MUMBAI: The Hindustan Times Media Group‘s strong readership performance in the first quarter of 2010 may prove to be the ideal platform for its proposed Rs 3 billion IPO.
The recently released IRS Q1 figures shows that HT‘s English daily Hindustan Times, Hindi daily Hindustan and business daily Mint have all grown substantially in readership, across various corners of the country.
Hindustan Times Media Group has putperformed the market in each of these segments. While HT has added 120000 readers over the trailing quarter to close, Hindustan has increased its readership by 578000. Mint has also seen growth to remain as the No 2 business daily at 158000.
Hindustan Times has once again stayed ahead of The Times Of India to remain as the No 1 newspaper in Delhi and the NCR region. According to the 2010 Q1 IRS report, HT has 3.24 million readers in Delhi compared to TOI‘s base of 3.21 million.
However, HT is still behind TOI in Mumbai and the All-India market. While HT‘s total readership is 6.26 million, TOI is far ahead at 13.5 million despite a fall in readership for the quarter.
In Mumbai, HT is 538000, up from 503000, while TOI is in a formidable position with a readership base of 1.67 million (from 1.59 million).
Hindustan maintains its number three position in terms of All-India Readership (AIR) and total readership and continues to be the fastest growing Hindi newspaper in the country. While still a fair bit behind Dainik Jagran and Dainik Bhaskar, the Hindustan has increased its AIR to 99.1 million readers. On the other hand, Dainik Jagran only showed an increase of 217000 in AIR.
In UP and Uttarakhand, Hindustan is now the fastest growing daily with 12 per cent growth in readership.
Mint, on the other hand, has further consolidated its position as the No 2 business paper in the country. It has shown a growth of 62 per cent in Mumbai, and also remains the No 1 read business paper in Bangalore. With its share in key markets like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi at 24 per cent, with the number three paper at 6 per cent, their current second position in terms of AIR for a business paper remains well intact.
