Info Edge (India) Limited (NAUKRI) Q3 FY2026 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Once again, good evening, everyone. We are waiting for a minute to allow more participants to login. Vineet, we currently have 75 participants on the call. Over to you to get us started. Thank you.

Thank you, Anand. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Info Edge India Limited Quarter 3 FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us today from management, we have Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Vice Chairman; Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter and Managing Director; and Mr. Ambarish Raghuvanshi, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the detailed disclaimer included in the presentation for good order sake. Kindly note that this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over the call to Mr. Hitesh Oberoi for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, Hitesh.

Thank you, Vineet, and very good evening, everyone, and welcome to Info Edge's earnings call for Q3 of FY '26. As always, we will begin with an overview of our stand-alone financial performance followed by business highlights for each segment and followed with our commentary on the strategy for each business, and we will then take questions. For the stand-alone business in Q3 of FY '26, billings were INR 747 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 12% and revenue was INR 765 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 14%. Operating profit at a stand-alone level grew by 13% Y-o-Y to INR 297 crores and the operating margin stood at 39%. The stand-alone business generated cash from operations before taxes of INR 376 crores in Q3 of FY '26. The cash generation from the recruitment business was INR 373 crores. The non-recruitment businesses at an aggregate level generated cash of INR 11 crores in Q3 of FY '26. For the stand-alone business, in the first 9 months of FY '26, billings were INR 2,120 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 12% and revenue was INR 2,247 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 14%. Operating profits grew by 10% Y-o-Y to INR 815 crores, and the operating margin was 36%. The stand-alone business generated cash from operations before taxes of INR 848 crores in the first 9 months of FY '26. The cash balance of Info Edge including wholly owned subsidiaries at the end of December 2025 stood at INR 4,825 crores. Given our inherent financial strength, consistent cash generation and a well-capitalized balance sheet, the Board has approved an increase in the dividend payout to enhance shareholder returns while retaining adequate capital to support business operations, investments and potential strategic acquisitions, the dividend payout ratio has been revised to up to 65% of PAT, continuing our track record of progressively improving shareholder distributions with last year's payout at 39%. The Board has also approved a second interim dividend of INR 2.4 per share for the year. Moving on to segmental performance and starting with the recruitment business. Stand-alone recruitment billings grew by 11% to INR 548 crores and revenue grew by 14% to INR 575 crores. Recruitment billings, including Zwayam and DoSelect grew by 9% to INR 565 crores and revenue grew by 12% to INR 592 crores. The operating profit for the stand-alone recruitment segment improved by 15% year-on-year to INR 341 crores, and the operating profit margin was 59%. Cash generated from recruitment operations was INR 373 crores. In the first 9 months of FY '25, '26, the stand-alone recruitment billings grew by 10% to INR 1,564 crores and revenue grew by 14% to INR 1,675 crores. Recruitment billings, including Zwayam and DoSelect grew by 10% to INR 1,623 crores and revenue grew by 13% to INR 1,735 crores. The operating profit for the stand-alone recruitment segment improved by 12% year-on-year to INR 937 crores, and the operating profit margin was 56%. Cash generated from recruitment operations was INR 894 crores. The hiring environment remains uncertain. As evident from our JobSpeak index as well. Despite this backdrop, the business delivered close to 10% year-on-year growth in billings in Q3, similar to the growth seen in Q2. Billing for the technology, IT and BPM segment combined grew at 14% year-on-year. GCCs grew at 13%, recruitment consultants grew at 5% and all the other sectors combined grew at 2%. BFSI Retail, Infrastructure and Consultant segments witnessed softness in growth, whereas health care and manufacturing continue to grow in double digits. Naukri Jobseeker Services business reported INR 39 crores in billing, a Y-o-Y growth of 17% with a 59% operating profit margin in Q3 of FY '26. Naukri Gulf billing grew by -- grew to INR 34 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 19% with a 33% operating margin in Q3 of FY '26. JobHai, which are currently operating primarily on a premium model and is focused on select markets, maintain strong platform metrics and continue to grow revenue. On the Jobseeker front, the Naukri platform now hosts approximately 113 million resumes and added an average of around 20,000 resume daily during Q3 of FY '26. Marketing expenses were significantly lower in Q3 compared to Q1 and Q2 and were flat on a Y-o-Y basis in Naukri. We continue to invest in JobHai and other smaller businesses as they scale up monetization efforts. Therefore, the operating margins, we saw some moderation in Q1 to 53%, improved by 330 basis points to 56% in Q2 and further improved by 350 basis points to 59% in Q3, excluding JobHai the recruitment margins were around 62% in the third quarter. Moving over to the Real Estate segment. In Q3 FY '26, billings grew by a net 14% to INR 117 crores and revenue also grew 14% to INR 119 crores. Operating losses were INR 20 crores, whereas cash losses from operations were INR 10 crores in Q3 of FY '26. In the first 9 months of this year, billings grew by 15% to INR 334 crores and revenue grew by 13% to INR 344 crores. Operating losses were INR 63 crores and cash losses for operations were INR 27 crores in the first 9 months of FY '26. The secondary business performed well in real estate, while the primary segment remained relatively slower. We continue to gain fresh supply share across categories, including residential resale and rental as well as commercial spanning both the owner and broker segments, further strengthening our supply leadership. Live resale cum rental listings from brokers grew 41% year-on-year, while live new project listings increased 27% year-on-year during the quarter. Our investments in the platform supported additional gains in traffic share with a quarterly average at 46%, up from 44% in Q2. With consistent traffic share gains and accelerating response growth and mid-teens billings growth in recent quarters, we believe we have outpaced the market and continue to expand not just our traffic, but our revenue share as well. Moving on to the Matchmaking business. In Q3 of FY '26, Jeevansathi billings grew by 29% to INR 36 crores, and revenue also grew by 28% to INR 35 crores. The business incurred an operating loss of INR 2 crore and generated cash from operations of INR 5 crores in Q3 of FY '26. We acquired Aisle a few years ago, and the business has since made good progress. We now own 100% of Aisle and our reporting is performance alongside Jeevansathi as part of our matchmaking portfolio. Jeevansathi plus Aisle reported INR 46 crores in billing, a Y-o-Y growth of 31%, and the combined operating losses reduced by 60% to INR 4 crores in Q3 both businesses are operating near breakeven now. In the first 9 months of FY '26, Jeevansathi billings grew by 32% to INR 104 crores. And revenue also grew by 29% to INR 102 crores. The business incurred an operating loss of INR 1 crore and generated cash from operations of INR 11 crores in the first 9 months. Jeevansathi plus Aisle reported INR 132 crores in billing, a Y-o-Y growth of 31% with a combined -- and combined operating losses reduced by 64% to INR 8 crores in the first 9 months of FY '26. Jeevansathi remained focused on improving sales conversions and ARPU during the quarter. The market continues to be competitive with leading matrimony platforms, investing in marketing and offering higher than usual discounts. Aisle grew at 35% Y-o-Y during the quarter. And Arike, the Kerala app, Malayalam-focused app is growing at an even faster pace. Moving on to our education business. In Q3 of FY '26, billing was INR 46 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 4% and revenue grew by 3% to INR 36 crores. The business incurred an operating loss of INR 1 crore and generated cash from operations of INR 17 crores in Q3 of FY '26. In the first 9 months of FY '26, billing was INR 119 crores, a Y-o-Y growth of 7% and revenue grew by 14% to INR 126 crores. The business delivered an operating profit of INR 8 crores and generated cash from operations of INR 11 crores in the first 9 months of FY '26. The domestic Shiksha business continued to grow in billings, whereas the study abroad business witnessed softness in Q3. The AI-related impact is now very visible in the Shiksha domestic business and has led to a sharp drop in traffic. This will also impact billing growth over time. The business is strengthening its domestic counseling capabilities, try to drive higher conversions from client responses to student applications to mitigate the AI impact, it's pivoting its business model and -- but time will tell how this pans out. I would like to now take a few minutes to talk about how we are thinking about our growth strategy for -- across our businesses. Starting with recruitment. We believe Naukri's growth is driven by three variables: overall hiring volume, our share of hiring and revenue per hire. Hiring on the platform can be broadly classified into three different segments: premium hiring, CTC greater than 30 lakhs per annum, mid-level hiring CTC between 5 and 30 lakhs per annum and the value segment of CTC less than 5 lakhs per annum. Across these segments, we are working on increasing our hiring share and increasing our revenue per hire. In the premium segment, the overall market size is small, but growing rapidly. Our hiring share in this segment is growing faster. We are working on this through targeted premium offerings such as Naukri Top Tier, alongside verticalized premium job of boards like IIMJobs for management roles, for management hiring and hires for specialized technology hiring. Revenue