Nazara Technologies Limited (NAZARA) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q4FI 26 Earnings Conference Call of Nisala Technologies Limited, hosted by Ambit Capital. 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vivek Arnath from Ambit Capital. Thank you and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Swapnadi. Good morning, everyone. A very warm welcome to all of you on behalf of Ambit Capital. We are proud to host the 4QFY26 and FY26 Post Results Conference Call of Azara Technologies Limited. I would like to take this opportunity and welcome the senior management team of the company joining us on the call today. Connected on this call are participants from Nazara, including Mr. Nitish Mithersen, Joint MD and CEO, Nazara Technologies Ltd., Mr. Rohit Sharma, Executive Director, Mr. Rakesh Shah, CFO. Ms. Anupriya Sinha Das, Head of Corporate Development, Azara Technologies, Mr. Shreya Sminen, Head Offline Gaming, Mr. Terry Lee, CEO, Fusebox Games, Mr. Seward Disney, CEO, Curve Games, Mr. Raymond Stauffer, CEO and Founder, Blue Tile Games. Mr. Manish Gaurav, Head of Business, Kedopia. Mr. Jeff Amis, Co-Founder and CEO, WildWorks. Mr. Mayank Kumar, Director Operations, Absolute Sports, Private Limited. Mr. Akshat Rathi, Founder, Nordwind Gaming, Private Limited. Mr. Senthil Govindan, CEO, DataWorks, Business Solutions, Private Limited. And Mr. Chris Jones, CEO, Space and Time. I would like to now call upon Mr. Nitish for his opening comments. Thank you.

Hi, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. FI 26 was a pivotal year for Nazara. Revenue reached INR 1829 crores, and EBITDA grew 66% to INR 255 crores, our highest ever, with Q4 EBITDA margins reaching 19.5%, almost doubling on a year-on-year basis. Importantly, cash generation also strengthens significantly, with pre-tax operating cash flows growing 81% year-on-year to INR 213 crores. More importantly, the shape of Nizara has fundamentally changed in FY26. Gaming contribution to Erypita increased from 56% in FY25 to 90% in FY26, as we sharpened our focus on building a high-margin, globally diversified gaming platform across mobile, PC, and console, and off-time gaming. FY26 also included our largest acquisition to date of Blue Tidal and Best Play. This significantly expands our casual gaming scale while adding AI-native development capabilities and a rewarded engagement network to our platform. At the same time, our existing gaming businesses and IPs continue to strengthen. Kidopia has returned to subscriber growth. We saw growth in Q3 and now again in Q4. And Animal Jam has expanded its margins. Fusebox has scaled its narrative engines across multiple ICs. Such as Big Brother, Big Boss, Traitors, and our PC and console game, Newman Fall Flat, crossed 58 million lifetime units globally. The operating system being in all of this is a center of excellence playbook, which we have actively strengthened over the last 12 to 18 months across user acquisition, data analytics, artificial intelligence, growth, and product. Every gaming IP we own, and increasingly every IP we acquire, plugs into the same system. Going into F527, Nazara is at a materially different scale than it was 12 months ago. The quality and earnings capacity of the platform have also expanded significantly, and we will continue to accelerate growth both in revenues and EBITDA in F527. I do believe our operating leverage is real and it is now starting to compound. With that, I will hand over to Anupriya to discuss segmental performance before we enter a Q&A session. Thank you very much, and over to you, Anupriya.

