HT Media Limited (HTMEDIA.NS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Aaditya Mulani from the HT Media Group. I would like to welcome you all to our quarter 4 and full financial year '22/'23 earnings webinar. [Operator Instructions] I now hand over to Ms. Anna Abraham, Head, Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, Anna.

Thank you, Aaditya, and a very good morning to everyone. On behalf of HT Media Group, I welcome you to our earnings webinar to discuss the financial results for the fourth quarter and full year financial year '22/'23. On the call with me today are Mr. Piyush Gupta, Group CFO; Mr. Pervez Bajan, Group Controller; and members of our Investor Relations team. I trust you had an opportunity to go through the financial results of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited declared this Tuesday and HT Media Limited released yesterday. Kindly note that our remarks will track with the presentation on this Zoom webinar. This presentation, along with the financial statements, is available on stock exchanges and the Investor Relations section of our websites. We start with the cautionary statement. Kindly take this into consideration, as for practice, we do not provide specific revenue or earnings guidance. Moving on to this slide. It gives our Chairperson's comment on the performance of the company for the quarter, and I quote, "In the last fiscal, your company wintnessed a growth in its top line, which came after 2 pandemic impacted years that saw a broad industry-wide slowdown. As a whole, our business saw an improvement in the year despite concerns arising from sustained input cost inflation and supply chain bottlenecks. Geological strife hampered supply lines across businesses and impacted raw material costs, especially in the first half of the year. The second half of the year witnessed a relatively subdued festive season on account of sluggish retail spending but the year ended with an uptick in business sentiment in our key segments and a slight softening in raw material prices. On a full year basis, our Print business posted revenue growth on the back of an improvement in advertising as well as circulation revenue. The revenue of our Radio business has also seen robust growth, owing to sustained strength in FCT and improvement in non-FCT performance. Our Digital business performance was at par, and this business remains a key focus area for further innovation. Profitability remained subdued due to the elevated input costs led by newsprint, and business development expenses in the Digital business. Indian OTT space is one of the fastest-growing pillars of the media and entertainment industry. Hindustan Media Ventures Limited looks to tap this potential with the launch of OTTPlay.com, a platform which aggregates OTT content, which focus on abundance, convenience, personalization and affordability. In the current fiscal, we are focused on building on our growth momentum from last year as we navigate a larger macro environment as well as the evolving media ecosystem. As always, our endeavor is to be a source of credible news and engaging content for our audiences." Moving on to the agenda for the call today on Slide #4. We will begin with the performance update with the comments on our consolidated financials for the fourth quarter and full year financial year '22/'23. This will be followed by detailed remarks on our Print, radio and Digital businesses. We will thereafter open for a Q&A session. With that, I will hand over to Piyush.

Thank you, Anna. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. We'll be tracking the presentation here. As you can see on the first slide, we've got a consolidated financial summary. For the fourth quarter FY '23, our total revenue strapped to INR 494 crores as against INR 456 crores same period last year, growth of 8%. EBITDA is, however, substantially down 75%, primarily due to certain investments that we are making in OTTPlay and the elevated newsprint costs, which have hampered in this quarter. PBT margin, as a consequence, came to a negative INR 34 crores against INR 10 crores earlier. And net cash, however, still remains reasonably strong at INR 935 crores, which is a decline of 14%. On a full year basis, our revenues strapped to INR 1,862 crores, which is a growth of 11%. EBITDA, however, because of the same reason which plagued us in the fourth quarter came in at INR 13 crore, which is a sharp decline. PBT, therefore, came in at a negative INR 156 crores and net cash at INR 935 crores, which I've articulated earlier. There's some commentary given in the bottom of the screen. So if we may move -- just move on. Now if you go by business unit, we look at our Print business. On the Print business, our ad revenues for the quarter came at INR 269 crores, a growth of 8% with circulation revenue growing 12% at INR 60 crores. Operating revenue, therefore, at INR 374 crores, a 5% growth and operating EBITDA declined by 65% to INR 15 crores. On a full year basis, the Print revenue was INR 1,062 crores, which is a 12% growth. Circulation revenue at INR 236 crores, which is 18% growth. Operating revenue at INR 1,434 crores, which is 13% growth and operating EBITDA came in at a slightly negative INR 2 crores. Moving on. We break it into English and Hindi. On English, in the fourth quarter, our revenue grew 17% to INR 154 crores. On a full year basis, the growth was 15% at INR 588 crores. Circulation revenue at INR 16 crores was a growth of 64%. And for the full year, it was nearly doubling itself from INR 28 crores to INR 54 crores. Moving on, now we track Hindi. Hindi for the quarter, our ad revenues came flat at about INR 116 crores. On a Y-o-Y basis, it was a growth of 8% at INR 474 crores. Circulation revenue, again, flat on a quarterly basis. On a full year basis, there was a marginal increase of 5%. Looking at our Radio business, our quarterly revenues came at INR 36 crores, which is an 18% increase. Operating EBITDA, however, came in negative as opposed to INR 1 crores same period last year. Full year, however, was a very different picture. Full year, we saw our revenue soaring 42% at INR 144 crores as against INR 101 crores earlier, and operating EBITDA came in at INR 6 crores. Lastly, our Digital businesses in this -- in the HT Media Group remained flat with a top line of INR 32 crores and a bottom line of negative INR 22 crores for the quarter. On a full year basis, again, it was flat at INR 133 crores with a bottom line of negative INR 75 crores. With that, we come to the end of the presentation. We open the session for question and answers.

