D. B. Corp Limited (DBCORP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the DB Corp Limited Q2 FY '21 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Hina Agarwal. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.

Thank you, and good evening to everyone. We welcome you to the conference call of DB Corp Limited for Q2 and H1 FY '21. We have with us today the senior management team of DB Corp Limited. Mr. Pawan Agarwal, Deputy Managing Director; Mr. Girish Agarwaal, Non-Executive Director; Mr. P.G. Mishra, Group CFO; Mr. Mushtaq Ali, Vice President, Finance and Account; Mr. Lalit Jain, CGM, Finance and Account; and Mr. Prasoon Kumar Pandey, Head, Investor and Media Relations, who will represent DB Corp Limited on the call. We will be sharing the key operating and financial highlights for the quarter and half year ended 30th September 2020, followed by a question-and-answer session. Before we begin, we would like to state that some of the statements made in today's discussion may be forward looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. Documents relating to the company's financial performance have already been e-mailed to you and are available on the website of the stock exchanges. We trust you have been able to go through the same. Now I invite Mr. Pawan Agarwal to share his outlook on DB Corp's performance for the quarter. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Hina, and good evening to everyone. With the pandemic still affecting our lives, we trust that everyone and their families are safe and healthy. We will begin the call today by highlighting the key financial performance for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, followed by operational updates during the quarter. With the gradual opening of the economy across different geographies, definitely a certain level of positivity has come back with businesses restarting their outreach to consumers, which is reflected in the much improved quarter 2 FY 2021 performance of DB Corp. Our Print business EBITDA was at INR 873 million, with EBITDA margin of 26.7% as against INR 1,010 million EBITDA margins at 20.3% last year. That is margin expansion of 650 basis points in quarter 2 FY 2021. Our consolidated advertising revenues stood at INR 2,263 million in quarter 2 FY 2021. The circulation revenue stood at INR 1,033 million. And the total revenue stood at INR 3,498 million. The company reported a profit of INR 745 million at the operating level and a net profit of INR 285 million, while the overall performance is lower than last year in the backdrop of COVID-19. We are very pleased to inform you that profitability has witnessed improvement with EBITDA margin at 21.3% in Q2 FY '21 against 18.8% in the same quarter of last fiscal. And this was driven by nothing, but a very, very diligent cost optimization drive, which has yielded positive results. Dainik Bhaskar Group Radio business continues to maintain leadership position in all significant markets. And radio advertising for the quarter stood at INR 182 million with operating profit of INR 27 million in Q2 FY 2021. Our Digital business, we continue to remain focused on our strategy to increase our daily active users through our mobile apps, and we are very, very focused on this. We've been steadily growing our daily active user base since the last update that we gave you, and we've been building loyalty on our user base. During these challenging times, the fact that short-term focus and long-term goals are intertwined and gets reiterated, we therefore took a very conscious call that this time our short-term focus should be to achieve normalcy of top line and bottom line as soon as possible, which in turn will enable us to stay strong and growth-oriented in the long term. And as you always know, our focus has been to give a very compelling value to our readers and advertisers. And actually, our readers invest their trust in our ability to deliver truthful, relevant and timely information to them. And advertisers rely on this trust and use it as a platform to reach out to their customers. So our role and responsibility, therefore, towards both of them is of paramount importance and this has been validated time and again by our circulation numbers as well as our advertising revenues. As you all are aware, the market that we have -- that we operate in currently have been far quicker to get back on their feet in comparison to the metro markets in the country. And hence, we are pleased to report that our operations are consistently improving towards reaching the normalcy. So on the circulation front, very, very happy to share that our circulation has witnessed month-on-month improvement from 78% in July to 81% in August and September. And currently, circulation is at an impressive 86% of the pre-COVID level. We are witnessing consistent circulation growth in all our markets. On the advertising front, as we had apprised you during the previous quarter, we witnessed major disruptions initially. But as the unlock measures began to unfold, our advertising revenues too have shown sequential improvement with revenues achieving 53% of pre-COVID levels in July, followed by 71% in August and a further 77% in the month of September, after adjusting for Navratri days in September last year. Currently, based on customer engagement, we are hopeful that the ongoing festive season, which is the October and November, will lead to further improvements in the coming months. The return of advertisers to the fold is evident by our ability to launch various mega edition, I'm going to talk about that in our major markets. As recent as this peak, we had our largest pagination at 144 pages in our Shimla edition. This was after Dainik Bhaskar published 130 pages in Bikaner, 128 pages in Indore, 72 pages in Bhopal, 80 pages in Ahmedabad and Raipur, and 60 pages in Ujjain and Hoshangabad. It was a site to see how these level of paginations were even printed and distributed in the morning. And I must share that this is -- we've broken all records of pagination in our own markets, and of course as well as in the entire industry. Further, incremental growth of economy in all markets are evident from September month's GST collection, registering growth of 10.3% Y-o-Y, which was significantly higher than the all-India growth of only 3.9% Y-o-Y. On the operating cost front, we are helped by the newsprint rates, which continued to be soft at INR 35,500 in quarter 2 FY '21. We expect the newsprint to be further correct by about 20 -- about 1% in the coming quarters. As mentioned earlier, our other operating cost efficiency measures continue to be effective, and they are all helping us in safeguarding our bottom line. Our Print business operating profit has improved to INR 184 million in July and was in excess of INR 300 million in the month of August and September, with the EBITDA margins for these months at about 25% plus. We are witnessing signs of revival in all our markets in the upcoming festive season. Our teams are very well prepared to capitalize on this opportunity, and we hope to achieve -- we are all out there to achieve the pre-COVID business performance in the months to come. That's all from our side, friends. My colleagues and I will now be happy to respond to your questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Yogesh Kirve from B&K Securities.