Thank you, Nitish. Good morning, everyone. At the consolidated level, as Nitesh mentioned, Nazar delivered FI26 revenue of 1,829 crores, up 13% year-on-year, and EBITDA of 255 crores, up 66% year-on-year, with our EBITDA margin expanding to 13.9%. In Q4 FI26, the company reported revenue of INR 398 crores and EBITDA of INR 78 crores with EBITDA margin reaching 19.5%. Within this, our gaming business delivered particularly strong growth and profitability, with FY26 revenue growing 107% year-on-year to INR 1072 crores, and EBITDA growing 157% to INR 265 crores, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 24.7%. In Q4 FY26, gaming revenue grew 78% year-on-year to INR 278 crores, while EBITDA grew 127% to INR 76 crores. Within mobile gaming, revenue grew 38% year-on-year to INR 713 crores, with EBITDA growing 33% to INR 137 crores. Performance was driven by stronger execution across live ops, user acquisition, and data analytics through a COE-led operating model. Kidopia had returned to subscriber growth in the previous quarter and had sustained that journey with improving unit economics, while Animal Jam delivered meaningful margin expansion during the year. Our narrative games also continue to grow, with multiple reality TV IPs getting launched in FY26, with additional launches planned in FY27. During the quarter, we also completed the acquisition of Blue Tile and Best Play, which has significantly expanded our casual gaming scale and AI-native capabilities. This business will be consolidated from FY27 onwards, pending some regulatory approval. PCN console publishing business continue to deliver strong profitability with FY26 revenue of INR 261 crores and EBITDA of INR 101 crores at 39% EBITDA margin. Human Fall Flat cost 58 million lifetime units globally, while our broader publishing portfolio continued to demonstrate durable monetization and growing platform reach. Our offline gaming businesses with Smash and Punky Monkey also delivered profitability during FY26, with revenues of I&R 99 crores and EBITDA of I&R 27 crores. We continue expanding the Funky Monkey footprint during the year and progressing towards the launch of the reimagined Smash 2.0 format. With all our other businesses, AdTech delivers strong growth and profitability, with both revenue and EBITDA growing 32% year-on-year. SportsCare remains profitable despite a softer traffic environment following Google Core updates, supported by continued cost discipline and improving performance across new properties. Nodwin, our associate company, also delivered a significant EBITDA turnaround during F526, moving from a loss of INR14 crores in F525 to a profit of INR21 crores in F526, while continuing to scale its youth media live events platform globally. With this, I conclude my remarks, and we'll now open the call for Q&A.

Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants, you are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. A reminder to all, you may press star and 1 to ask a question. We have the first question from the line of Dinesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on the margin performance. I have two bookkeeping questions to begin with. The first is on the other income bet, which was at about 51 crores in this quarter, and apparently it appears to be materially higher. So was there any one-off in this quarter? I mean, I just thought of checking because there is no disclosure in the footnote. That is one. Secondly, if I look at our share of losses from associates, I think in this quarter that figure was 31 crores, and I believe after the deconsolidation of Nordwind, we've been on about 46 to 47% stake in the company. Please, to assume that the overall losses for Nordville in the quarter were at about 65-66 crores. I just wanted to cross-verify this thing because Nordville reported an EBITDA of 4 crores in this quarter, which implies that the amortization figure is very high in the business. If you can just clarify on these two things.

Hi, Chamesh. This is Nathesh. So, let me take both these questions. The other income predominantly driven by, one is gain of 31 crores on our investment in Drusk Media. The holding that we had in Drusk Media was revised up first basis there, no round of investment that they have raised. So, that contributed 31 crores. And the balance was a mix of things, including some currency gains, etc., on the statement of loans to Nazara UK. So that largely forms the other income, including some mutual fund gains, etc. In terms of the nodule question on the losses from associates, these are contributed by some losses from Monshine, which is continuing to find a way to recover some of its business in a profile-compliant manner. Lastly, it came from Nodwin, which wrote off some goodwill. It was carrying out three quotes relating to an acquisition of OML assets done three, four years back, predominantly coming from NS7 Weekender. which has not delivered the cash flows that were projected at the time the goodwill was established. So we took a conservative view and, sorry, Nodwin took a conservative view and wrote it off, although NH7 Weekender as an IP is bouncing back pretty well. So I think that's largely what is driving. At an operational level, Nodwin has been a bit more profitable this year and also in this quarter.

Got that. 50 crores is the number that you mentioned, right?

Yeah, yeah.

The good was right. Yeah, yeah. And, sir, perfect. And, sir, secondly, on the PC and console gaming, but, I mean, in the presentation, we have mentioned that we'll launch new IPs like Dragon Shelter, Waxhead, etc. So, if you can just give what is the timeline for the launch, and also if I compare the full year revenue. It's hard here in the throat.

What was the CEO? And also ask Rohit, Sharma, Edie, who's, you know, driving a lot of our PC and console business, to also have add-on comments. So, Stuart, you can go in first, just give a little overview of your upcoming titles, timing, and then, Rohit, you can have your comments.