Thank you, Piyush. We will now begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Ranga Prasad.

Am I audible?

Yes, you are, please go ahead.

I'm an investor from Hyderabad. My name is Ranga Prasad. At the outset, let me say that I'm very disappointed with the financial performance of both HT Media and HMVL, particularly, HT Media. Earlier we have said, we were told that the poor performance was mainly due to a sharp increase in newsprint prices. But now there's been a decrease in newsprint prices also shipping costs have come down to 80% controlled. In spite of all this, we're showing steep losses both operationally as well as nonoperating loss. But I'm shocked at the nonoperating loss. Over INR 103 crores has written off this year due to write-off in a subsidiary and impairment of deposits given to intercorporate deposit. I like some light to be shed on these write-offs. In this case while there's been some turnaround in the Print business, on the Digital Media front and on the Radio front, we are seeing sharp losses. And until this turnaround, I don't see any possibility for the company to show a top rebound in profits. So I'd like you to give some roadmap as to when we can expect some turnaround in these 2 segments also. I'm also surprised that in the Digital segment, we're showing a very small investment of about INR 13 crores, but the loss is about INR 76 crores. So it looks as though we are showing all our expenses as a revenue loss. So shouldn't we be capitalizing some of these expenses as a capital item. Because we can expect a certain stream of revenues to flow-in in net figures. I'd like you to say something on that, too. Anyway, disappointed to the whole performance, I hope things will improve from now on.

Thanks for the question, Mr. Ranga Prasad, so much as you are disappointed, obviously, we're looking for better results ourselves. But let me give you a certain flavor of our results for the quarter and indeed for the whole year. You specifically mentioned about English. As you are aware, our English newspapers primarily they're in Delhi, Bombay and Chandigarh, apart from that, we do have presence in some of the cities. Now in places like Delhi and Bombay, though the newspaper prices, as I've already highlighted, are very escalated. You mentioned about the shipping cost, which has come down, but you have to understand that this is not a real-time impact, which comes to the P&L right away because there is some inventory, which has to be built up for continuing operations. So the impact of shipping costs and of course, the commodity cost, which has come down now, you will see in the subsequent quarters, that is absolutely a foregone conclusion, but it doesn't happen on a real time. But however, apart from just the input costs, 1 of the other big problems that has been plaguing us is on our yields. The pricing that we had pre the COVID in big -- if you talk about HT in big markets of Delhi and Bombay still hasn't come back. As a matter of fact, in places, it is short by 20%, 25%. Now that's really what is hampering our revenue and taking up with the operating leverage from the P&L. Now as we embark on the next fiscal year, and we've already completed now the month of May nearly there's a big program on yield improvement that we have put in place, which is -- which we are hoping to unlock the value and go back to our pre-COVID yields. The paper price is, of course, coming down, which you will see translating into EBITDA and therefore, PBT and PAT in the coming year. But with the revenue uptick, you will see the profitability come back to a pre-COVID at a very robust level. So I will just stop there. There were further questions you had asked about the Digital segment. I will ask -- request my colleague Anna Abraham to give you a color on those, Anna?