per hire is structurally higher in this segment, and we see further headroom for improvement. If we are -- as long as we are able to strengthen our value proposition and if we keep gaining share. Beyond talent sourcing, the increasing demand for employer branding solutions on our platform is also supporting better monetization. In the mid-segment, volume growth is currently moderate. We are a clear leader in this segment and continue to gain share. We expect to further increase our hiring share through AI-led capabilities that enhance recruiter productivity and enable workflow automation with AI-REX remaining a key driver. Our focus here is also on improving revenue per hire through focus on job marketing, data products and scaling assisted services through AI plus human-led assistance. In the value segment, volumes are growing rapidly. However, digital penetration remains low and monetization is structurally challenging. Our hiring share is currently limited with JobHai expected to play an increasing role over the long term. In this segment, ARPUs are lower. Churn is high. Employers hire urgently, not periodically, and workers don't maintain resumes and look for jobs locally. Therefore, success head depends on building a platform that enables real-time labor matching while creating simple workflow solutions for the informal economy. Similar models have scaled effectively in markets such as China, where platforms built strong SME density and unlock meaningful growth. We view this as a medium-term opportunity that can contribute -- potentially contribute meaningfully to recruitment revenue over time, grow faster than the core business and benefit from the broader formalization of the economy. Beyond the core B2B business, our B2C offering is scaling well, delivering a CAGR of 20% over the last few years while improving profitability from 30% to 59% over the last couple of years. This comprises -- primarily comprises of two consumer offerings, Naukri360 that offers AI profile -- AI-powered profile, resume, interview prep and job discovery solutions. And Naukri Mini's, a high-quality short-form content feed that drives strong engagement by providing career insights. Driven by these initiatives, monthly active users have grown at a CAGR of 12% over the last couple of years and paid users as a percentage of MAU have risen from around 1.2% to 1.6% over the past year with a significant room for further growth. The revenue growth has been driven by the launch and rapid scale-up of Naukri360 that has led to two shifts. First being -- the first being transforming from an offline lead calling-based sales model to a largely self-serve online first model. Our online revenue mix has changed from 27% to 54% -- has moved from 27% to 45% over the last 12 months. The second shift is the embedding of candidate services delivery within product, leveraging AI and delinking scale from -- of bandwidth. With improving engagement, expanding monetization levers and continued product innovation, we believe this business is well positioned to sustain healthy growth going forward. On the international side, our Naukri Gulf business has delivered billings growth of 20% over the last few years, alongside a meaningful improvement in profitability, progressing from breakeven to an operating margin of now 33%. The platform extends the Naukri Playbook to the Middle East with localized solutions tailoring to regional hiring needs while building a strong on-ground presence and solid brand recall amongst both job seekers and recruiters. With healthy hiring momentum across these markets and has strengthened operating foundation, we believe Naukri Gulf is well positioned to sustain strong profitable growth going forward. Moving on to the real estate business. The real estate business spans multiple segments, new homes, resale and rental within residential, along with commercial, with new homes and resale comprising the majority of the market opportunity. Over the past 12 to 18 months, we have consistently expanded our traffic share by approximately 0.5% to 1% each month, reflecting steady execution and strengthening platform relevance. In the residential resale segment, daily free fresh supply has grown by 40% over the last 24 months, taking our share -- supply share to 50% in Q3. Response growth has nearly doubled over the last couple of years and grew by around 60% in Q3. In the new project segment, this is a large market, estimated at about INR 5,000 crores, including both digital and non-digital advertising spend. Our current share remains relatively modest with a meaningful proportion -- a portion being captured by horizontal platforms such as Meta and Google. And this presents a significant headroom opportunity for us. We are seeing some green shoots here, responses, which were -- response growth in this segment, which was flat last year, is now -- but are now growing at 30% year-on-year on our platform. We are strengthening our penetration and offerings in this segment, including the recent rollout of 99 shorts in the NCR market and Instagram style short video feed featuring project insights, restaurant reviews and curated content to drive deeper user engagement. The rental and commercial segments, while small today, are also seeing faster response growth on our platform. Sustained gains in supply, traffic and response, position us well for continued growth. These operating improvements typically translate into billing growth with a lag as customers increase spending after experiencing a better response and better quality of response over time, which in turn will drive operating leverage and cash flow generation. Moving on to the Matchmaking business. Jeevansathi, the business has delivered consistent momentum with 30% Y-o-Y billings growth over the last 7, 8 quarters and has progressed from operating losses of INR 120 crores a few years ago to now reach breakeven. We have emerged as a leader in the Hindi market -- in the Hindi-speaking markets with a 45% profile share, and we continue to expand our presence. Our focus remains on building a more dominant position in these markets, which should help drive higher monetization over time. We are also developing new products, leveraging gen AI and data science to enhance user experience and make the partner search process simpler, faster and more relevant. In the first 9 months, the Aisle business, which is an acquisition, also recorded INR 28 crores in billings, reflecting 30% Y-o-Y growth alongside a meaningful reduction in operating losses. In Aisle, our near-term focus is on product improvements to drive engagement, making the platform free for women has already contributed to a stronger participation and improved marketplace dynamics. In the Malayali market, we believe Arike is a leader in the dating space and has now been consistently growing at 40% year-on-year. It contributes substantially to overall Aisle revenues. This positions our matchmaking portfolio to sustain higher revenue growth while also contributing to overall cash flow generation in the future. Lastly, in the education business, to mitigate the AI impact and to grow the business, we are pivoting towards counseling and marketing services to diversify the model and build more resilient revenue streams. The study abroad segment is experiencing softness in select markets, particularly the U.S. and Canada. We are actively diversifying our offerings toward destinations such as the U.K., UAE and Continental Europe, while strengthening our presence in these markets to align with evolving student preferences and support -- to support future growth. A couple of minutes on AI. There are multiple schools of thought on how AI may reshape hiring and global trends may not -- but global trends may not fully translate to the Indian market given its unique hiring dynamics. Global recruitment models are primarily driven by job listings, but these have not historically seen success in the Indian market. Most of our revenue, as you know, comes from our database offering. While AI can enhance the workforce productivity and lower cost from a global context as economic viability in India is still unknown. If horizontal AI platforms were to expand into the hiring space, it could result in higher noise levels, including auto-generated resumes, PAM applications and low-signal candidates, potentially increasing the relevance of specialized, curated platforms like Naukri. How -- in recruitment, our position is supported by -- we continue to leverage AI to our advantage. In recruitment, our position is supported by structural strength such as large volumes of proprietary data, millions of daily interactions and deep AI and ML capabilities. And this is not just the profile data, which is easy to get, but all the behavioral data, the millions of interactions which happen on our platform every day, which other platforms may not have. These capabilities power our matching and recommendation engines, allowing us to develop -- deliver outcomes beyond the simple listings model. Therefore, Naukri is not a typical SaaS business. We are seeing encouraging traction in AI-REX, our Agentic AI-led workflow automation platform. It is already serving 100-plus clients and has closed 20,000 job mandates, significantly reducing candidate sourcing time. At Jeevansathi, recommendation, matching and pricing are now fully AI-driven, leading to improved 2-way matches and stronger platform outcomes. We are also increasingly deploying AI and ML in 99acres to enhance matching and recommendations. Our key priorities -- AI priorities are enhancing search quality, personalization and productivity for users and customers, launching AI-powered features to improve experience and engagement, building AI-first products to unlock new revenue streams and embedding AI into internal processes to improve efficiency and execution. And lastly, across our businesses, Gen AI is enabling faster feature rollouts, scalable content creation and more efficient marketing with several recent campaigns developed in-house using AI-led tools. Overall, our AI initiatives are delivering tangible operating outcomes and positioning us well to support growth across all our verticals, including recruitment, 99acres, Jeevansathi and Shiksha while reinforcing our competitive strengths. Thank you all for joining the call, and now we are happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Hitesh. Anand, we can now begin with a question answers. We already have some questions in the queue.