Sir, if you can talk about how the print ad revenue are recurring. So if you could briefly talk about what was the trend month wise in the second quarter? And how are things looking in the third quarter? Any sense of when we could be back to the pre-COVID normal? So what are our expectation at this point of time? That's my first question. I will come back with second question after you answer this.

Thank you for this question. So we are happy to inform you that in the month of September itself, we were almost at 77% of our last year September adjusted for the Navratra's 4 days. Let me give you the month and number. July, we were at 52; August 72; and September, with these 4 days of Navratra, if you remember last year Navratra started 2 days, 29th and 30th September was Navratra, so 2 days of pre-Navratra and Navratra 2 days, if I adjust that, we are at 77% in the month of September. And we believe that in the month of October, November because of the festival season, we should be able to improve upon on this number.

So that's quite helpful. Sir, my second question is regarding -- so I think there was pretty good control over the cost. I mean, despite this revenue weakness, our EBITDA margins are up on Y-o-Y basis, the consolidated -- EBITDA margins. So I mean -- so how much of this cost savings are sustainable going ahead? And if we are back to say 90% -- 80%, 90% of the revenues, of the pre-COVID levels in terms of the advertisement, could we go back to our EBITDA margins of like closer to 30%, at 80%, 90% ad revenue recovery? So it looks like based on the current cost base. So if you could just confirm.

With due permission of yours, I would like to first of all compliment the entire team of DB Corp on the fantastic job done on the cost savings side. Because if you remember, we had indicated to you that we are looking at a cost saving what we have planned, around INR 125 crores in the whole year, right from April to March. And I'm happy to announce that we have achieved this number in first 6 months itself. So I think that's a fantastic job done by the entire team at DB Corp. Now going forward, certainly, we are looking for another 6 months to have some further more cost savings coming our way. And we strongly believe that for the next year, which is '21/'22, almost 60%, 70% of this cost will be saved even in the year '21/'22 going forward.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Ketan Chawla from JM Financial.

My question is regarding the circulation levels that we've reached back to 86%. Sir, just wanted to understand the remainder 14%. Are these in certain specific sub pockets of the markets or certain regions? And how long do we expect for these 14% also to come back so that we're closer to 100% odd circulation levels?

Yes. So what is happening, the number 86% is not across all through. Some markets are higher than 90%, 95% and some are at 76%, 78% also, depending on the impact of COVID and the area restrictions in those markets. So -- and I would say around 5%, 7% copies are the one, which are the cash sales point of the sales and all that, which are yet to come back. So we are hoping that with every passing month, we should be able to improve couple of percentages. So let's hope in next 3, 4 months' time, we should have this entire copy back to us.