I think there are 2 questions. One was on the impairment and the other was on the Digital segment. First, addressing the impairment question, the impairment has -- is actually in the stand-alone results, therefore, it is not impacting the consolidated results at all. So that's the first point. And why does that happen? Because over time, on a consolidated basis, whatever has been the business performance of those underlying subsidiary has already got reflected. However, at a certain point of time, we also, on a stand-alone basis, have to take a fair valuation of the investments per se, and subject to that, the impairment has been taken. The critical reason Radio -- you mentioned Radio is in losses, but you would have seen that Radio performance have been consistently -- on quarter-on-quarter we've been reporting very, very healthy revenue growth. And for the full year also, it's north of 40%. And the Radio has improved substantially from the loss position of last year to a profitable position this year. In the current quarter, there is a marginal loss on account of one-off spend that we have incurred for a particular reconsulting arrangement that we had undertaken. Otherwise, the underlying business itself is profitable. Having said that, while there has been significant improvement in the Radio business because this was a 1 medium, which was slow in recovery post-COVID. But this year, we've seen that coming. We have seen volumes come back. However, like I said, recovery was slow, it was delayed by 1 year. While it's a fixed license business. So from the accounting and evaluation point of view, given the discounting and the period to which it gets discounted, extra, we had to take some impairment. But again, I repeat, it is not impacting consolidated results. It is only on the stand-alone results.

If I may just add on, Anna. Mr. Prasad, on the radio, your point is absolutely valid. Yes, we've taken an impairment in the stand-alone results, which is all consequent to our Radio performance. Though the Radio performance has substantially improved this quarter and the growth is close to 40%. But given the fact that impairment testings have to be done in this quarter, there is a substantial impairment, which has come. This is all on our Radio One. And with this and the growth that we are seeing in Radio, we are very hopeful that this is the last time that we have seen this impairment. And from here on, Radio will grow strength to strength. So I would like to give you a comfort that Radio, I think, has seen the worst of times. But you have to understand the background in which the FM radio business across has been impacted. If you look at various other radio operators, their profitability indeed has also been impacted. And this is 1 sector which is directly linked to the performance of various MSMEs. And what COVID did to MSMEs is taking a slightly longer time to recover, but we are very hopeful now that we have seen a 40% growth in this year. Next year, we will again have a stupendous year and profitable year on our Radio segment. Anna would you like to take the last question?

Yes. The last question was on the midstream segment. The revenue that you are seeing is only of the businesses that we earlier had, and therefore, that is why you're not seeing a substantial shift in revenue. The increase, substantial increase in costs that you are seeing is now because of the fact that OTTPlay, we launched as a new business line. And it has now been clubbed along with the Digital segment. You talked about capitalization. So we've been in various discussions over the last year. Talking about the fact that we are incubating a few businesses and not trying to come up with -- as and when we are on a revenue monetization plan, we will start reporting it as a separate segment. So this year, between all the experiments that we've had, we've now launched OTTPlay, and therefore, the coming year is the real year where we will start seeing the revenue monetization. And in the current year, the nature of the business and the arrangements do not allow us to take it in capitalization, and that's why we have transparently disclosed it as an operating cost. Piyush, if you want to add anything?

