Shemaroo Entertainment Limited (SHEMAROO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q3 FY '21 Conference Call of Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, hosted by Valorem Advisors. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anuj Sonpal, CEO of Valorem Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Sonpal.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and a warm welcome to you all. My name is Anuj Sonpal from Valorem Advisors. We represent the Investor Relations of Shemaroo Entertainment Limited. On behalf of the company, I would like to thank you all for participating in the company's earnings conference call for the third quarter and 9 months ended of financial year 2021. Before we begin, I would like to mention a short cautionary statement. Some of the statements made in today's earnings conference call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. Audience are then cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements in making any investment decisions. The purpose of today's earnings conference call is clearly to educate and bring awareness about the company's fundamental business and financial quarter under review. Let me now introduce you to the management participating with us in today's earnings con call. We have with us, Mr. Hiren Gada, CEO and CFO of the company; and we also have with us Mrs. Kranti Gada, who is the Chief Operating Officer. Without much delay, I request Mr. Hiren Gada to give his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Anuj. And good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our earnings conference call for the third quarter ended financial year 2021 -- December 2021. Let me start by giving you the key highlights for the third quarter and for the 9 months ended December 2021. The operational income stood at INR 88 crores. EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 7 crores, and we had a loss after tax of INR 1.5 crores for the quarter. For the 9 months ended December 2021, operational income stood at INR 234 crores, EBITDA stood at INR 1.5 crores and a loss after tax of INR 23 crores. As most of you are aware, the company has been in an investment mode in various initiatives, which have now started contributing revenue. Hence, it is important to note that the expenses made on these new initiatives net of -- sorry, hence, it's important to note the expenses made on these new initiatives net of revenue for the periods under review. So for the Q3 FY '21, it was INR 16 crores, and for the 9 months ended December, it was INR 45 crores. If you were to exclude these investments in new initiatives, the EBITDA from the operations was a positive INR 23.5 crores for the quarter, for Q3, which indicates an EBITDA margin of 27%. And overall EBITDA for 9 months was a positive at INR 46.4 crores, indicating EBITDA margin of 20% for 9 months ended FY '21. For the third quarter, digital media revenue stood at INR 40 crores, down 17% year-on-year. And for the 9 months ended December, the digital media revenue stood at INR 113 crores, which is down 26% year-on-year. Traditional media revenues in the third quarter revised significantly versus the previous quarter, standing at around INR 48 crores, down 1.5% year-on-year. And for the 9 months ended, considering that the first 2 quarters, it was -- there was a massive fall, it stood at INR 121 crores, which was down by nearly 50% on a year-on-year basis. Overall, the festival season and reduction in COVID cases has resulted in the resumption in economic activities. And this, in turn, has led to a reasonable or significant revival in advertising spend as well. Hence, we expect that broadcasters will resume the acquisition of film content over the next few quarters. Our continuous cost-rationalization efforts in the last few quarters are contributing positively on the overall financials. We continue to strategically, yet cautiously invest in our new ventures. As you know, we are in the phase of transitioning from and evolving from a B2B company to a B2C operating model and have witnessed some level of operational recovery as these new investments have stabilized. During the quarter, we continued to focus on strengthening the viewership and reach of our 2 broadcasting channels, Shemaroo TV and Shemaroo MarathiBana. I'm happy to inform that Shemaroo MarathiBana completed 1 year of operation and firmly established itself as a second most watched Marathi movie channel in the Marathi genre. Shemaroo TV strengthened its reach by closing on some key distribution partnerships and began monetization through advertisements towards the end of the quarter. On the digital side, our performance on YouTube continued to grow exceedingly well. Shemaroo Filmi Gaane has crossed 46 million subscribers to become the 21st most viewed -- most subscribed channel globally. As you know, we had launched ShemarooMe in February 2019, which was our subscription-based OTT platform primarily targeted to the B2B2C audience. And we have taken efforts to expand its global reach, in which -- in this particular quarter, we have partnered with Ooredoo in Qatar. On the product business front, we launched 2 new preloaded audio speakers, Bhakti Maalai, which is a Tamil devotional speaker; and Bhakti Anand, which is a sub-INR 1,000 devotional product for gifting purposes. In conclusion, I would say that we are definitely seeing signs of revival in our overall business sentiment and ad spend in the media sector. And as the confidence in the economy and business environment gets reaffirmed, we expect things to normalize in a few quarters. With that, I open the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of [ Darshal Trivedi ], an individual investor.

I would just like to ask that when will our PAT resume normalcy that is around INR 8 crores to INR 10 crores, which was there in previous quarters?