Sure. And just related to that, one more question on the advertisement recovery. So wanted to understand, are we seeing a broad-based recovery in the advertisers? Or are we seeing only a certain specific group or certain sectors which are leading this recovery in advertisement, and the other sectors are still on the sidelines in terms of their ad spends?

So let me divide the advertising revenue in multiple segment for ease of understanding. So first of all, as you know, almost 65% of advertising comes from the retail and 35% from the corporate national advertisers. So in the retail, we are already -- if I see the last quarter, Q2, retail, we are up by -- back to almost 70%, 72%. While the national advertiser are still at the range of around 50% over there. That's the broad segment. Furthermore, if we go by the categories as such, so what we have realized that categories of education, automobile -- month wise. So because what is happening when we look at the Q2, July, August, September, frankly speaking is the wrong comparison because July still we had lockdown. August, was still not in great shape. September was a better month. So if I look at the comparison of the growth, in September, the automobile started really gearing up a lot. So that's one advantage. Even education, because the season got delayed, the results got delayed, so the education billing came in the month of September and some money came in the October month also. So all the segments are responding well. One typical problem what we are facing is that the long tail is creating a problem, which means in a particular category, the bigger clients are back to business, but the smaller clients are yet finding it difficult to come back. Either some of them are facing a cash flow problem or some of them are not very sure of the response of the market going forward. So they are holding back. So we are hopeful that in this season, the sale is going to come back. Recently, today only the central government has announced a bonus for their employees, some INR 3,500 crores will come in the market in terms of more money in the hands of people. So I think that all will give the confidence in the market for the sales more and this long tail will also start responding.

The next question is from the line of Himanshu Upadhyay from PGIM India Mutual Fund.

Congratulations on decent results, or good results. At least margins are coming back in the print space. The question was, if we see some of the larger companies, FMCG and where the results have come out, we are still seeing the A&P spend reducing only, okay? So the growth or whatever we have achieved, how much would be from the existing customers? And how much would be from new customers? Or are we seeing -- are we having to make extra efforts to get new customers? And how are you seeing the national -- the large companies, which is 30% of revenue you stated earlier, which is -- because the -- yes?

We don't have any -- largely, by and large, in the entire revenue base, except 1% or 2%, there would be hardly any new customer. Because this is not a time for any new customer to come and launch a product or start at looking at the market afresh. This is entirely based on the regular customers, in the regular categories of automobile, FMCG, education, real estate and all that. They are the ones those who are responding back. As I told you, the retail clients are responding much faster. Real estate is showing very good growth in most of the markets. I would -- when I say growth, means comeback. Similarly, the health care and pharma sector is coming back pretty well. Jewelry is one sector, lot of market, which has come back very, very efficiently and with a bang in few markets. So I think it's a mixed basket all across. But as I said in most of these categories, the big clients are firing, but the long tail guys are still thinking.

And when you say the large corporate, which is 30% of revenue, what all gets included in that? Means...

So any advertiser who's nationally advertising's based out of any of those metros, they are the ones. And -- but that also, I would say, in the month of September, October, we are seeing them also to be firing a lot.

And can you throw some light on your radio business? Month-on-month, is it recovering or you -- how are you seeing on that business? Means, is it back to normal? And which of the business, Print or Radio, you think would come earlier to the pre-COVID levels both on revenue and profit, just your expectations and how it is also doing?

So Radio market, the metro markets are where most of the radio companies operate, they are still down by about -- they have recovered by only 70%, 75% in terms of volume. Our markets are back to about 90% advertising volumes. Our yields are about 25%, 30% lower. So we are at a recovery of about 60%, 65% in Radio. And we are seeing a very sharp recovery there in the festive months. And we are hopeful that the next 6 months, we should be able to level out the last year's performance in Radio as well. And as far as your question about which will come back faster, Print or Radio? I think both are going hand-in-hand. So we are hoping that the number in terms of coming back would be almost similar.

The next question is from the line of Depesh Kashyap from Equirus.