Yes. So Mr. Ranga Prasad, now that we have classified that into our Digital segment. Let me speak a little bit about OTTPlay. This is a business that has been in beta stage for about 6 to 9 months. And now since we have understood this space, we have decided to commercially launch down on this thing. What exactly is OTTPlay? As you understand, OTT is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the Indian media and entertainment industry. It is growing at somewhere between 18% to 20% as against other media properties, which are growing anywhere between 10% to 15%. If you look at subscription Video-on-Demand, that side is expected to reach about INR 16,000 crore to INR 17,000 crore by 2026, and it is growing at a very healthy clip. With that, we believe that all the demand drivers, the smartphones, the various peripheral devices, the smart TVs, et cetera, being in play, broadband being available to the masses and 5G being launched in India with this space is now ripe for aggregating. As you are already aware that various spaces, which have already been aggregated, you take a case of financial products, you take travel, various other places, food. Various of these places have been aggregated and running a very successful business. However, OTTPlay, which is growing at a very fast clip, is ripe for aggregation. We've been working in this place for quite some time. And now that we have got the proof of concept, we are investing behind this function, which is sitting in our Digital segment of the business, and you will see results coming out in this year. That's basically what I wanted to say about OTTPlay. Let me also give you a few points why we believe that OTTPlay will be successful. If you look at from a consumer standpoint, now from a consumer standpoint, consumers are very frustrated that they have to navigate across multiple platforms to watch. I mean OTT started in India about 10 years ago, but right now, there is a proliferation of multiple platforms and customers are struggling there. The recommendation of individual platforms are largely irrelevant because the customers' profile are not carried across the platform. So the genres, et cetera, are lost in 1 platform to the other platform. And with the subscription that people have to pay for individual platforms, it's a very costly proposition. We are trying to solve all these problems from a customer point of view by bundling multiple OTT and serving him on a single log-in, where his profile remains, the content that a particular customer wants to watch travels to him, and he gets at a very economical price. There are also problems on the platform side that we are trying to solve here. I mean, for every platform, the cost of content, the cost of acquiring customers, et cetera, is very, very expensive. Here because we are into a media space, and we are selling advertising and we are selling subscription, we will optimize that particular piece and drive some value. So that's what we are trying to do with OTTPlay, and that is the expense that you are seeing in the P&L.

Thank you, very much for a very detailed explanation on the Digital side. Now one thing that you've not yet addressed is the impairment of deposit written off about INR 51 crores. I hope it's a onetime write off and we're not going to see any further impairment in this Digital-Print deposits.

Yes. So when is addressing impairment, I was actually addressing both because both impairment in equity and impairment in corporate deposits is linked to the Radio business. It is -- so the business gets valued and whether we hold the investment in terms of equity or whether we hold it in terms of debt, both will get corrected base is an underlying valuation. And therefore, it is that Radio impairment itself, which has led to the impairment in the ICD as well.

The next question is from the line of Piyush Bangar.

Am I audible?

Yes. Please go ahead, Piyush.

My name is us from Piyush from Vijit Global Securities. And my first question is what is the newsprint prices right now? And do you see any further fall in the prices?

Yes, Piyush. So let me try and take this question. Currently, our newsprint prices are about INR 60,000 a metric ton. And as we are looking out next year, we are already seeing that softness happening. So we are very hopeful that these prices will come down about 10% to 15% from hear on. I'll let my colleague, Anna, to elaborate on that.

Yes, the INR 60,000 a metric ton is what we are looking for the running quarter. What we closed the quarter 4 is at about INR 64,000 per metric ton.

Okay. So that INR 64,000 is the average price of the newsprint of what Piyush...

We lost you, Piyush. If you could just repeat your question.

Okay. Okay. So my second question, am I audible right now?

Yes.

Okay. My second question is, what is the average price of newsprint in your inventory for this quarter and as well as for the whole year?

Okay. The consumption rate for the quarter is roughly at about INR 64,000. And in the next -- we think it will come down by about 7%, 8%.

Okay. Okay. So I have another question. My next question is, can you provide me the bifurcation of other income hedge along with the amount in FY '23?

If you could give us a minute.

Yes, please.

So the biggest component of this is the profits that we have made on sale of properties in the current year from the portfolio that we hold as part of our ad for property business. And that accounts for the major number here. As well as -- and because we manage some sale, some of the holding properties also saw MTM gains on that. So the other income is primarily the MTM gains on financial instruments in financial instruments and properties that we are holding.

Okay. So can you please share the percentages of the share of the profits from the property business and the other...

We couldn't get into such level of details, but it's broadly all on MTM gains on the financial [indiscernible] that we hold.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Yash R. Mr. Yash, you are not audible. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.

So I have a couple of questions. The first 1 is with regards to the employee cost that we are seeing in HMVL. It has gone down from INR 40 crores in the previous quarter to around INR 37 crores. So what's the reason behind this? I mean it's around 7%, 8%, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, it's not that much.

