make it more, make it more relevant. Only difference is that our dramas, our series has to be based on the news. We can't do fiction, you know. So that's the reason we have a slight limited scope to play there, but still pretty large. And we continue to do more. And as far as the publicity is concerned, we are posting them on the other platform like YouTube and other places to get some traction there also.

Okay, okay. And can we expect something like this in English app as well?

Sir, English app slightly later because all the resources are in Indian Gujarati. So, to be very honest, English, but later, not now.

Okay, okay. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you. Next follow-up question is from Lanov Kavish Parekh from 361 Capital. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for the follow-up opportunity. Sir, if I heard you right, you mentioned that CAPEX for this year could be somewhere around 151, 160 crores. Before FY26, CAPEX used to be much lower. F26 saw a sharp bump up in that. Where exactly is this being spent?

Last year, sir, if you remember, we had taken a call two years back that wherever we are paying high rental, better to acquire the property and built it on our own. So, for example, in Bhopal, we have finally bought a place and we are making up our own building. Similarly, we did this in a couple of more stations. So, that's what the strategy is, so that we are able to save the rental expense and build our own property and also get the appreciation on the property.

Fair enough, understood. Secondly, within the other expenses, last year we had started spending on initiatives to maintain leadership. Out of the other expenses, on an annual basis, how much would that spend amount be?

I don't have the exact number with me right now, but I think all the expenses of circulation, promotion, and all would be in the range of around 20-25 kilo rupees annually.

First thing on the digital bits, I heard Mr. Agrawal earlier today in an interview saying that you put out about 14,000 odd stories, 1,800 odd videos per day on the platform, a pretty, pretty high number, very solid number. Could you share some more details here? What is the total team size like working only on the digital piece? How many on-ground reporters? How many people on the tech side? Some more details.

These 14,000 stories are generated by the print and digital reporters together. Because as you know, in print also has a huge team at every possible location. We print almost 250 district editions. We generate almost 1,700 news pages on a daily basis. So, all those things are also posted on the digital, except the video, because video print cannot take it. So, videos are done exclusively for digital. And digital also has the exclusive team in certain markets, certain places.

Yeah. Any quantification on the team size working solely on digital?

Well, for the big reason of the confidentiality to protect the... Competition to know much more detail. I can't divulge more. You will appreciate that.

Sure. And last question from Nathan on the radio. What would be a realistic growth target on the radio segment?

They have grown by how much? 8-9% this quarter? 12%? Yes, okay. 12%.

Correct. We've had about this quarter about 8% increase in our revenue across our 37 stations. We have seven more stations lined up. We are looking at a good growth this year on the bottom line because we have also put in a lot of cost control checks. So if you've seen our EBITDA in the first quarter has grown by about 15% out. But this year, it's going to be a mix of both revenue and cost control.

Any quantification on the top line? What would be your aspiration for maybe this year and the next year?

I think 12% number growth is also a humongous task in radio business. Because if you put it, the space is fixed. The timeline is fixed. You can't increase the timeline there. So this is all by doing multiple innovations and all that. So though I would be much more greedy, but realistic sense, even this kind of growth is humongous task for them.

Sure, sir. This is very helpful. Maybe I'll connect with you offline to discuss more on the digital piece. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Iyash from JP Associates. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Good evening. Firstly, congratulations on a good set of numbers, especially your IRW, which has grown in double digits. Thank you, sir. Now, my first question is, has this growth come in from pricing, or is it not a kind of volume increase?

Little bit of work, sir. I can't say 50-50. Pricing is less, but more of volume.

Okay, that's good news, sir. Now, about circulation, I think I'm a little confused because here we are saying that the copies were at around 38 lakh copies during the quarter, right? And in the previous quarter, it was around 39 lakh copies. Correct, correct, correct, correct, sir. Then the revenues are higher compared to the previous quarter.

So, in certain places, there is a minor tweaking of the weekend prices, and few... Places, the high-paid copies on a particular day was increased. So, because of that, but nothing major.

Okay, but then there has been some increase in pricing, right?

2-3% overall.