Sir, I have a question on your cost savings. Sir, last quarter, as you talked you guiding about INR 115 crores savings in other expenses. Now, sir, what is the revised target?

So we internally decided a target, and we are working on it. I would not like to give you a revised target. But I can only say that whatever we committed for the year, we achieved in 6 months' time. So obviously next 6 months' time, there will be extra efforts happening for some saving.

Okay. Okay. Understood. And sir, what was the guidance you gave on the newsprint, I missed your initial remarks?

So the newsprint is at INR 35,500 in the Q2. And we believe, from here it will go down by another 1% or so in the next quarter itself, which is Q3.

And you also have an inventory of 150 days, right? So that is already there.

Yes. Yes.

Okay. And sir lastly, can you help me with the average copies that you sold in this quarter? And what was the average realization?

So the average copies sold, frankly speaking, I'm giving you the average number, but we are living life on a weekly basis. So this average of 3 months suddenly makes us look slightly not comfortable, but still I'll share with you. So average copies in Q2 comes to 42.68 lakhs copies. Yes? But I would request don't go by average because this is a July, August, September average. And as you know, our circulation in the month of July was 77; August was 76; September was 77, 78; and now it has come up to almost 85. So numbers are increasing. So I would say don't go by -- just by that average.

And sir, the average realization, INR 2.6. It is still around that?

INR 2.72. It has improved over last year, sir. Because in some markets, we have taken a small price increase in the cover price in few markets.

The next question is from the line of Pavneet Singh from Skyline Equity Managers.

I just wanted to know, like, what is the current pagination which we have seen over the last quarter? And as on day, like, do we have any target of cutting down on those news articles or clippings, which would like help us prevent in the -- the expense of raw material? And one more thing is like the raw material cost has almost like halved over the last year. And the circulation revenues are like just down by around 20%. So what kind of price hikes do you envisage over the next ensuing 6-month period? As we like had gone through the conference call of another company, your competitor, and they said that you were like -- they had interaction with different competitors, and they decided to aid each other during the tough times. And so that unhealthy competition of dropping the cover prices has almost abated in every market.

Okay. So sir, let me first of all answer your first question that are we looking at page reduction. Frankly speaking, I want to increase number of pages. And not only me, the entire team of DB Corp want to increase the number of pages because increased number of pages means more advertising and more revenue. Okay? So let me give you the average. Our September month average last year was 22.7 pages, and this year was 18.25 pages. But as we speak, in the month of October, last year, we were at almost 21 -- 21, 22 pages; this year, we are already at 19 pages average. And we are targeting that we should be able to achieve the last year pagination. Now please understand when I'm saying last year pagination should be achieved means more advertising has to be achieved. So that's our focus. That's what we want to do. There's no point saving pages by reducing the content for the reader. Reader is paying. In fact, he's paying more than what he was paying earlier. So we should be happy to increase the number of pages for the reader. That's one. Second thing, as per the newsprint price is concerned, last year in the Q2, we were at the price of -- on an average of around INR 39,300, INR 39,400. This year, we are at INR 35,500. So around 10% saving over the last year same quarter. I think you mentioned that the price is almost half. So I think you are considering price is half considering the quantity being reduced because of the number of pages in circulation. But if you look at the price-wise, we are only 10% reduced over the last year same quarter as such.

The circulation is broadly down by around 18% to 19% in terms of the pagination and in terms of quantum, if it is down by say around 23%...

Cost has gone down, the price has not gone down, sir. The price of the newsprint has not gone down. The price has gone down by 10%. The overall cost of newsprint has gone down because of the price and the number of pages, and the circulation.

Okay. And like do you envisage increasing the cover prices as already there are elections in Bihar. And you have almost like experimented there for almost 18 months to boost up your circulation. So is it the right time to levy increment on that?

We have done some price increase of, say, INR 5 on a monthly basis in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. We have increased around some INR 6, INR 7 in Punjab. We have increased around INR 10 to INR 12 in Rajasthan. And Bihar also, we are looking at some similar range in these lines only.

And do you like look forward to meet the inflation target by increasing it incrementally over the next, like every year?

Not exactly. If my revenues from the advertising is going to support me and the newsprint size continues to stay soft, and if I'm able to take care of my other expenses and my EBITDA margin goes beyond what I've been looking at last year, then I don't want to unnecessarily tax my readers.