So unfortunately, I'm not in a position to give any forward-looking statement, but I want to just note a couple of things. If we -- so firstly, obviously, in spite of the investments, in a way, this has been a turnaround quarter for us where the profitability has -- the lot has reduced significantly. And at this point, we are seeing that momentum and trend visibility and continuation for over the next few months. So we are hoping that in a few quarters from now, we should be back to a reasonable level of profitability. And secondly, as I was earlier also mentioning that if you actually exclude the investment on new projects, the core profitability has been reasonably good, which is both a combination of the overall evolution of the business model itself and the cost-rationalization measures that have been taken over the earlier quarters.

Okay, sir. So can I just ask a follow-up question that are we expecting to invest in new ventures in the following quarters, too, which will impact the profitability?

So one of the large investments has been in the TV channel project, as I elaborated in my earlier speech, which is Shemaroo TV and Shemaroo MarathiBana. Both have now started at least in terms of advertising revenue while this is just the beginning. So once these revenues stabilize and reach a certain level, to that extent, the investment required on this particular project would come down in that proportion.

Our next question is from the line of [ Rohit Trivedi ], an individual investor.

So I've got 3 questions. First is about inventory, would you be able to tell us that age-wise worth of the inventory? So let's say, what is the worth of the inventory less than 2 years old, less than 5 years old or more than 5 years? Number two, on the TV channel topic, it would be great if you can tell us that whether the TV channels help break even in terms of the EBITDA or not? And what is -- if not, then what is the kind of right way forward for that or some time horizon for the -- turning into EBITDA positive? And third is in terms of the digital and traditional kind of media. It's a bit of surprise that digital media has gone down significantly while the momentum down in the traditional media is only around 1.5% or something, right? So on the digital media part, it would be great if you can provide more details that which part of the digital media has actually gone down more and where do you see the recovery? So for example, the YouTube and other parts of the digital media. So these are the 3 questions.

Thank you. So I'll answer it in a slightly different order than what you have asked. The TV channel, as I have elaborated, we have just started the monetization. So obviously, it is sometime away from turning EBITDA positive because the expense continues in terms of distribution, content, marketing and other operational expenses. And monetization has -- so Shemaroo MarathiBana, we had started in the previous quarter, which is in Q2. And Shemaroo TV, we have just started towards the end of Q3. So in a way, we still haven't had 1 full month of monetization on Shemaroo TV yet. So it's still some time away from this to actually break even and start contributing towards the profitability. That's the first question -- sorry, the second question. The third question was regarding digital media. So as we have been sharing for last few quarters, for quite a few years, the telco business for us has been a large contributor to the digital media top line and bottom line as well. And this was essentially a business, which we were doing, which was a VAS-based offering, value-added service, and it was largely, you can say, targeted to the feature phone user. And this transition -- this change we saw coming about roughly 3 years back. Obviously, the consumer is moving away from feature phone to smartphone. And therefore, this product will get, in a way, transitioned into a smartphone-based product and smartphone-based product is an app -- an OTT app. So essentially what we have seen in the last -- so of course, we launched ShemarooMe approximately 2 years back, a little less than 2 years back. And in the meantime, the -- this -- the telco business, which we were doing, the VAS-based offering in stores, which was there for feature phone, so that has significantly come off because obviously the consumer has moved. Now there is -- and again, this is something that I have been sharing for the last few quarters. There is never bound to be a direct one-is-to-one correlation of that business getting 100% replaced here. And secondly, there would be a certain transition time here. And thirdly, whether that business itself will get fully replaced, it will be a different shape or form is a question because earlier there was only 1 provider in the feature phone that a consumer would buy only via telco. But today, in a smartphone, in their OTT situation, the consumer can buy virtually any of the available offering. So for us, that transition is actually in a different way, which is actually getting into, a, our own offering on a B2B2C basis where we partner with not just telco, but many other video platforms that are there; and b, through growth in the syndication business through a lot of the newer existing and newer OTT offerings that are there in the horizon or currently available in the industry. And today, I can easily and happily say that syndication or the distribution of our content across a whole lot of platforms is significant. We are a large and significant partner for many of the existing offerings that are there. And that is over and above our own ShemarooMe offering. So that's really the reason for the fall in the revenue in this particular quarter. Overall, if I were to see the last 3 quarters, the revenue has -- on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the revenue has been actually growing. I would also add that if we take the 9 months overall total, 2 or 3 different things have also played out. So in the initial month of the lockdown, the ad spend and ad revenue on the digital media had also significantly come off significantly and that actually led to a large degrowth kind of a thing on many of the platforms like YouTube and all. YouTube, as far as this quarter is concerned, has definitely come back strongly. So -- but as far as 9 months is concerned, all of these impacts have played out. The consumption kept going up. So we've seen a significant spike overall in the consumption. But the translation has been delayed, and we are now seeing some of that as far as -- at least as far as YouTube is concerned on that. So this is summary explanation for the digital degrowth question that you had. And third question was regarding inventory. So the current inventory that we have is essentially the unsold stock. So there is nothing, which has been sold 2 years back and held as inventory. If it was sold 2 years back, it was actually stocked out of inventory. So I'm not sure that I have -- answering -- or you can give me the underlying question, I can probably try and answer it in a way that you get the information you're seeking. But this is a clarification, that the stock we have currently is not -- it's all the unsold component of the stock. It's -- whatever is sold out has been stocked out.