Yes, thank you, Nitesh. Yeah, in answer to that question, since acquisition, There has been a period of transition. We've completed that in a way that hasn't distracted the business. We're very happy with that. And we have begun investing in new games to deliver long-term growth. We expect to launch at least six new releases in this current year, maybe a couple more. The games that you mentioned, they will start – Wax Heads actually released last week. Um, and other releases in the summer will include, um, Sovereign Tower and Dragon Shudder. Um, we believe that the release of these games will bring long-term growth for the company. Um, and we will continue to look at, uh, retaining a high margin from our low-cost base where we can, whilst increasing our development spend to build that pipeline.

And this is Rohit here. Just to add to your second question, previously before Nazara acquired Curve Games, under the previous parent, Curve Games was not, for the last two years, has not been signing a lot of games. So therefore, you see that kind of growth. But the good part is that our existing IPs like Human Fall Flat and Mobley Life have still given us the growth this year. And as Stu mentioned, now we have already gone on a very fast speed of signing new titles, which will be launching in this financial year and subsequent financial years. And that's where we will see the growth as we go on.

Thank you. Understood. One last question on Sportskeeda. I think the revenue declined by about 38% in FY26, while the EBITDA margin has also come off quite a bit to about 12%. I understand it has been because of the Google core issue that you have highlighted in the past calls, but I believe it has been four quarters since you are trying to get over this problem with limited success. So, just wanted to understand, I mean, is it really possible to mitigate this challenge, or should we build in a materially lower EBITDA margin of about 12? 15% in this business going ahead, and how to think of growth from here on. So, yeah, that is my last question.

Sinesh, unfortunately, I couldn't hear it clearly. Can you quickly repeat it?

The problem in sports, I think the revenue decline and the margin problem that we have been seeing.

Well, I think we've yet not seen the kind of recovery we want to see over there. We continue to do many things to try and achieve that. Although some of our existing other ITs outside of SportsCita, like ProFootball Network and Prime Timer are showing very good positive signs and good numbers. So I think at this point of time, we'll continue to optimize costs. We continue to do that. We actually expect margins to increase in FY27 on potentially a smaller base. But I can also have Mayank come in here. Mayank is leading sports theater and share the talk.

Hi.

Like Letish said, the focus on this year was more to drive or retain the EBEDDA than growing revenue or recovering the revenue loss that we have seen in the last year. And that focus will continue going into the next year as well as we plan to mitigate our expenses and then also accordingly increase our capital the next year.

Okay, sir. Thank you so much, and all the best.

Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all, you may press star and 1 to ask a question. We will take the next question from the line of Vivekanand from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Nathish, how do you rate your preparedness as an organization, including your center of excellence, to now serve? We have multiple gaming growth engines across segments, including publishing and, of course, new technologies. And, of course, these are all in addition to the existing ones that you have, like Love Island, Kidopia, etc. So that is my first question. And the second question is on Nordwin. So, could you discuss the IPO timelines there and what is the plan you have for Nordwind? Will Nordwind be raising cash? Will you also be looking to monetize some of your shareholding? Yeah, I'll stop with these and then ask follow-ups where needed. Thank you.

So, I think for the first question, you know, the centers of excellence that we've invested in and built over the last 18 months and accelerated in FY26, I think are really becoming center stage to support the expanding portfolio of ITs, teams, and technologies. Most of these centers of excellence are led by very senior people with a lot of in-depth experience at scale, I would say. So I think we are feeling very confident that we've put in these efforts over the last 12 to 18 months, and they will actually start showing clear results in FY27. I would say Kidopia is one good example of, you know, being benefited from these initiatives, which we've seen in Q3 and Q4, but this will play out more actively across the portfolio in FY27. AI, of course, is a very big theme for us, not a narrative, but a very important aspect of what we are doing today. And across the studios that we operate, across the different functions of gaming, whether it's the development process, how we do user acquisition, how we analyze data, how we engage with the user, right? We're seeing a lot of uptake. We're also very excited about BluTile's AI capabilities, and maybe I can get Raymond just to interject two minutes how BluTile is leveraging AI, because some of that we hope to adopt in FY27 and many of our other studios. Raymond, you just want to give a quick update on that?

Sure. So in our case, and especially after the ongoing integration, we're able to really scale our operations due to applying AI to each individual department that we have across all the different functions and processes. So, from marketing, creative marketing, to marketing operations, product development, technical development, ad monetization. Data segmentation. We're starting to apply AI in different capacities, both through LLMs, but also through different complex algorithms, such as reinforcement learning and other types of AI. As Nathish mentioned, a lot of these capabilities are also being developed and leveraged from the Centers of Excellence. So the interaction between them and our specific team has been really fruitful. And we've seen... The capacity the team has now with these tools increased exponentially.