So how much do the cash we have as on date on our books?

One second, sir. In the month of September, the cash and bank position is around INR 103 crores. And we have reduced -- this has reduced because we have already paid CC limit of INR 81 crores, which we took in the month of, I think, April.

The next question is from the line of Anuj Sharma from M3 Investments (sic) [ investment. ]

Congratulations for a decent set of numbers. My question is over the past few years and post COVID, how do you see the categories evolving? I mean, do you see some categories going off and some new categories coming into the print for advertisement, just your thoughts on that?

Frankly speaking, what advantage we have seen in this COVID time that FMCG who was not a great advertiser in print has started coming back to print. So we believe that this may take -- become an advantage for us that we can -- since the FMCG category experimented with print, so there would be a possibility of this category staying with the print, though the number is still not very big, but whatever. And other categories, we are yet to see any of the new category coming into the print. But good thing is that the existing categories of automobile and education, real estate, they all are decent now.

All right. All right. Also, when we look at metro editions of some large papers, we see a lot of ad through the jackets and cover jacket, or power jackets so are they called. In the regional markets also, are these form of ads very prevalent? Are they increasing? And can you share what proportion of revenues would come from jackets and cover jackets?

I won't be able to give you the exact breakup of the revenue of the jackets. But I'm saying whatever jacket comes in the national market, I'm proud to say, almost all of them are also with us in the Indian languages also.

Okay. But are they prevalent -- as prevalent as in the metros as in the regional markets, the...

The only difference what I see in the metro paper that beyond the jacket is hardly any advertising inside. Fortunately, in our paper, apart from jacket, there's enough advertising inside also.

All right. All right. Also, when you talk about these mega editions, large editions, 100-plus pages, are these pure branding exercises? Or do they have a disproportionate ad-to-edit ratio in the sense that the content would be so much, but a lot of ads are filled. Just your, I mean, -- and would this continue? Or this is just onetime buzz sort of brand building exercise?

Let me explain you the concept of mega editions. So the mega edition concept is to generate revenue. Because in a particular market you go and announce because of my anniversary or because of particular reasons and all that, you say, okay, we want to create a mega edition. You go and create a confidence in the advertiser. And you suddenly go and tell advertiser, there are 80 people coming on board with a half page or a full page and all that. How about you? And they all join hands together and they come in the paper. So the prime objective is revenue. At the same time, to create a reader delight also, so that the paper from editorial point of view should be fantastic. It should become a collectors -- like edition itself. Like I was talking, we got a lot of feedback from our readers. Today only somebody from Shimla called me because Shimla had 144 pages. And he said, sir, in the last 2 days, I'm not able to finish your paper because there's so much to read in the paper. So I'm happy about the readers response also. So this mega editions are serving all the purpose. They are creating confidence in the market. They are also giving the revenue to the particular edition and the readers delight. And we would like to continue this depending on the readers response and the advertisers' response.

Okay. And when you see the festival pipeline, you feel that post this, there might be a life that people who wanted to create an ad once the festives are over. Do you see any sense -- you can throw into the post -- the festives are yet to begin, but just your thoughts as to post this there could be a lull in ad or that seems to sustain?

Okay. Honest answer to this, right now, the entire team is focused on the festive, that we must achieve the numbers in the festive. And we will handle post festive when it comes to. So right now, there's no -- we are not really putting much time on the execution level.

All right. And my last question is the new regulation of 26% FDI cap on digital aggregation. Can you just throw -- can you just -- your implications of how this will help or maybe be useful for the Print business?

See we are already at 26% FDI as per the Government of India regulation. And now this regulation has come that anybody else who's into the news business in terms of aggregation and all that, they all need to comply at 26%. So yes, that's it. I think they need to comply to that regulation.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Himanshu Shah from Dolat Capital.

Congratulation on decent set of performance. Sir, just a couple of bookkeeping questions. One, our job book revenue has declined quite significantly. Anything specific to read over there? If I exclude other income, then it is a little bit negative during this particular quarter.