Yes. So I have read the accounting policy very closely and I'm tracking the company for a long period of time. So we have got INR 750 crores of inventory, right? My question is then, in that case, do you say that all the INR 750 crores inventory -- worth of the inventory, let me put it like this is only, like, what in the last 2 years? I don't think so.

No, no, no. As far as [indiscernible]

That means that's all the inventory was made less than 5 years old or more than 5 years old, right, INR 200 crores or INR 400 crores of inventory must be, let's say, right in the range of 3 years or something? So we need to get the counter of that.

So definitely, there's a lot of -- there's some part of the inventory, which has been bought earlier, and some of it would have been bought in the last 2 or maybe 3 years. Right now, I don't have that breakup on that. Plus, there's a lot of content, which -- where the long-term rights are there, where perpetual rights are there, where we carry forward the second 5-year cycle or long -- more than 10-year rights, where we carry forward the second 5-year cycle. There would be some content where we are owning -- where we are carrying it for more than 5 years.

Yes. So that's what exactly is the data that I'm looking forward to, right? So if you don't have the data kind of right on hand probably it could be great if I write -- kind of write to you and if I get that specific data point.

Unfortunately, that's something that we are not in a position to share for various reasons. But if you have an underlying question on that, I'm happy to try and address...

Is that we need to -- right. We need to know the relevance of the inventory in this kind of OTT and digital kind of age. So let's say, if more than INR 500 crores of inventory is less than 5 years old and it is not moving, then that gives a kind of like a completely different picture. While, let's say, if more than INR 500 crores of inventory is only 2 years old or less than 2 years old and that kind of completely gives a different picture in the COVID situation and everything, right? So what I'm trying to understand is the worth of the inventory in the current time.

Sure. Let me talk like this. Yes. So okay, let's try and discuss on that because that's probably more relevant and I will try and give you some color on that. So first, let me clarify 2 things. One is, when I bought a movie, [ beyond the point ], is one question. What is the vintage and relevance of the movie is the second question? So I may have bought something, say, last year, but that movie may have been a movie of 1995, okay? So that's one way to look at it. Anyway, coming back to the relevance. There are 2 or 3 different indicators that I would -- or indicators -- sorry, one second. So there are 2 or 3 different indicators that I would like to give. So one is that a lot of that inventory in different ways we are using on YouTube, okay? Finally, what we are putting up on YouTube, where we have the digital rights, where we have for a bulk of our library. And if you see the consumption pattern on YouTube, that shows continuous upward growth. The fact that our channel FilmiGaane is ranked 21st in the world and among the top 10 in India in terms of number of subscribers. Also, these are just few indicators that where the relevance of the connect of that content is with the mass consumption of consumer days of the country. And therefore, I'm extremely confident -- not only confident, I'm proud that we have a library, which is very solidly a marquee library in terms of connect to audience. And therefore, it's one of the highly valuable libraries as far as the industry is concerned. That -- there is absolutely no 2 ways about. And I just want to give YouTube as this thing, which you can yourself correlate to in terms of the graphs that you see or you can, yourself, visit YouTube and see the kind of numbers that our channels or our videos or our content is delivering. So that is -- and I mean today YouTube is the #1 video consumption platform in the digital media. And it is...

If it is, okay, I would just disturb you for a minute? Because I cannot take YouTube as a single indicator and kind of extrapolate that for 100% of the inventory because YouTube is only doing of kind 12% or 14% of our total revenue at the max, right? And in terms of profitability, even less than that, right?

No, no, no. I wouldn't agree with that. Anyway, you finish your point then I'll come to that.

So my only point is Mr. Gada, taking 100 -- like 10% or 14% of the kind of inventory is an indicator for the 100% of the work or value available for the inventory is kind of difficult. I would put it like this, right? So if we can get some clear picture, some data so it would be really helpful to all the investors to know that, yes, there is a content. That content is worth kind of worthful in the present time and that's why the company should have at least as much of the valuation.