Yeah, just moving on to the second question, I think from a Nazara perspective, you know, we will look at potentially monetizing. Non-core businesses for us. This could be Nodwin, it could be Sportskeeda, it could be the ad tech business in due course. We are not in any hurry, but we definitely see the potential to unlock value and redeploy in our core gaming business. So we will continue to evaluate opportunities as and when they come or get created. With specific Nodwin IPO related questions, Akshat can come in and give an update.

Akshat over to you. Hi, can you hear me? Just a sound check. Yeah, yeah, we can.

No, thank you so much for the time, and I appreciate the question. Look, Nordwind has been trained extremely well as a team-listed company under Nazara for the last five years of our life, right? So ever since Nazara acquired us, we've been in training, and I think there is no better gift that a parent company can go ahead and give to a company like ours To go ahead and take us through everything from compliance to regulatory, to go ahead and have the discipline, to go ahead and have a clothing or books every quarter, and then going with guidances that we can go ahead and live up. Norwin itself has had a very good year, despite the freak's... We've been able to go ahead and do many more integrations, and natural growth has been sitting at between 25% and 35% of the whole business itself. And the positioning as a live youth media company, because gaming remains the core heart of what we do, has allowed us to have very meaningful conversations. And Nodwin is looking both to raise funds between $100 million to $200 million independently, and this will be a mixture of primary and secondary, and then also prepare for an IPO as soon as possible. But I say as soon as possible is let's do it right. I don't think we get multiple chances to go ahead and do this. And with the conversations I have with all of you in the analyst community and obviously our bankers, we've had very good outcomes to some of our conversations. So we remain in line to go public independently with the blessings of Nazara as soon as the timing and the business is right.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for the comments. Nitish, on Blue Tile specifically, I have a follow-up. Just to understand the segment that it is operating in, you mentioned it's casual, social, mobile games. And my understanding is that this business is designed mostly for global audiences, right? Okay? So... If you can help us understand the TAM that this business operates in and the kind of scalability that, say, some of the peers of Blue Tile globally have achieved, I think that will help investors understand how to think about Blue Tile, let's say, three years hence.

Sure. I think Raymond is very suited to answer that. Raymond, over to you.

Sure. So, we're operating in several gaming verticals, but predominantly in the casual space, completely in the casual evergreen space, which are traditional games that everybody knows. They have a very large global exposure, such as Solitaire, Word Search, Word Puzzles, other kinds of, you know, board games and other puzzle games. So that will be the casual or green category, and in that category, we can see other competitors such as TripleDot, which has been valued at over a billion. We also have EasyBrain, which was acquired by Miniclip from the Embracer group by a billion dollars. So there's quite a few competitors with quite a large volume. The other space that we're actively developing games in is the... The traditional hyper-casual games that are being casualized, per se. So, essentially, introducing long-term mechanics, social mechanics, and allowing users to play these games for a very long time, increasing long cohort retention. We'll have other competitors, such as a recent competitor has just. Essentially, the market is extremely... Pretty much any geography in the world.

Okay, that's great. I have one follow-up for Akshat. So, Akshat, thank you for your comments on how you are thinking about the fundraising. Now, as far as Nodwin goes, again, like we see the rest of Nazara pivoting more to global markets given the monetization constraints in India. Is that also something that you are now mulling? What will you ideally use the funds for in terms of expanding either through new events or is it going to be mostly international?