Thanks, Vineet. We already have two questions. [Operator Instructions] So the first question is from Sachin from Bank of America. Sachin, go ahead and ask your question.

I have 3 questions. First question, Hitesh, I just want to double click and get a little bit more clarity in terms of the hiring segments, what you mentioned, premium, mid-level -- wanted to understand basis your interactions with all the companies, how are you seeing actually the hiring trends out here? Obviously, there are a couple of pointers, right? One is how the macro is going and industry-specific issue. And second is an AI-led impact where clearly, there's a bit more uncertainty and most corporates are not assured in terms of how should they think about hiring. So what are you guys picking up? And how should generally we expect trends in the premium and mid-segment going ahead?

Our overall sense of the market right now is that the volume growth continues to be robust in the premium and in the value segments. So there's a -- so by value segment, we mean people who are paid less than 5 lakhs per annum. And by premium, we mean people who are paid more than INR 30 lakhs per annum. So there's a reasonable demand for senior professionals. There's a demand for professionals with new age skills. And there continues to be a lot of demand for professionals in roles like warehousing, logistics, manufacturing, delivery boys, counter sales folks and so on. That's the value segment. The mid-segment, volume growth has moderated actually over the last few years is what we sense. So in our view -- so we used to see 7%, 8% volume growth in this segment every year, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. Since then, that has moderated to 4% volume growth. That's what we are sensing right now. So this segment, which is the INR 5 lakh to INR 30 lakh segment seems to be under pressure on volume.