Job income used to be actually the publication of some company's balance sheets, some company's annual numbers, magazines, a couple of posters on the cartons and all that. Since because of lockdown, most of the magazines got shut down, people -- and the balance sheet decided to go online, so that's the reason there's a decline. And we are hopeful that maybe next quarter onwards, they should see some revival on that.

Okay. Fair enough. So it's fair to assume that INR 35 crore, INR 40 crore quarterly run rate that we were running at, it may take much longer?

It looks like.

Fair enough, sir. Sir, second question, you just highlighted that advertising volumes are at 90%, 95% level and yields are at 20%, 25% lower. Did you meant this for radio or it was for print?

Radio. This is for radio, sir.

And what about print, sir? If you can give similar breakup?

So frankly speaking, in print, we don't go by the volume parameter for simple reason because in radio, they have a limitation of volume. So they know they cannot go beyond 100% because they have 24 hours fixed. While in print, I can modulate it from 12 pages to 100 pages, 144 pages actually. So that's the reason we don't go by that number. So just to help you understand, in the month of September, if I take those Navratra days out, 4 days out, we were at 77% of our last year number.

Okay. Fine sir. That number you just called out for all the 3 months, and that was very helpful. So sir, just trying to dissect this 77%. Is it fair to -- because our circulation is also in terms of overall down and pagination is also down, so is it fair to assume that -- and assuming the ad-edit ratio would have been maintained, then the volumes for advertising or the number of print -- pages printed for advertising would have also been lower? And so is the yield partly?

Sir, the ratio stays as it is. Last year also, we were at around 28% of the advertising and 72% of editorial ratio. This quarter also we are at same number. Because we have to ensure that our reader is getting the same quantum of reading material what he was getting earlier.

Okay. Okay. And sir, lastly, if you can help us, what are the initiatives we are taking specifically to bring back the advertisers? If you can just call out a few it would be helpful, means that we must be trying to get back. One, you called out this mega edition. Anything else, if you would like to call out specifically?

Yes, I think everything possible written in the books or told to us by any consultant or thought by ourself, everything has been -- we've been trying to implement everything possible. We are not under any region that people know enough or we know enough. We are seeking advice from various sectors also. We are meeting -- physical meetings also wherever possible and where there are not, then meeting through the virtual meetings to understand the requirement of the clients, taking out different -- like we used to do the real estate mela. Awas Mela what we used to call them. But now there's no physical mela. We are doing virtual mela. So everything possible whatever we can think of or can implement we have been doing everything possible. And that's the reason you are able to see this number. And I'm sure, but there is further more to learn. And we are always open for learning, and we've been talking to our advertisers, and other people also to help us understand that how can we improve more.

Sir, just 2 -- 1 or 2 more questions. You just called out FMCG has started coming back to print. Anything -- any further read-through from there when the numbers are not like -- any -- why probably they are coming back? And can this category grow very significantly? Because I think so on digital and especially on TV, it's a very, very large category. So can there be...

I think FMCG came to the print because in last 2 months, most of them also wanted to announce certain price benefits because they realized the customer in the market is looking for the best price available. And print is the best medium to announce the price benefit and these schemes as such. So most of the FMCG companies, whom we saw advertising with us, were doing the price announcement -- benefit announcements. And the way it looks like the market has now become very price conscious, they may continue doing so.

Okay. And sir, just lastly, sequentially, our circulation has increased quite significantly. While I don't have the exact averages for both the quarters, but you called out that this quarter is somewhere around 77%, 78%. But the revenue growth is just 10%. So is it due to annual subscriptions that customers would be having prima facie on account of that reason?

Yes and also cover price increased.

Sorry?

There's a cover price increase also.

No. I'm just trying to understand that if the circulation growth is so high, why is the circulation revenue growth only 10%, from INR 93 crore to INR 103 crore quarter-on-quarter?

No, no. Because if you see, last quarter, if you see the average, in Q1, we were at 70%; this quarter, we are at 77%. So there is a 10-point-some-percent growth.

The next question is from the line of Ketan Chawla from JM Financial.

My question is regarding the digital strategy. Have there been any material developments in terms of the digital platform as well as our monetization plans that you would like to share?