Sorry, 2-3%? Overall, if you look at the overall number. Okay, okay, okay. And, I mean, where do we see, because I don't think in the last two years, we've seen some drop in the circulation, copies. In the first quarter, which is normally what is termed as summer fall, but this year we've dropped from 39, let's say 40 in Q3 to 39 in Q4 and 38 in Q1 again. Any specific reason as to why our copies have been reducing or decreasing quarter-round quarter? But I mean, for the past few years it was constant at around 40 lakh copies. Thank you. And this is in spite of increasing spends and offering schemes to readers for facing such issues. I mean, what's actually going on on the ground?

I think it's a mix on the ground because, let's get it right, there is some impact of people, some people, those who are not very serious readers, moving on to digital, a little bit of them, a couple of, two, three, four percent like that. I guess that's one thing. But in southern markets, we have actually gained the market share. Like in Rajasthan, we have gained the market share. In MP, we have gained the market share.

So is it that the overall market is decreasing?

Maybe I would say by a couple of percentages.

Okay. Okay, and there seems to be some drastic improvement in the other operating income if we compare it with the previous year. So what is that?

Other operating income also includes the interest on the FD what we have?

No, not the other income which is below your EBITDA. I am talking about the other operating income which is part of your publishing income, print and publishing income, apart from ad and circulation revenue.

Laliji, just give us the detail. Can you give us the detail on this, please? Mr. Lalit Jain, can you give us the reply on this? You are on mute.

Yes, this is because of the increase in job work revenue and investors revenue.

Okay. Okay. All right. Just one more thing. The newsprint prices, you said, have gone up by around 13%. Is that versus previous year or is that against the previous quarter? Previous year. And compared to previous quarter, around 8%. So, last quarter, we were told it was around 49,000. So, this quarter would be around 54, 55? 53. 53. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aditya Mundra from My Temple Capital. Please, go ahead.

Thank you, sir. Am I audible?

Yes, sir.

Sir, what would be a portion of a digital revenue, the entire revenue?

Miniscule, sir, right now. Okay.

And that would be mainly advertising, whatever it is.

Correct.

Sir, so directly also would be at least 5-10% in that range of our total revenue. Sorry, sir. Directionally, would it be around 5-10% of our total revenue or even lower?

Even lower, sir.

But are we seeing any increasing trends there by any chance?

Yeah, yeah, advertising revenue is growing there. If the base is too small, advertising revenue is growing there.

There could be a couple of years before it becomes a meaningful 10-20% contribution to the top value.

Correct, sir. Correct.

Anter, do we guide this year for maybe a higher revenue than what our pre-COVID high was? Do you think we can compile that?

I can't give any guidance, sir, but everybody is working hard. That much, I can assure you. Every possible team member is really working hard.

Okay, sir. And to this, like for the circulation revenue, would the revenue that we have achieved this quarter, would that be considered as the base in the sense that we will not go below that? Any view on that?

Sir, in circulation number, which is 38,000 copies right now. We are putting all our efforts, all our efforts to gain copies. But to be very honest, we lose some copy, we gain some copy. We again lose some copy, we gain some copy. So, you know, you can appreciate our teams also go through a lot of frustration because of this. But I guess that's the market situation right now. But we are holding strong. And important point is that we are gaining market share.

So, you think the industry loss would have been higher than what our 39 to 38 is? The industry would have lost a lot more.

Yeah, looks like so, very clearly.

So, for any equivalent, I mean, just asking globally, do we see any equivalent part of any other newspaper that gives us confidence that maybe circulation has a... You know, floor, basically, things don't go below that. Some parameter in developed economies or, I don't know, I'm just asking one, any other country that you must be attracting?

No, sir, no other country. I think we should look at ourselves, if it's wrong, especially to see my market share improving, and that's the reason my advertising is improving. The growth advertising is also a reflection of my share growth.

And that's largely volume driven, as you mentioned. And the final question is, print and other EBITDA percentage that you have mentioned in your media release, that is print and circulation combined, right?

Print and digital combined, sir.

Print and digital as well as, so there is no circulation revenue included in that EBITDA calculation. Okay, but it's not separately given also, like the circulation effect, sir.

No, sir. There is no circulation able to, sir.

So, the print and other EBITDA percentage basically includes everything other than radio?

Correct, correct, correct.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as a last question. I'll now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.

Thank you everyone for your participation today and time on this earnings call. I hope we've responded to your queries and we'll always be happy to be of assistance to our Investor Relations Department, headed by Mr. Prasun Kumar Pandey for all your further queries. Thank you and have a great evening.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. On behalf of DB Corp Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.