Okay. Got it. Second question is how things are picking up in AI risks and also a bit on Neo. Would love to actually understand how the adoption of Agentic AI has been for you guys? Any feedback you're hearing out here? And in fact, globally, we have found Agentic AI, which is being launched is typically deflationary in nature. So I wanted to understand, is it allowing you to charge more or there could be an impact from a deflationary perspective also from a pricing point of view?

It's still early days and close to 100 of our clients are now experimenting with AI-REX. Over 20,000 mandates have been sort of used AI-REX over the last few months. We are also fine-tuning our go-to-market. We are also iterating a bit as we go along. We're also trying to figure out how we can take it faster to more customers so that they can at least try it, play with it. And that also gives us feedback and helps us improve the offering. So early days still. I mean we are -- I mean our clients are learning, we are also learning. Will it be deflationary or inflationary? I don't know. Our short-term goal will be to get more and more clients to use it first. So we'll focus on adoption and usage. And we think if we are able to enable more hiring through AI-REX and if we are able to enable faster hiring through AI-REX over time and help recruiters become more productive, revenue will follow.

Got it. And are you seeing any of your competitors launch it because globally, we see Indeed and Seek also launched their own Agentic AI peers?

I'm sure others are also experimenting. But I mean, it's still early days in this market.

Got it. And third question is on the point what you mentioned about the unique nature in India from a hiring dynamics perspective. Can you help us explain a bit more in terms of how India is -- and Naukri different as compared to global peers, because globally, the concerns right now are the growth and margins be under pressure, but completely understand, India hiring is different. I would love to understand where Naukri is unique and why those global pressures are not there in India?

Yes. So India is different. I'd tell you how India is different. See globally, most job boards work on -- I mean, job listings is what works in most of the markets, right? So companies post jobs on platforms and they get applications and they hire from the applications they get. Now that's not a very effective way of hiring in India because what tends to happen in India, at least in the mid-market and premium segments is that there are lots of applicants. So as a company, let's say, you want to hire 2 people and you post a job and if you get 2,000 applications, you get overwhelmed. And which is why what has happened over time in a market like India is that companies have moved to hiring through the Naukri database. Now what happens when you use the database, you search the database and you would look for the kind of people you're interested in and then you contact them, right? So you only reach out to the people who you think are relevant. When you post a job, a lot of irrelevant applications come your way. Now what -- this whole talk of disintermediation fundamentally means that some AI agent will start applying on behalf of job seekers. And what I was sort of referring to is that this may actually mean -- in a market like India, this may actually mean even more spam because see, overseas job seekers are selective. Like I remember when I went for a conference to Switzerland many years ago, I was told that the #1 job site in Switzerland gets 6 applicants for job, right? While in India, that number can be a few hundred, and in some cases, go into a few thousand, right? So overseas, job seekers are more selective. And therefore, there is less spam and therefore, it's easier to hire through job postings. India is the other way around. Job seekers are not selective. You get inundated, overwhelmed with applications and applicants. And therefore, a lot of companies don't want to post jobs. They would rather hire through the database or through consultants because consultants do go even one step further. So that's how the Indian market is different. And if these AI agents lead to more spam, more job seekers spam, I think the value of databases like Naukri actually go up over time.

Next question from Vivekanand from AMBIT Capital.

My question is -- the first one is on recruitment. So thanks for the color on the kind of growth you're seeing across hiring buckets. But coming back to your traditional breakup, which is tech, GCCs and non-tech. It seems that your monetization from non-IT customers, especially in BFSI, retail infrastructure has been weak since May, and there has been no recovery there. Why is it that you're struggling with non-IT customers? Are they delaying their decisions to renew? Or are they taking up very less hiring quotas? What is the challenge here? What do you hear from your sales team? That is the first question. I will ask the second one after you answer this.

Yes. See, if you look -- our YTD sort of sales growth in the non-hiring segment is close to 7%, right? So we've seen a sharp slowdown compared to last year. Now there have been one or two cases where clients have sort of not renewed for their internal reasons, maybe they will come back and renew 3 months from now, 6 months from now, who knows. But even if I want to take that in account, it's low growth, 7%, 8% in that ballpark for the year. Some sectors are still growing, like health care, but others have been slow. I suspect this is cyclical. I suspect this has to do with the economy. And if the economy turns and growth -- hiring growth to come back to these segments. That's my sense. I could be wrong -- I don't think this is because of AI or anything because it's not as if a lot of non-IT companies have started adopting AI in a large -- in a big way. I think this is perhaps cyclical and has to do with the economy. And as and when the economy comes back, this growth should come back.

Okay. So Hitesh, just a follow-up on this, connecting it to the volume growth you are seeing in the under INR 5 lakh CTC segment. My understanding was that a large number of hiring mandates among the non-IT customers would be these kind of mandates, right?

Certain promotion -- proportion, of course.

Okay. I thought retail and then staffing all of them would be in this category, which is why it is a bit surprising that you said the value segment from a CTC standpoint is seeing healthy volume growth, but then...

See, what I meant was that in the value segment, and I was also looking at data on JobHai. And in that, we -- I'm including blue collar workers, including gray collar workers, I'm including white collar workers who get paid INR 30,000, INR 40,000 a month. Our sense is that job growth in this segment is higher than the job growth in the mid-market segment. The pure white collar INR 5 lakh to INR 30 lakh category segment. Similarly, job growth in the premium segment, which is the above INR 30 lakh jobs is our sense is today higher than in the mid-market segment, right? That's what we are sensing. But this includes -- on the value side, this includes blue collar, includes jobs and warehouses, logistics jobs, jobs in delivery companies, taxi driver jobs, manufacturing jobs, counter sales, retail sales, all these kind of jobs, health care workers, lower end -- at the lower end, all kinds of such jobs.

That's great. I'm clear on this. The second one is on the Tech, IT and BPM segments. Now you saw growth accelerate. But the narrative that the IT companies are driving towards is quite different. So how did you manage to accelerate billing growth from this category of customers...

Again, I wouldn't read too much into quarterly billing growth. Again, YTD growth in this segment is also about 9% or so. See, sometimes in a quarter, if somebody pays in advance, you see higher billing growth, sometimes renewals get deferred, so you see lower billing growth. I think YTD is -- it's not -- we are not seeing a sharp acceleration. I would still say that we are in that 8%, 9% range for the year, even in the IT and BPM and Tech segments.