So we're happy to share with you that we are very steadily growing on the daily active users. Our focus, which we shared with you earlier, is on the mobile app to make that as a destination -- a premium destination for readers to come and consume our content and eventually build a very high-quality audience, which belongs to us. So that is growing very steadily. Even after the pandemic, the numbers haven't dipped down. We are steadily growing on the numbers. And also happy to share with you, our ratings are one of the best on the app store at about 4.2%. Our Gujarati app is rated at about 4.4 on the app store, time spent is in double-digit numbers minutes per daily active user. So we are pretty happy and also with the lot of effort that we have made on the content differentiation on the app for our digital user. So growing pretty steadily there.

And as far as the monetization of the -- of this opportunity is concerned, I think we need to give it more time across minimum threshold level of number of BAU and then take a call on that. I don't think we should be doing anything in a hurry there.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Sidhant Mattha from B&K Securities.

Sir, I just wanted to know, you gave a monthly breakup. So I got the September number for advertisement in print, what's it for July and August?

Sorry, I'm not able to hear you well. Can you use the handset -- headphone please?

Yes. Now I'm audible?

A bit. Yes.

Yes. So I'm asking, for July and August month wise print revenue, what is it to the pre-COVID level? So for September, you gave it at 77%. What's for July and August? I missed that numbers.

In July, the print ad revenue was 52%, August was 72%.

Okay. And secondly -- second question is regarding the promoter's pledge, as the shareholding isn't out, what is the percentage now as percentage of the share capital?

Yes. So it's around 26%, and it could have actually gone down further more. But because of the -- so since the price also went down, and because of that, we are able to just maintain that same 26%.

The next question is from the line of Himanshu Upadhyay from PGIM India Mutual Fund.

Yes. My question is on digital. Can you throw some -- not financial data or the financial numbers, but in terms of readership or how many customer -- or what is the addition of new readers? And again, on your app, how is the edition base...

Sir, I would request you to allow us some more quarters to give you those numbers because we've been really working strongly on that. But we can share one thing with you, that number is growing, and growing better than the peers in the industry. So -- and our rating is also improving, our time is also improving. So we are in a good shape there.

Okay. My small suggestion would be whatever improvement in public forum, whatever improvements, which you can share, if you can -- with press release, if you can share those data itself only, it would be helpful.

[indiscernible] number, for sure. Yes.

Yes, it helps because competitors will always be knowing it. But as shareholders, we would like to see how...

Certainly, we will give you the number, which is in the public domain.

Yes. So that would be helpful. And second question is, we have ceded newer markets for growth, okay? And -- emerging businesses, okay? What is your view further here on print, especially, not digital, in emerging markets. Are you looking for adding new markets? Or what would be the strategy? And does it at any point of time bother you that this medium, whatever we've given, say, 10 years down the line there is some amount of doubt of how large this medium would be, especially on the advertisement side because what we hear and what we see data, the advertisement pie for print is continuously reducing. So how would you plan and think about emerging or getting into newer geographies, especially through organic route?

Yes. So if you notice that in most of the markets, we have done in terms of circulation expansion in last 3, 4 years' time, and we have got the good results also of that. Now adding on any new geography is not much practical and viable in the current environment. So we will not be looking at that. But within the market where we are in, like whether it's Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar or all these markets where we are in, we will have to ensure that our readership further goes up in terms of gap with the #2 or #3, whatever they are at. So we are working towards it because that will help us to get the monetization rewarded through the advertising and advertising rates and all that. So we are constantly working on that, sir. Now looking at the long-term of 10 years and all that, I think company is preparing for it, that if there is a transition, then we have a digital platform to take care of the transition. So that's what we are working towards also.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Anuj Sharma from M3 Investments (sic) [ investment. ]

Yes. We had decent cash flows considering the challenges of Q1 and Q2. I mean we generated close to INR 86 crores. What is the outlook? And what is the focus area for the next 6 months? I mean, we'll never -- we'll not get close to the last year's numbers, but just what is the outlook and what is our focus areas on cash flows?

So our focus area on cash flow is to ensure that whatever cash flows we had on the last year basis, we should be able to -- we should achieve that number. So that's the focus and target. And in terms of utilization of cash flow, company has no avenues for any investment as such. So it will be obviously being -- now there's a dividend for the stakeholders. So yes, that's the understanding.