It's a very deep question, and thank you again for this. You literally had asked me the two growth levels of Nordwind. Nordwind is complex, but very simple. We have two lines of our business. We consider them the live part of the business and the content part of the business. The content part of the business, think of it as very grassroots. It allows people to discover their entertainment passions, young people to go out and discover their entertainment passions. And across the world, their entertainment passions are multitude. They can be games, they can be music, they can be pop culture, cosplay, they can be space festivals. It's okay, and we don't judge. It can be reality television that we do with Rusk, with Playground, with RIPs. So that's fine. That's how all our influencer lineups, right? That's the content play in the age of AI, we believe. This will go out and increase both in volume and value in this would be organic growth of between 5% and 10% because monetization still will catch up over a long time. But this is the discovery in the info model. It's profitable and will subsume both live and IPs. On the other side, we have the live business. The live business is the manifestation of super fandom for the things that people love. So, if you love an influencer, this is where you come and meet the influencer at a YouTube fan fest or a Comic Con kind of an event. This is the place where you go ahead and come for a music festival. This is the place where you come for an e-sports tournament where you go ahead and meet the biggest players in the world and in the country to go ahead and do this. And we believe both of them juxtapose against each other. One does the discovery and the other goes and gives you the super fandom. And super fandom, obviously, is much more profitable. As such, and again, subsumes both a white label and IPs. And the second part of the question is the growth path. Nodwin runs on three vectors. Nodwin's core vector, the first vector that Nodwin was going on in doing an expansion, something called the Global South. It's a geographical play where we believe we are the youth media company for the world. And for the world, we want to be focusing specifically on the global south, the global south being everything from Philippines to Mexico, which is the topic of Capricorn, and all those countries that are really large in size and material would be part of the play that we want to be. And I think we are nearly there in completing the global belt around the south. We have empty... Spaces right now in Southeast Asia and Latin America, and those are the ones we keep on exploring on. And the other question on where do we do this, we also have the X by Z, the X is geography, Y is IPs, and Z is ways to monetize for people. So we look at everything from merchandising being one way to monetize, but also... We have new payment methods that might be really relevant in another country. So we build and acquire around youth media and touch points on engagement across geographies, across IPs, and across monetization methods. That's our investment thesis for expansion. We believe we will always be an India company first because India remains one of the most robust places where not only the core engine runs, on the contrary, for us, through Proga, the law, and the libel statement exploding in India, I think India is going to remain one of our 50% core markets.

Thank you, Akshat and Nikish. Those answers were very comprehensive. Thanks a lot. So, apparently, you may take the next participant's question.

Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all, you may press star and one to ask a question. We have the next question from the line of Atul Borsi from GMFL. Please go ahead.

Hi, Tim. Thanks for the opportunity. I have two, three questions. First is on how do you think overall the Nazara's growth or margin profile will look like in April 27 post the blue tile consolidation? And you also mentioned that you plan to divest the Northcore gaming segment. Do you have any timeline in mind, like, by when you want to divest the sports or ad tech? And the last question is on ad tech, that there was a sequential decline in ad tech. So, any reason for that growth flow down, and how does the seasonality work for this segment? Those are my questions.

Let me take the first one, which is growth in FY27. So I think Nazara's existing businesses, we expect, you know, to drive organic growth and expansion of margins due to two things. One is the output or outcome of the centers of excellence activity that we've been doing in FY26. Second is stronger, faster implementation of AI and how that plays out for us. So, while I don't have specific guidelines, I think these two make us feel very positive that we will be able to deliver both our organic growth and margin expansion from this point onwards as well. If you look at Blutile, their CY25 numbers, calendar year 25 numbers, was around 143 crores in our revenue and 254 crores of EBITDA. Same with the EBITDA profile for CY25 for Bluetail was similar to what Nazara is reporting for FY26. So on a pro forma basis, if you combine these two, then obviously your EBITDA at the least would double, and then you can add organic growth for both businesses, you know, on top of it. So we don't have specific guidelines on – we don't have a specific guidance at this point of time, but very bullish on overall very strong performance on financials in FY27. In terms of avestment of non-core, like I said, we will continue to evaluate opportunities. We are not in a rush, but we do see the opportunity to, you know, extract value and monetize and redeploy in core gaming, which kind of is much more synergistic with our core business, and our stated goal also will help us drive higher margins going forward. I would imagine that we will try and have some action happen in FY27 and FY28 to achieve this goal. On the ad tech side, I would like Senthil and Chris to give, maybe Rohit can set the context, and then Senthil and Chris can chime in on what's happening on the ad tech business. Rohit, to you.

Thanks, thanks, Nishish. And so, yeah, I think on your question on ad tech, I think we have, and Santhil and Chris can add more, you know, we have consciously, and that's why there's a bit of a decline, we have consciously taken a call to focus on our tech-driven DSP business, which is visible, where we see more growth coming. And some of the traditional ad tech businesses, which are anyways declining globally, we have kind of reducing our focus from there, which were earlier contributing to some numbers for us. So, in fact, even Thenton, who has now moved to UK, UK and US are our key markets. Tech product for ad tech is our key focus area. And I think that is why, because of that shift of focus and not going behind scalable revenues is where you have seen some bit of a decline, but sent it over to you if you want to add on to this.