Okay. That's quite clear. My second question is on the ad spends. So you did allude to ad spending moderate and that is something you've delivered on this quarter. Now just to understand better, we've seen the stand-alone ad spend to sales percentage remain very FMCG-like. In fact, even FMCG companies are spending much less now, right, from an ad spend to sales perspective. How should we think about the intensity of advertising, considering that a significant portion of the advertising for you is discretionary and towards, say, branding rather than specifically to attract traffic.

So you see our ad spends have been sort of flattish in Naukri in the recruitment space. But our ad spend has actually grown this year in both matrimony business and in the real estate business. Now why then -- a lot of the spend is performance advertising. Some of it is brand advertising. Only the brand spend is discretionary, the performance spend is not so discretionary, okay? You can maybe still sort of okay, moderate by 10%, 20%, but it's not as we can stop it totally. And what your -- in 99acres, we are investing for growth. We have been gaining traffic share. And our marketing spend is helping, we figured out a way to sort of make the marketing work for us. And it's helping us grow traffic share, grow supply, grow revenue share, and we'll continue to do that. In Matrimony also, the ad spend is not discretionary because it's an integral part of our acquisition strategy. And it's grown over time because, again, we've been gaining share, and we now want to accelerate share growth in Matrimony as well. So I don't understand the FMCG space, so I don't know how they think about advertising. But in all our verticals, a large part of the ad spend, I would say, is performance-based, so you have to do it. Some of it is brand, so that's more discretionary. And some of it is -- we are investing in the future to sort of gain share and to accelerate growth.

Okay. Is it possible for you to give a broad direction in terms of the ad spend across divisions like how much would Naukri be, and the other businesses? Is it possible to give color on that?

Do we do that, Vineet?

No Hitesh. We generally do not.

For competitive reasons, I think we don't want to get these numbers out.

Okay. That's great.

But just for your reference, these numbers as a percentage of revenue across businesses are very different. So this would be much higher in 99acres and Jeevansathi. In recruitment, it will be much, much lower than what you are referring to from a FMCG point of view.

Okay. Understood. And just to clarify, again, the performance marketing ad spends are largely in 99acres and Jeevansathi while brand spends will be more in Naukri. Is that how it is?

No. See, there is some performance marketing everywhere, and there is some branding everywhere. And then something we call inside us quasi branding. So it's like half performance, half branding. But across -- in all our verticals, we have all kinds of spends. But like Vineet said, as a percentage of sales, ad spends are highest in Jeevansathi followed by 99acres, followed by Naukri.

Okay. My last question is on AI. Now you did describe about the AI journey that you had in your core businesses. Could you help us understand how some of your investee companies are leveraging on AI? How are they using it? I mean you gave the example of AI-REX for Naukri and say, in some of the other businesses as well. But is it possible for you to give us some case studies or some color on the investments that you have, the VC investments and how they are using AI?

Sanjeev, are you there?

Sorry, I'm here. So how -- we see investments using AI, it depends. It varies from company to company. Some companies, in fact, are AI first and some companies about AI. Others may or may not be using AI to the extent that Naukri is doing. Naukri, I think, is very advanced. It's -- I think one of the -- what I gather from other companies and what I see is among Indian companies, Naukri is perhaps the one of the most, if not the most advanced company in adoption and usage of AI. The kind of team we have put up in Naukri of more than 130, 150 people doing AI and ML. There aren't too many other companies with that kind of capability. Having said that, there are companies that are AI first. And many other start-ups have -- they do with 5 engineers or 10 engineers, Naukri is about 150 -- 130 to 150. And it varies from company to company. But yes, I mean -- but nowadays, the business plans we see of fresh start-ups, almost all of them have an AI element to it.

If I may just add to what Sanjeev said, I think one of the differences -- one of the -- between us and a lot of other startups is that we are using -- deploying and using AI at scale, right? Because we have the kind of data we have, the kind of usage we have, not many startups have. So while enough companies are AI native or AI first, they are operating at a very small scale. And I think it requires a different skill set to use AI at scale -- at the kind of scale we are using AI.

Next question from Nikhil from Nuvama.

First question, Hitesh, on profitability. Staff cost was down meaningfully this quarter that led to better EBITDA margin. Generally, we don't see such dip in Q3. Was it due to internal efficiency measure? Or -- and is it sustainable?

No, no, no. I think -- again, I would not -- I would urge you to not read too much into quarterly numbers, look at the YTD number. YTD margins in Naukri are more like 56%, 57%, not -- Q3 was 59%, Q1 53%. So I think there are sometimes numbers could be different because of incentive payouts, [ said ] bonuses and so on and so forth, sometimes targets are met, sometimes they are not met. So -- and normally, for example, a lot of our hiring -- when we hire from campus, a lot of these kids join in around Q3 end or Q4 end, so -- and then over time, there's attrition. So I would not reach too much into quarterly numbers. Go by the YTD number.

Got it. Second one on AI-REX, I mean, how we are monetizing it -- how we are pricing it in general?

We are still experimenting. Like I said, our focus -- we would try to monetize, but I think it's too early. We should -- my view is that we should take it more aggressively to market, let companies play with it, let them use it, benefit from it, revenue will follow. We figure out how to monetize it.

Got it. Within the sub-segments of recruitment, one segment that remained under pressure is third-party recruiter, right? And Hitesh, theoretically, it also makes sense given how repetitive task are, how inefficient -- I mean, lower ROI you generate compared to platforms like Naukri. Hypothetically, can that segment which is 25% of revenue remain under pressure given the company will look for more efficiency, especially from hiring. And the tools such as AI-REX, where you -- I mean, you have done 2,000 mandates, can that scale and keep impacting this segment where -- on alternate scenario, you might benefit or get better monetization while that segment can remain under pressure, hypothetically?