All right. And on an aggregate for 6 months, it comes out to INR 86 crores. Is it possible for you to give a breakup between Q1 and Q2, so we can get an accretion of Q2 in terms of cash flow?

I don't have it right now with me, but you can always -- we can always have you send that number through Mr. Prasoon Pandey.

All right. No problem. And my last question is our last year CapEx was around INR 46 crores. And this year, given the challenges also, we have spent INR 30 crores. So on CapEx, what is this CapEx? And do you think it will continue for the year forward or...

No, no. This is -- going forward, it'll be just a maintenance CapEx, nothing else.

That will be how much?

6 months, INR 17 crores, sir, we have already incurred. So maybe equal number going forward.

Okay. Okay. All right. So around the same number as last year, which is INR 46 crores, INR 47 crores for the year in terms of CapEx?

Yes.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Pavneet Singh from Skyline Equity Managers.

Yes. My follow-up question pertains to the pricing in the advertising revenue. Now altogether, we have seen that there's a decline of almost like 39% year-on-year due to the lack of the advertisers coming back to print. Now this kind of price damage, which we have seen in past 6 to 7 months' period, do we see any specific segment which we may take as a permanent damage to the pricing, which may never come back maybe in another like couple of years, maybe we have downsized the kind of pressure you used to have in the golden era of like couple of years back?

So I'm happy to announce that in other -- in no segment, we have taken that kind of price cut or the damage, which could not be repaired immediately. I'm very happy to announce that. In fact, that was a bit critical issue. We had lot of arguments with the advertisers on that front, and some kind of normal bargaining tactics by the agencies also. But we stood by our guns. And I'm happy that no such permanent damage has been done.

But seeing the enormous like pagination decline and the lack of advertising revenue, which is very evident by the almost like 40% less year-on-year advertisement revenue, it is evident that there must have been a significant price decline also in this past quarter.

There has been, but what I'd said that, as you mentioned that you wanted to check, is there any category where we have done some price damage, which will take some couple of years for it to come back. So nothing has been done like that. So for example, in a particular category, if I give a particular discount in the month of April, May, June, in the month of July, August, September, have we improved upon that or not? So for example, if I offered a person a discount of, say, 25%, have I reduced the discount from 25% to 15% or not? We have done that. So that clearly shows that this is not a permanent damage. This will be over in next maybe couple of quarters.

Okay. And what are the like feelers in this festive season, starting October, especially Navratras now?

So far so good. A couple of days were very exciting. So it's a mixed basket right now. I don't know, everybody wants to see how this happens...

I'm specifically asking with respect to pricing only.

Pricing, there's been improvement only, I would say. There's been improvement. For months of September to October, there's been an improvement.

Okay. Okay. And second question pertains to the education segment, which has taken a bigger hit because due to completely lack of any students going towards tutorials or schools. So how do you like plan to bring that back on track once -- like even now a dismally slow pace of tutorials and the schools opening up?

No. Let me give you a specific number to education. Education in last 2 -- in quarter 2 has shown a decline of 36%. Why? Because the results got shifted. So if I include those results in the month of October, then that decline would be hardly to the extent of around 15%, 18%. So it's not that bad.

And vis-à-vis last year, you mean?

Yes. So it's not that bad. And I think once the online -- offline coaching classes and the universities and colleges and all start, then we hope next year that this should be -- we should be able to cover this up because festival is a -- sorry, education is a time-bound business in the 2 quarters, which generally happens in the quarter 3 -- 4 and quarter 1.

And like do you feel that the automobile segment has over -- crossed the real estate segment, which used to be a very prime segment for DB Corp once?

Yes. I'm very happy automobile has responded very well, in fact, 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers, barring out 1 or 2 clients, everybody has responded very well. So we are very happy with the automobile segment response. And real estate is also doing very well in the local markets comparatively.

As there are no further questions, I would now like to 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 that we've responded to your queries adequately today. We'll be happy to be of assistance through our Investor Relations department headed by Mr. Prasoon Pandey for all your further inquiries. Take care and stay safe.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of DB Corp Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.