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India Online revenues grew by 18 per cent compared to the same
quarter last year primarily on the back of growth in revenues from
fee based services. Fee based revenues comprised of 49 per cent
of total India Online revenues.
"Our focus this quarter has been on streamlining operations, developing
and launching premium fee-based products in the area of mobile and
subscription services," Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman and CEO, Rediff.com
India said in a statement. "With these launches and product developments,
we believe we are strongly positioned to capitalize from the growth
when the demand for such value added services explodes in the Indian
market", concluded Balakrishnan.
The highlights of financial performance are as follows: *Registered
users grew by 31 per cent compared to the same quarter last year
to 27.9 million.
*Loss per ADS at the EBITDA level was 3.7 cents or US$0.9 million
compared to 7.9 cents or US$2 million for the quarter ended September
30, 2002.
*Net Loss per ADS, for the quarter was 5.6 cents or US$1.4 million
compared to 34 cents or US$8.7 million for the corresponding quarter
ended September 2002.
*The company continues to evaluate whether it can grow the Valucom
communications business on its own or whether it is more prudent
to consider partnering with players who have a larger scale of operations
or whether to divest in whole or in part from the business.
*The company launched an innovative, first of its kind 'Mobile
Search' application on the text messaging (SMS) platform that allows
mobile subscribers to search and download ring tones from their
cell phones.
*Revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2003 were $3.4 million,
as compared to $4.3 million in the same quarter last year. India
Online contributed $0.77 million, an increase of 18% when compared
to the same quarter last year on the strength of growth in fee base
services.
*Fee based services comprise mobile services, subscription services
and merchandising. Revenues for US Publishing for the quarter ended
September 30, 2003, declined marginally to $1.5 million, compared
to the same quarter in fiscal 2002. Despite the marginal decline
in revenues, US Publishing posted an improved performance due to
tighter integration between US and India operations and cost rationalization
initiatives.
*US Publishing comprised of India Abroad, a weekly news publication
and Rediff USA online, which are leading and credible news providers
to the Indian American community.
*Revenues from the phone card business were $1.2 million compared
to $2.1 million for the same quarter last year. Lower revenues were
due to decreased usage of US to India pre-paid phone services, reduced
rates per minute, shifting of calls originating from the US to calls
originating in India as well as management's decision to exit from
the low margin prepaid wholesale phone card business.
*Gross Margin for the quarter was $1.3 million (37 per cent) compared
to $1.1 million (27 per cent) in the same quarter last year.
*Total operating expenses decreased by $1 million for the quarter
to $2.2 million, compared to $3.2 million for the same quarter last
year.
The company realized these savings largely due to tighter integration
of its operations between India and the US, cost rationalization
initiatives implemented in the US publishing operations and the
Valucom subsidiary.
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