We normally -- see, if I -- over the last 25 years, our revenue from consultants has been in the 25% to 27%, 28% mark. For some reason, this doesn't change much, right? In good markets, of course -- if the hiring market is hot, then of course, companies tend to use consulting firms a lot more. Their fee also goes up. In a lukewarm market, companies would -- they take their own sweet time to hire. They're not in a hurry. They first use platforms like Naukri, et cetera. And only if they are not able to get success, do they go to consultants. And of course, they also drive down consultant fees, right? So one, it's, of course, that. Then the other thing, it also depends on who is able to adopt these new technologies faster. So consultants are also smart. They -- and our AI-REX, we will -- I'm sure we'll offer it to consultants also. It's not as if we'll offer it to only companies, right? So if they are faster off the block, if they are -- because they are promoter on firms, if they are -- they tend -- sometimes -- often many of them tend to be nimble and agile and they are sort of -- they move quickly. So if they adopt these tools faster, who the hell knows? I mean they may become more efficient over time as well. Now companies will, of course, also adopt these tools and try and become more efficient. So -- but what I've seen over time is for some reason, consultants are contributing to 25% of our revenue.

Sure. Just last one on pricing. I think for two years, we haven't increased at a blended level pricing meaningfully. Can that pricing increase going ahead with initiatives such as AI-REX with initiative where we are pushing Naukri Top Tier. At a blended level, can pricing grow, let's say, at par with mid- to high single-digit type, which we were doing earlier?

It can. And -- but it's just -- I think it's easier to do it if you offer more value adds to companies, right? And it's easier to do it in a hotter market, in a hot recruitment market. It's harder to push pricing when companies are not hiring a lot of people, right? Because they take their time, they can wait, they negotiate. We have quarterly targets to meet. Sales people are incentivized on quarterly quotas and so on. So they end up giving discount sometimes. So what we've seen in the past is that in hot markets, we are able to take prices up faster. But yes, over a period of time. So if you take a longer period, then price increases tend to be in the range of -- the price increase tends to be in the range of 5%, 6% per annum.

Completely agree, Hitesh, but more in short- to medium-term because I don't think we are seeing hot market anytime soon, at least that is what it looks like. That's why can at a blended level using -- even last time I asked the same question that, can the premium hiring be monetized in a different way where you can maybe charge it a different way. So at a blended level, we can increase pricing despite of market, it is where it is, yes.

Yes. So if this -- if more premium hiring happen -- starts to happen through our platform, then even for the same volume, we'll be able to get higher value, right? But it has to materialize.

Next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi.

My first question, so is Naukri360 pro targeted more towards the mid segment or the premium segment of the market. And -- any color you can give on adoption there? I mean in general, the job market, I think, as to what you mentioned in the mid-segment is challenging. LinkedIn Premium seems to be a similar product. Is that product seeing more adoption? And any other color you can give on that? That's my first question.

Sorry, I don't have segmental numbers for 360. But in generally, at least in the past, I don't have the latest numbers. We -- there used to be a higher adoption amongst more experienced professionals. But I don't have the latest numbers on me.

Fair enough. The second question was kind of related. So with this -- assuming that this trend where you have more growth momentum in the premium segment and, say, in the value segment, and there's this whole debate on whether IT -- whether AI pushes people up the pyramid curve, so to say. So in general, do you need to rethink product beyond, say, the Agentic, just to kind of cater to the mid- and premium segment a little bit better from a recruiter point of view. I mean, LinkedIn is obviously a very different form factor of what they provide to recruiters than what you do. And if the job market is shifting that way, do you shift more towards LinkedIn model? Or is there a third approach?

So good question. See, we've just launched Naukri Top Tier. So within Naukri, we've launched an Naukri Top Tier that's meant for premium job seekers and it's meant for recruiters who are looking to hire premium job seekers, and we are trying to provide a differentiated experience to both job seekers and recruiters in this segment on Naukri. We're doing it a little differently from LinkedIn. Early days, but what I can tell you is that CV views, which is one of the metrics we track, right, on our platform, CV view growth in Naukri Top Tier is higher than CV view growth for the platform as a whole, right? And of course, we are also working hard on improving our vertical offerings like IIMJobs and Hirist. We built Hirist over the last couple of years. It targets premium tech talent. And we've got IIMJobs, which targets premium MBA talent. So we are also building and trying to improve these vertical offerings. Of course, there are some people who are on both IIMJobs and Naukri, but there are enough who are only on IIMJobs and not on Naukri. There are enough who are only on Hirist and not on Naukri. And we are taking them to these offerings to recruiters. Our -- in the premium segment, we have headroom to grow our share, right, because we're not as dominant as we are in the middle segment. So there's an opportunity here. We're working hard on it. Let's see where we end up in the next 12 to 18 months. Yes. So, do you have a second question, sorry?

Yes. So I mean I think I was just trying to get a sense of -- so you mentioned IIMJobs, Hirist, Naukri Top Tier. I mean is there a -- do they kind of get clubbed together into a single offering either -- perhaps you already have a single offering to recruiters and these are different platforms for candidates. I'm just trying to get a sense of whether the whole product here needs some kind of a re-think or re-tweak to kind of address go-to-market better?

Yes. So the stuff we're experimenting with. So they are separate platforms, and there are some people who use only Hirist and only IIMJobs, they don't use Naukri and vice versa. But we are also trying to sort of develop this whole concept of a Naukri Talent Cloud where if you're a recruiter on Naukri, you also get to see the other platforms and use them. But in early days there. So we are experimenting with it, but early days.

Got it. And one related question. So you said premium hiring is doing well. I know GCCs is doing well. That would be safe to assume that it's kind of an overlap there, right, to a certain extent?

Yes, there will be some overlap for sure.

Yes. And the last bit on this front. So in the presentation, you've said that IT -- direct IT exposure for you now is 25% and including consultants is now 30%, 35%. Now I think if I'm right, the including consultants part has come off because it used to be 50% of consultant business was IT, and now it looks like it's more or less 1/3. So is there a shift happening there?

I think this is -- my sense is this is -- the case right now, but let's say if IT hiring would come back with a bang then consultants will again go back to IT companies and start hiring for them. So consultants are nimble, they're agile, they're sort of move where the hiring moves to. So if there's a lot of IT hiring, they put more people on to IT hiring. If they -- on the other hand, they don't see action on the IT front, they move into other segments. So yes, so...