You're looking at quarter-on-quarter or Y-o-Y.

No, I said quarter-on-quarter. It has gone down from INR 40 crores to around INR 37 crores.

Yes. Yes. There is a onetime reversal in this quarter, which otherwise our employee cost is flat.

Okay. What would that be, if I can -- I mean, if you can just let us know what exactly that is because I think this has happened last year as well.

Yash, let me just give you a color on this thing. Most of the employees have a part of fixed and variable. And depending on the performance within a certain group, certain part of variable will be paid or will not be paid. So those true-ups happen typically at the period end. So this is something -- the magnitude of this might go up and down depending on the performance and has the payability of variable cost, but it will happen every quarter.

Sure. Okay. My next question is with regards to the return that we're getting on investments with the rates going up.

Yash, I think that's a great question. So let me give a moment. Now you're obviously sitting in the financial market. You know the last year, RBI did indeed raise the repo rates by about 2.5 percentage points, and you know how the bond yields tracked, et cetera. So last year was a very, very tough year and probably 1 of the tough years in the last decade that we have seen such a sharp gradient increase. So in that last year, our yields are approximately tracking the FD yields and we did not go beyond that. But as we step into this first quarter, we're already seeing the mean reversion happening as you've seen the bond yields are coming. Of course, we've churned our portfolio quite substantially, but you have to understand that you have to take care of the long-term, short-term capital gain requirements, et cetera. So our treasury is now, again, having substantial mark-to-market gains in the coming quarter. But last year, we have tracked close to FD yields only.

And what about this year?

The start has been very, very encouraging.

No. I mean, what's the number, if I can get that.

Well, number you will find in the printed results once we release out. I mean, treasury income is already sitting in there, but I think that math is very easy to be done. But as I said, it's close to the FD yields.

For current year as well? The previous year.

For current year, I just told you. Current year -- are you talking about FY '24, aren't you?

No, I'm talking about FY '23.

FY '23, close to FD yields. That's what I said.

The next question is from Sakshi Chhabra.

This is Sakshi from [indiscernible] Investments. I wanted to just understand that what is the total expenditure we have done so far on OTTPlay? And going forward in the following years, what sort of expenditure will be incurred on that platform?

Well, Sakshi, as I was just articulating to 1 of the earlier participants earlier on, for the last 6 to 9 months, OTTPlay has been in a beta stage. Hello?

Yes, sir.

Yes, you can hear me, right?

Yes. Yes.

Sorry. So as I was just articulating the last 6 to 9 months that we've been in the beta stage -- okay. Yes. So look -- Anna, would you like to hop in?

The most of the significant change that you're seeing in the cost line is on account of OTTPlay. And as Piyush said, we're going to be investing behind this business quite a bit. So we don't give forward guidance on specific numbers. So we won't be able to share what the numbers would be, but this is the investment of the future, and we'll be investing on that.

Okay. But in the previous year, can you quantify what was the total expenditure you would have done on this platform?

We wouldn't want to get into specific details. Maybe you could just go by the trends on the spend variation as we experienced.

Okay. All right. Also, can you explain a little more as to how the platform will work? Like what would be the -- your revenue drivers for this platform?

So Sakshi, let me take that question. The way the platform is going to be -- we're going to be bundling a substantial amount of OTT plays into a single log-in proprietary app called OTTPlay, which we have already tested for the last 6, 9 months. We've already closed our content arrangements with quite a few major OTT platforms and some of the other conversations are in work at this point in time. And we've already taken this product to market in some micro markets where we're already reaching out to customers who have either multiple OTTs or who are currently -- who don't have OTTs and still watching content, let's say, on a cable TV and would like to get access, we are offering them on a bite size as well as annual package. I mean, monthly packages and annual packages where they can subscribe to OTTPlay, get access to 15, 20 OTTs and watch that content seamlessly across the platforms without going into those platforms for a subscription, of course. So right now, the big effort that we are doing is taking the product to various end consumers, and that is what we are doing.

Okay. And can you like there was as to what would be the price point that you would be launching this at?