Yeah, thanks, Rohit. So just to continue from where Rohit left off, as he said, Sorry, as he said that – sorry, can everyone hear me?

Yes, sir, you're out of here.

Okay, all right, just making sure. So, yeah, so as Rohit was saying, we're focusing a lot more on a product-driven part of the business. We had relaunched DSP Visible about two and a half years ago, and we're seeing really high growth in that area. So what we're doing is reinvesting in that, both from a sales and marketing standpoint, as Rohit mentioned, I myself have moved to the U.K. so that I can more closely oversee our growth in Europe and the U.S. We're also rolling out additional products, which are, you know, again, through the acquisition that DataWorks in turn had made of space and time in the U.K. There are requirements that their clients have, that they have for their client set, which we are now leveraging our product unit based out of Bangalore in order to build additional technology for their clients. And through that, the expectation is that we'll also be able to expand these products to the broader market, right? So all told, you know, there is a temporary decline, but what we are seeing is that the pivot to a high-margin-led, product-led growth business is clearly underway, and that shows a lot of positive signs for FY27.

Chris, do you just want to add to that on space and time, since it contributes a large amount to the revenues of ActEx? Do we have Chris on?

Yes. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Great. Yes, I would echo some of the points that were made, both by Sentinel and Rohit there, I think, from the space and time. A specific point of view, looking at Q4 specifically, we saw a decline in overall revenue, but this was anticipated earlier in the year, so in the full year picture, we finished slightly ahead of where we were expecting to be in the AOP, and we'd expected this. We have a reduction in the final quarter for a number of reasons. The main impact on it is really to do with the market conditions we face in the UK, so we operate in a number of verticals, but one of the core verticals we operate in is the new homes. And that's facing some very well-publicized challenges at the moment, and that's just having a knock-on effect in terms of their discretionary marketing spend. Fortunately, the business has a strategy to diversify our income in some more product-led and tech-driven services. Which is meaning that that impact isn't felt to the same degree at gross margin, and in fact, obviously, in a full-year position, we outperformed EBITDA quite significantly. So our view on that there is one of we're not overly concerned because the business is well-positioned to capitalise on the changes that are going on in the market. And also the fact that the nature of what we do is becoming more focused on capturing gross margin and sort of profitability from the revenue as opposed to the revenue itself. So it's kind of following a kind of very natural trend that's in the industry at the moment as ownership of advertising platforms moves in-house. So, we're not overly worried by the trend, and actually the full-year position for the agency was very, very positive, and we're optimistic and bullish about the following FY27 as well.

Okay. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for the answer. Just to follow up, so you think that this 4Q decline is temporary, right? It will bounce back to the normalized levels? We go.

Yes, you want to respond?

Yes, I think as both Chris and Sintel have mentioned, that... In case of space and time, there is a seasonality that is happening, and the market is facing a bit of a challenge. But I think, again, space and time has been very strong tech and data and AI capability, which is mitigating that for them. And similarly, on data work side, as Senthil mentioned, we are shifting our complete focus to product-driven, tech-driven businesses, especially in the Western market. So, to answer your question, yes, I think as we go on, we will be able to see growth. Thank you. Thank you for the answers.

Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all, you may press star and 1 to ask a question. We will take the next question from the line of Vivekanand from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, Nuthesh. On the portfolio that you have, I appreciate the job you've done in simplifying it and focusing the company on gaming. While identifying appropriate non-core businesses and divestment plans. Just to double-click a bit more on this, we have seen that under the leadership of the founder of Nordwind, Akshat's leadership, and of course, looking at Nazara's own support that would have gone in scaling up the business, we have seen this business scale up to maybe $70 million in revenue. Quite sizable, right? So when I look at Nazara today, it seems like the portfolio has many assets, individually small, collectively meaningful. That's how I look at it. So just to understand better the success that you had with Nordwin in terms of scalability and now profitability as well, how should one think about your overall portfolio? Let's say if one is taking a three to five year view. Today, what could be the one thing or two things that can be very big in size and also can gather investor interest in their own life, just like Nodwen?