And Hitesh, just to add to it, Vijit, so we have also moved from 3 segments to 4 segments. We are now calling out GCC separately as a segment. And GCC hiring is not only IT. There's a large part of GCC who hire non-IT talent as well. So therefore, just because the reporting structure as well, this shift from that 50% to 15% -- 35%, that's another reason for that.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Understood. And one last question from me, Hitesh. So in terms of M&A, what would be areas you would prefer to go into? I mean, are we talking about other classifieds businesses? I think there may be a few up for grabs even in categories where you're not present? Or could it be in just technology or enterprise SaaS? Or I mean, are there any preferred areas where you think you would like to go?

See, if you look at our track record, the successful M&As that we pulled off have been very small ones, right? So we acquired a company called MakeSense Technology. It was a technology company, semantic search many years ago. It worked out really well for us. It was perhaps AI. It was not called AI in those days, but it was early AI. Then we acquired AmbitionBox, a small company when we acquired it a few years ago, it's turned out -- it's now bigger than Glassdoor in India. So that has worked out well for us. And then a few years back, we acquired IImJobs and Hirist. Hirist was tiny at that time, and that's also worked out well for us. Then a couple of years ago -- a few years ago, we acquired Zwayam and DoSelect. These are again small acquisitions more on SaaS and assessment platforms, still WIP for us. So I think we'll continue to be open to the idea of acquihires, acquiring for technology, acquiring products, acquiring small businesses, which we think we can scale given our distribution, given our sales reach, given our established customer base. So these are acquisitions we'll be open to -- or if something takes us into a slightly different segment like IIMJobs and Hirist, we were weaker on the premium side. So we sort of bought these companies. We are doing job internally, right? That's a blue-collar play. So let's see how that plays out. But tomorrow, there's something interesting on the gig side or if there are other areas which we think are likely to grow faster, then we'll be more than open to acquisitions in those segments. That's in jobs. And similarly in real estate and in matrimony, we acquired Aisle. So matrimony -- in Jeevansathi is more about matrimonials, while Aisle is more dating for matrimony. So it's a little more -- it's a little different from -- and while Arike is a regional dating platform. So in the businesses -- in the verticals we operate, we will continue to do these small acquisitions in adjacent areas to -- if especially they give us -- especially they are -- they help us build a technology moat or they help us take a -- they give us a new product, which we think we can scale 10x by taking it to market through our sales system or if they help us acquire a new capability, which will be useful over time. So these are the kind of -- we are constantly on the lookout for. The big M&A is different. It's opportunistic. We haven't done any big M&A till now. In some sectors, consolidation makes sense, but there aren't too many companies. We are unlikely to do a major diversification. It's not ruled out ever, but unlikely in the near future.

Next question from Ankur from JPMorgan. Ankur, you are there? So he's not there. So next question from Swapnil from JM Financial.

My first question is to Hitesh. And Hitesh, if I look at your historical revenue breakup, you used to mention revenue by product type. And that revenue is to contribute roughly around 2/3 of our B2B revenue in the Naukri business. Now the question out here is like assuming -- and I'm presuming this is basically your -- the revenue was so high because people used to download the CVs a lot more given they used to do it in volumes. Assuming tomorrow because of AI, the access required by the company's reduces meaningfully, right? Will -- is there a possibility that the companies will also want to renegotiate on the pricing of the subscription that they pay for? Just to give you an example, if I were paying x amount for 100 resumes. And tomorrow, I need just 80 resumes, will the companies come back to you and say that on a per resume basis, I don't need to pay so the same way that I used to pay in the past. So I'm just coming from a risk perspective, can you just help us?

See, per resume pricing may not change, okay? But yes, if companies -- if consumption -- if x number of resumes were being accessed till, let's say, last year and that number starts to fall, then, of course, volume will go down, right, but not pricing necessarily.

And any discussions you had with your clients on this of late because yes...

Yes -- so this happens every time, every year. So there are some clients who buy more. Some clients may -- if they anticipate lower hiring, they downgrade. So this happens all the time. This has been happening for several years. Now in a good market, most clients tend to consume more conversion rates also fall. So when -- you may see 100 resumes and make 2 offers and you will not be able to hire anybody because the market is so hot. In a lukewarm market, you may make offers and people join. So conversion rates are also better. So this is something which happens all the time there. So -- and of course, a lot depends on how the company is doing as well. There are companies that shut down every year. There are companies which downsize sometimes, so they know that they will need to hire fewer people. There are companies are growing rapidly, let's say, new GCC sets up shop. They know they're going to expand rapidly, so they buy more. So this is something we encounter every year. On the whole, our volumes have been holding. And like I mentioned earlier, we are seeing modest growth in the middle segment and higher growth in premium and the lower segments. Company by company, things vary, of course, every year.

Got it. And any thoughts on the hiring budgets that these companies would have right now going -- I'm talking about the near- to medium-term, and I'm not talking about long-term story. But any color on that side, like what are you getting -- feedback you're getting on the clients?

See, my sense is that, see, the non-IT market, I think has been slow because the economy has been slower and at least in the sectors where we get a lot of revenue from. And if things were to turn there, we should see an uptick going forward. IT, I don't know, the jury is [indiscernible]. There is so much noise, there's so much confusion. A lot will depend on IT companies and how they're thinking about -- and the kind of demand that they're seeing on their -- at their end, right? GCCs -- see the big ones may come under pressure for some time, if they start -- if these companies like the big ones start laying off in the U.S., for a time, they may not want to hire in India. But the small ones which have just set up shop in the last 2, 3, 4 years, where their India headcount is maybe still less than 20% or 15% of their global headcount will want to continue to scale to get to that number. That's the way I see it.

Got it. And just one question on your unique clients build. That number seems to be growing quarter-on-quarter. So exactly where these new clients are coming from, which sectors? And because it seems that these guys are helping you offset some of the impact from the traditional sectors.