So multiple price points, Sakshi, depending on users. Because there are different set of users we are addressing, there are different channels that we are going through. So a monthly OTTPlay subscription can range anywhere between INR 200. And thereafter, depending on where we are getting that user from. And so it starts with INR 200, goes all the way up. But suffice to say the whole will be much less than the sum of parts. So if you have to get those OTTs by subscribing to them, you'll be paying a fraction of that.

Right. I understand that. But in terms of the content, will you be able to -- like will you just be providing some part of the content that is available, say, like on a Netflix or an Amazon Prime? Or will they be able to get access to the entire sort of content that would have been available had they subscribed directly?

So once the OTT is on our platform and it's bundled into OTTPlay, you will get access to the entire content on that particular OTT without anything.

Understood.

The next question is from Naveen Jain.

So this is Naveen from Florintree Advisors Mumbai. I had a question on OTTPlay, which entity will this business sit in?

Naveen, it's sitting in HMVL.

Yes. Is it a subsidiary or it's part of your stand-alone HMVL entity?

Part of our stand-alone HMVL entity. It's a division of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited.

Okay. Understood. Okay. Obviously, you're not sharing the exact amount of investment that you have done. But going by what we can understand about the trend, can we expect similar kind of investment in FY '24? Or given that you'll be launching it in a major way this year, the expenses could be on a higher side?

The expenses could be higher, Naveen. But as it was in beta, there is no revenue to back up the investment. So now though the investments will be higher but revenue will be substantially higher. So investment to that extent will be mitigated. That's the point I was trying to say when I said it was in a beta stage, and now we are taking it to market after doing the proof of concept that we have finished now.

Fair enough. And 1 thing was -- so let's say, something like if I understand correctly, Sony LIV or ZEE5 is already on the platform. How does the arrangement work with them in terms of -- what do you pay them for aggregating the content on your platform? Is it like a revenue share out of the subscription income that you earn? Or is it some sort of a fixed commitment that you have? How will it work out?

Naveen, the latter. There is no revenue share here. It's like a fixed commitment, but because these are deeply negotiated contracts, for a substantial period of time, there is a long-term contract on a fixed commitment that is done and there is no revenue share built there.

Okay. Like when you say long-term contract, what kind of like a 3-year, 5-year kind of contract, is it?

Well, look, multiple OTTs as I said, multiple negotiations are happening. Sony LIV and ZEE5s are already there on the platform. Those 2 contracts are also different. So there are multiple agreements that we are doing, which we believe will help our economic model, the way we are carving it out, but there's no standard design to a contract.

Okay. Understood. And obviously, this is like a fixed commitment. So it will be a fairly -- I mean, this year because last year we were hardly operational for 6 months or so. So this year, this all kind of this fixed commitment will come in, whereas revenue will take time to build, right? I mean that is a fair way to think, right?

Well, yes and no. We are already in the market. On the revenue side, as I said, we've started this journey now. So investments will step up, but the revenue will step up as well. Maybe there's a lag of 1 month or 2, but it's not going to hold on for 6 months or something like that. 1 month here and 1 month there can happen, but not more than that.

Okay. Understood. So just 1 -- again, a further question on this. So when I look at your app, as OTTPlay app, let's say, a monthly subscription, 1 of the plan is about, let's say, INR 299 month. And below that, you're saying market price is INR 3,607 per month. So effectively, you're saving INR 3,308 per month. When you say INR 3,607 per month, where you're basically adding up the monthly subscription of all these platforms, which are -- which will be available to me effectively, right?

Yes. But that's the only way to do it, right? So if you have to access all those platforms on a subsequent bundle, that is what you're saying, you're absolutely right.

Yes. It seems like great value with you.

Thank you.

Okay. So just 1 final question from my side. On the Hindi Print side, right, so last year, on an overall basis, seems to have been quite subdued, right? So what is the outlook we have for the coming year?

Well, let me answer that question in 3 parts. Of course, the newsprint price or the commodity cycle coming off, I think we've all discussed. So that will obviously be good on the cost line. But on the revenue side, Naveen, 1 big thing that happened and was that a lot of copies got dropped out during COVID. And the race to build them up is a very slow but a very hard working model, which we are on. So this year, we will be doing a major impetus on building back our copies and substantially good copies in the markets that we believe have a good revenue potential. And that journey we are already on. And on the ad revenue, as I articulated earlier, our plan of trying to shore up our yields is definitely on. So those 2 drivers, building up the copies and working on your advertising yields are the 2 big factors that we will be driving this year.