Yeah. So, no, I get your question. I think our focus, one, has always been to build, you know, growing businesses or grow businesses profitably. And while Nordwin is one example that you spoke of, if you see our history over the last few years as we have invested in acquired companies, Kidopia was acquired, you know, with a 15 crore revenue run rate, and in two, three years, we took it to 200 crores plus. When we acquired SportsCita, it was a 15 crore revenue company, which delivered 80 crore of EBITDA last year before taking it in FI-25, before taking it in FI-26. So I think our focus has always been that how do we acquire businesses when we can add value or grow the business after acquiring it. Another example is Fusebox Games in the UK, which is a story-based, you know, games on popular TV shows. And they were doing very successfully one game, Love Island. After acquisition, we worked closely with the team to expand that to now four titles, and, you know, we will look at scaling. The second thought has always been is to have a diversified, profitable cash flow generating business, because we've often seen that gaming businesses can get disrupted or become one hit wonders, whereas our intent always was to, one, build a very resilient business. Second, you know, have multiple IPs that can be leveraged across platforms as these platforms and technologies change. So I think we've very successfully established that. I think the third aspect that you said it is, you know, a portfolio of small studios or smaller games which are combined become meaningful. I think it's a journey, right? And for us, you know, we've slowly over the years built our M&A capabilities. In the last 18 months, we built our synergies, centers of excellence that are going to drive synergies. So I think the value added by the platform is only going to increase going forward, and it's giving us confidence to take larger steps. So if you see the most recent acquisition, which is Bluetine, that in itself is as large as our combined business. So I think going forward, you will also see a step change in terms of how we look to scale up the overall Masara business and platform through potentially larger acquisitions as well as focus on, you know, larger margin expansion. We see multiple tailwinds on the margin expansion side. A couple of them on the top of my head. One, of course, is AI and how we are leveraging AI to deliver more content to our existing user bases while maintaining the same costs, right? So, I think that is definitely a large margin expansion. The second is, today, the platforms like Google, etc., take, you know, 30% of the subscription or IRP fees. But over a period of time, that is also coming down, and I think that will help lead a margin expansion. So, I think you should look at Nazara as a platform that will continue to grow profitably, generate cash. And the resilience is actually, you know, an underrated asset for us, where we can really, whenever there's disruption in the market, you know, grow faster. I hope that answers some of your question.

No, I think, Nitish, that's a very, very good point that you made, that don't just look at it from the perspective of, say, a very big asset that you create, rather. Focus on some of the other levers, the portfolio diversification, and also the ability of the COEs to leverage on technologies like AI and also drive towards greater profitability. I think that's great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Pranav Marshuwala from Dallup Capital. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Am I open? Yeah. Yeah. Just a few bookkeeping questions from my side. So, the depreciation amortization expense in Q4 was down by about 24%. So, which were some of the subverticals that had witnessed this decline in Q&A?

Our total depreciation in this quarter was 45.5%. Anupaya, you want to take this?

Yeah, so the total depreciation was around 45 crores, and a large part of it is coming from Curl Games, which continues to build games across years, which have a life of multiple years. And the deconsolidation of Nordwind has also led to the sequential decline in the overall depreciation number that we report, because the depreciation from the Nordwind business is not getting consolidated in the books, and it's coming with a better. So, that is the reason why you're seeing the sequential deadline.

Okay. Second, on the blue tile, so as we have mentioned that we have completed the acquisition, so some color on the consolidation timeline, even some approvals would be great.

Yeah. So, the acquisition will actually close. We are still pending the Spanish FDI approval, which is in process. And we expect to close the transaction or acquisition as soon as that comes in. At this point of time, we're expecting it to come in in the next few weeks, I think three, four weeks, and that's when the actual closing will happen. We expect to consolidate from Q1 of F527.

A few questions on the business, if I may. In Fusebox, in Q3, we had seen almost a 49% Q&Q decline due to seasonality, and it bounced back well in Q4. So my question is, can some of the newer IPs like Big Brother, Traders, which is poised to launch in FY27, meaningfully smoothen the quarterly volatility?

Yeah, I think there will always be some seasonality in these businesses, but I think we are very excited with what we are doing on those IPs. And why don't we get Terry, the CEO of Usebox, to give us an update.

Yeah, I think as Natish mentioned, there's always going to be some seasonality. I think in regards to the other IPs that we have, Big Brother, Big Boss, Traders, offsetting some of that seasonality, it will take potentially a couple of years for them to meaningfully take a chunk out of the seasonality.

Terry, do you want to give us an update on where these new launches are on Big Brother creators?

Sir, Mr. is not connected.

Anupia, you want to update?