So we've expanded our sales operation to more cities. We are -- we have launched some freemium offerings on Naukri. We are -- so -- but most of these new clients, they start small, and there's also a lot of churn in this segment. ARPUs are low when they start. Now over time, some of them sort of up their game and they start adding more people, they start using us more. But yes, we put in a little more effort over the last 12 months to get more new customers into the system. So -- and one way we've done it is by making -- by having a freemium offering in Naukri. So a lot of -- that encourages a lot of small SMEs to try in Naukri, and then we try and upsell to some of them.

Okay. And just the last one on the margin side. So in the past, I think you have said that if your billings stays around low teens, margin expansion in the Naukri business will be a difficult task. Any revised thoughts on that side? Like would you take any efficiency efforts to at least optimize on the margin side if a billing stays where it is today?

No, I think -- see, we -- there are some investments which we need to make, like we are losing approximately INR 50 crores a year in our JobHai business, which is our blue-collar business. That's a business we are building for the future. We will continue to invest in this business for the next few years, right? So this is not something we want to cut down on. Similarly, we will continue to make AI investments. There are capabilities we need to build. There is stuff we need to do. There could be a temporary slowdown in hiring, but it's important that we are ready when hiring comes back, and we are able to grab the opportunities which AI is sort of bringing our way. So we will continue to make these investments. Marketing investments, we can play with a little bit here and there. They don't really matter in the short term. It's not -- our headcount will not go up too much, right? So if we continue -- if we can grow in the teens, we'll be able to maintain and improve our margins. If we grow in single digits, then we might lose some margin, let's see.

Vivek is back with a follow-up question, from AMBIT.

Two questions. So one is Zwayam and DoSelect. They don't seem to be growing quite fast. What's the challenge there? In fact, your billing there is growing at a slower pace than the core business, which has a number of pressures. What's going on?

I'll tell you what's happening. See, we have been experimenting over the last few quarters with different go-to-market and bundling strategies, right, and for our newer offerings, right? And so -- and I think it will take a while, maybe a quarter or 2 for the dust to settle down on that front until we get it right. And I think that's what is perhaps creating this, whatever -- this issue that you're seeing. You've rightly identified it. We're trying to figure out whether clients -- so sometimes to get a higher billing, we push these offerings on to customers. We want to see whether customers really want them. And in some cases, when we do that, we don't see a lot of adoption. So we are trying to dial back a little bit. So we are sort of playing around with all this to see what is the best way to take some of these new offerings to market, and that is resulting in this movement. Things will settle down maybe in a couple of quarters.

Okay. Excellent. The second one is on JobHai. Now you said that you're spending some INR 50 crores, INR 60 crores there on an annual basis. So how has been the offtake? How many cities have you gone to? Have you been able to do any detailed -- perhaps pilots or monetization with some of your associate companies also. I mean, Zomato for example, or Eternal, for example, has a lot of feet on street as far as the rider fleet is concerned where you might be able to experiment with JobHai. So if you can detail some progress sector-wise and also market-wise, to help us understand the scalability of JobHai, say, from a 3-, 5-year perspective, that would be great.

Yes. So excellent question. So I'll tell you, see, how we have approached JobHai is we've been -- we worked very hard on the product. We wanted to get the product market fit right. And I think we are past that point. We -- then we wanted to get the Playbook right, the Playbook of taking it to market and the scaling Playbook. So what we did over the last 18 months was to double down in one city, which is -- so we chose Delhi NCR because that's where we are based and said, let's try and see if we can make JobHai in Delhi NCR. So now the good news is that we believe that JobHai is now the biggest sort of player in this segment, right, in NCR. So we are bigger than any other player. And we have started monetizing also in Delhi NCR. Now on monetization, monetization normally follows with a lag of a year. So we are not the largest still, but we are sort of growing month-on-month. So our marketing efforts, our sales efforts, a lot of our -- all our efforts are focused on NCR for the last 12, 18 months. Not that we don't have presence elsewhere, we still have -- we have presence in many cities, but we were more sort of focused on becoming like a leader in NCR. Now that we are more confident, we will, over the next 12 months, take this Playbook to other cities. So we'll -- and we may not go to 60 cities or 80 cities in the next 12 months, but we will perhaps take this model to Bombay and Bangalore and a few other cities and see if we can become a leader in those markets. And then over time, we'll take it to other cities. That's the way we are approaching it. Now this is a market where there's a lot of volume, but ARPUs are low. It's not easy to make money. But it's important for the long run. Strategically, it's important because it keeps other players out in the short-term as well. And because once people get in, then they may move in to other segments. Long-term, it should be possible to make money in this space. But like is the case with any Internet business, you need to be #1 or a #2 player to make any money, right? So that logic will hold for this segment as well. So now what will success look like? If -- in 5 years or 5, 6 years, this becomes 10%, 15% of Naukri India, then I think that is what success will look like in JobHai.

Okay. That's very helpful. My last question is to Sanjeev. So Sanjeev, how is the operating environment like for start-up funding, what are the kind of ideas you're getting? And also some of the investees of Info Edge Venture Fund I, you had updated us about a couple of years back that these companies are securing funding from external investors as well in later stages. Is that improving at the margins or getting worse? Please help us understand the overall funding landscape, not just at seed stage but maybe series B, C as well.

So, no, without sort of taking specific names in the portfolio because we'd rather announce that in a planned manner. Look, the winners are being sorted out. And the winners are moving ahead and getting further funding and both in Fund I, Fund II and 1 or 2 even in Fund III pretty soon actually. Now a few were hit by the tariffs, by the U.S. tariffs because they did cross-border business. But they adjusted, adapted, went to other markets, sometimes raised prices and sort of found that the demand was still sticky. So actually, they've come out of it fairly well. And now hopefully, with tariffs going down, they should be back in business, okay? So I would say about maybe out of 27, maybe 10 or 15 have got serious follow-on rounds and some of them are doing fairly well. But no, the -- what we actually need is 4 or 5 big winners out of the first fund to really return the fund and make a good multiple on it. And we have a total of 28 or 29 companies in Fund I.

And Vineet, this was the last question, we had for the evening.

Thank you, everyone, for joining. On behalf of Info Edge, we now conclude this conference call.

Everyone, have a great evening.

Thank you so much, everyone.