Understood. Okay. So maybe a 10% kind of growth will be conservative or you would be aiming for a higher number? I know you don't give exact guidance, but just as the way to think about.

Naveen, I would like to give that guidance. But as I said, in a very tough market, building copies in a very competitive market, and trying to push yields up going close to the pre-COVID levels. I think it's a tough task. We are all at it. Now will that yield 10% or 5% or 20%, I would like to [indiscernible] a guess on that.

The next question is from Yash R.

So since we are on the topic of copies, where are we on the recovery versus pre-COVID for our HT English and HMVL?

So Yash, I would say broadly, let me just look at the numbers. Anna, you want to call on the numbers? Okay. So while Anna is pulling out the numbers, Yash, let me just give you 2 trends that happened during the COVID. Of course, when the copies were dropping, they were dropping across. But when the copies are building up, some copies will never come back. Some copies are coming -- readers who are taking 2 copies are taking 1 copy, so they are exercising their choice there. And of course, new readers are far and few in between. So at this point in time, if I have to talk about copies between English and Hindi, in Print English versus the pre-COVID, we are at...

Overall, we are at about 15% of the pre-COVID.

Of the pre-COVID. 15% below. I mean, we are 15% down versus the pre-COVID number. And this is the -- these are the copies that we are trying to build on.

Okay. And what about the Hindi business, HMVL?

This is overall.

Okay. But I mean, English you said, 85. So HMVL is also going to be at the same level?

So look, I mean, English is slightly more sharper. So English copies are down 20%, 25%. Hindi copies are not so down so on and so forth, but average number is about 15%, 17%.

Okay. And now for example, Bombay being a good market, especially for English what's the subscriber base percentage as to how many of us or how many of the subscribers are on an annual subscription rather than on a daily basis.

Look, in Bombay, most of our copies are on a subscription basis, which are long-term subscription. Unlike Delhi, thereby, we have a lot of line copies as well. But if you have to understand the model, this model is now slowly, which was, let's say, until about 5, 10 years ago, pure line copy model, as we call it on a monthly subscription is now gradually shifting across all publications, all markets to be a subscription model. So Bombay, I would say, 60%, 70% of our copies or slightly more than that are on subscription model. Delhi is lesser, but then the model is shifting towards subscription now. But the good news there is subscription prices are now gradually inching up because when the ad revenues came under pressure, all the publications, including ourselves, we have taken pricing action on the copy side and the subscription price side.

Okay. And what about Pune? We had launched some time back?

Yes. Well, Pune is tactical market for us. Pune is a bolt-on market to Bombay. So Pune market serves a purpose for a Bombay advertiser because those are very, very adjacent markets. So Pune, we don't look at it as a stand-alone market at all.

Okay. Just 1 more question with regards to the new age digital business that we have started reporting since last year, by last year, I mean, FY '22. There were quite a few initiatives that we were hearing about, some of them being NFT and something on content as well. So where are we on that?

So we have been talking about that we are doing multiple initiatives. So yes, there is -- there is some bit on NFT, et cetera, and all of that. But those are all small at this point of time, and nothing is real line of business. So the 1 way -- after all the experiments, the 1 major line that we are betting now is on OTTPlay, which we are, therefore, investing behind as well.

But then those initiatives are still on the cards, right?

Well, look, those things on NFTs, et cetera, that we had started reporting or telling about were really experiments at that point in time. We were just testing out the proof of concept, but I think as a business segment, it will be OTTPlay. And I don't think NFT is a business segment at all.

With this, we come to the end of the Q&A session. If you have any further queries, please reach out to the Investor Relations team. Our contact details are given in the investor presentation and are also mentioned on our websites. I now hand over to Piyush for closing remarks.

Thanks for joining the call, and I know it's been a very, very tough quarter. But as we just had a very good discussion around various levers of the business, which we think are all moving favorably, we should be in a position to report much more favorable quarters from here on. And I wish you all the very best, and thank you so much. Stay safe.