Yeah, sure. So, one is on the question of seasonality. We have a seasonality in the business because whenever there is a new TV show of the original Love Island IP scene, there is a good influx of installs organically, etc. In terms of, and as Nitish mentioned, we launched two new games, Big Brother and Big Bot, in the last year. And we have a very extensive relief roadmap in the coming year. We are already live with another fresh seasons of Love Island and Big Brother. And we are looking to expand the Big Brother season from one season in the last one year to three seasons in this fiscal year. As well as we are looking to launch traders in the current fiscal year as well. This plus the four seasons of, sorry, three seasons of Love Island in FY27 will have a very well-rounded season calendar, which will see some amount of evening out of the earnings, but there will be civility, as Dedi mentioned.

Sure. There's just a second one on Curve Games. So, Curve Games had about 39% EBITDA margin in F526. So, as we scaled with some of the larger launches on Switch 2 console, can margins be sustained above 30-35%?

Yeah, I do think they will sustain, especially as we're launching new IPs across, you know, many platforms. But I can, let's go to dive a bit more deeper in it.

Thanks, Miss Ish. Yes, our margin target is always 50% on any game that we sign. Ultimately, we're a publisher, so royalties payable to the developers can vary depending on the agreement and the risk, but as we invest in new games, depending on the size of the investment, we would expect our margin to certainly be maintained on where we've been currently, which is... It's actually comparatively high compared to the market.

Thank you so much for answering this. That's all.

Thank you. A reminder to all, you may press star and want to ask a question at this moment. As there are no further questions from the participants, I will now hand the conference back to the management for closing conference. Thank you, Anubhati, sir.

Thank you. Maybe what we'll do is we'll just take two minutes each on talking a bit about Kidopia and Animal Jam because both the CEOs are online and they haven't had a chance to speak. So maybe, Manish, if you can give a quick two minutes on what's happening on Kidopia, that'll be your team.

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Grish. I hope I'm audible. Yeah. So, we definitely see recovery in Ethiopia, and we feel very confident about it being sustainable. And it's driven by largely three, four growth levers. One is, you know, the center of excellence has made our org much stronger and cleaner. And that is giving us the growth that we needed in this particular business. The second is the IP strategy. You know, we integrated four IPs in the last 12 months, and that has seen significant improvement in the overall funnel. And that's really helped. There has been a lot of focus in improving our, you know, data visibility across the org. And that has made our decision-making and the overall, we are much more informed and faster in decision-making, and that has really helped. And lastly, the paid efficiency has also improved, which has helped to improve the unit economics in the business. So all put together, we feel very confident about this business. In the coming financial year, we expect to launch a few more apps as well in the adjacent category, which will... Continue to drive growth in this business, as well as more IP integrations, free traffic growth, and CRM will help us to monetize our traffic better. So those are some of the things that will drive growth this year in the coming years.

Okay. Thank you, Manish. And Jeff, over to you. We come here from Animal Jam and the new game.

Thanks, Natish. So, this FY27 is an exciting year for us. In this upcoming quarter, we've got our first IP integration with Mattel into Animal Jam through their Monster High property, and it was successful in April, and we look for quarterly updates that are going on over the next six quarters. We've been the beneficiaries at WildWorks with the Centers of Excellence in both data analytics. And prepping us for greater ramping of user acquisition to really hit the engine of his Animal Jam for the monetization of our players. And Apple has been more than complimentary about the ability of our game to monetize. It's just getting the right users into the game. And with the COEs now helping us do that, we're quite optimistic about our prospects. Expansion of our IP to new platforms is important, and as we're launching Animal Jam into Roblox and a new Roblox native experience of the beloved Animal Jam property there and have great aspirations for what it can be in FY27. And as Natish hinted, we are releasing a new game in Q2 of FY27, and that's a hyper-casual game for kids and women here, principally in North America, where we're based, kind of on the lines of Monopoly Go, taking a page out of their playbook, And experiencing a nostalgic property that we're bringing to life again that's been dormant for a while. So this is what's ahead for WildWorks and what we're doing with Animal Jam now in its 16th year of operation. We take great pride in that and protecting the community that we've built. We're introducing a new moderation tool through AIBA, a Norwegian company that's using AI in chat moderation, and looking forward to looking for new opportunities for AI development in our new game as well. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and have a good day.

Thank you, members of the management. On behalf of Ambit Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining with us today, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.