Sir, there are 2 different things. One is what is the revenue, second is what is the consumption, okay. And what I want to say, the point I'm trying to make is that what is the revenue has a dependency on many factors. So YouTube today may have a certain revenue. It -- whatever it may be contributing to the overall picture and all of that is one part of the thing. But the fact that, today, YouTube is the largest digital video consumption platform, which has more than 300 million monthly active users, okay, shows that YouTube is the most mass consumption platform when it comes to video consumption. And if my content is delivering these kind of numbers on such a large media platform, it shows the mass connect of that content. That is empirical evidence that I'm trying to give, which is easily correlatable and easily trackable and easily measurable by anyone. That's the point. Second point is that, today, if you open movie channels, for example, you will see a lot of the movies being placed on the channel, which, again, is another track of the fact that, that content is being played, it's delivering ratings, it's delivering advertising revenue to the broadcaster and it's delivering value essentially. So all of that is available in terms of -- at least, for a common person to kind of -- I won't touch it, I can't feel, but it's a common person to kind of track and experience. That's the point I'm trying to make. Whether -- so YouTube, at some point, was not even doing $100 a month, okay? Today, many zeroes got added to that. Does that mean the relevance of that platform or the measurability of that platform has reduced? No. That's what I'm trying to say.

I was actually expecting a more kind of data-driven answer in terms of the right inventory, age and its relevance, but that's perfectly fine. Last one question is about, are we cash flow positive for the last quarter or still in terms of operations or not?

If I take my investment of, we are definitely cash flow positive.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of [ Shailendra ] from [indiscernible] Entertainment.

I'm [ Shailendra ]. I just want to ask that how is your OTT platform ShemarooMe is doing? I mean can you tell me more about the numbers.

So ShemarooMe is a B2B2C kind of platform. So we have integrated with Airtel, Vodafone, with Tata Sky Binge. We have integrated with -- on JioFiber. We have integrated on multiple international telco participants. And the revenue in that sense come through partners and partner platforms' consumer -- customer base using the platform. In terms of direct B2C, our focus still now has not been very high. We've not invested in the marketing and on the direct B2C presence. And to that extent, the numbers -- I mean, it's irrelevant to talk about any B2C numbers over there.

Yes. I mean number of users on the OTT platform.

The question is that in terms of number of users, as I said, if I take my B2B partner number of users, usage is significantly high, but it's not relevant because it's finally through another partner's customer base. Whereas we have, till now, not significantly invested in creating our own customer base and that has been a strategy right from the beginning. We do have...

Yes, sir. First of all, I'm very much optimistic and like a believer in your company. And I have understood the business model and the long history, and I'm very much optimistic. But the thing is that I just wanted to understand the shifting in the business model like this digital distribution. So I just wanted to understand the -- how is it going like?

So as I said, we made a timely investment in our platform and launched it 2 years back, so we were ready with a lot of integrations and partnerships even before the lockdown. And the lockdown obviously accelerated usage and consumption at that point. I mean, today, we -- from our partner platform, we do get a significant flow of consumption and usage on that. And that -- I mean, so that's really how that journey has been. In addition to that, as I mentioned earlier also that, for example, on YouTube, our numbers -- our viewership has gone up very significantly. On -- today, we are a large content partner for many of the other existing OTT platforms that are there. I mean, all the major leading OTT platforms, we are a very large content partner. So we are certified and well -- I would say, a strong business base established as far as digital is concerned. And we are participating in the digital ecosystem with a very strong offering, with a very strong multiple models. It's not one single model, basically.

Yes, sir, I understood. Then actually, I believe that Shemaroo Entertainment is going to be $1 billion company sooner than later. But just only one input that I wanted to give you is that in terms of the numbers, if we receive more number in terms of the growth and the gross margins and also growth numbers, then it would be great to hear. So it's just a small input, sir, if you can consider.

Yes.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of [ Rohit Trivedi ], an individual investor.

I mean for Shemaroo MarathiBana, we have launched it, I think, before a year and a month now, supposed to 13 months, right? So I'm fine with that, that it hasn't kind of turned EBITDA positive, right? But is it giving us -- right, is it cash flow positive? I don't think so. But still I would like to have the clarification from you. And second is after a year and now we have stabilized the fixed position in the Marathi genre channels, so let's say, even if we kind of place or to kind of forward into the direction, let's say, place #4 or even place #5, something like that because we can't be #1 or 2 that's what is very clear. So in that case what is the breakeven time and what is the, let's say, EBITDA contribution in percentage terms that we are looking over to, let's say, after 3 years, right? Because this will give us a lot of detail about the profitability of the new initiatives which are huge in terms of the TV channels, right? So if, let's say, Shemaroo MarathiBana is going in that direction, then we can expect that Shemaroo GEC would have probably the same contour and direction over a period of time. So that's kind of number one. And there is a second question, but I'll come to that later on.

Yes. So -- yes. So MarathiBana, at this point is not yet broken even. But I can't -- so as I said earlier also, we started monetizing it in Q2. So as of now, we just have about 4 or 5 months of revenue behind us. So definitely, the -- we opened well in terms of the ratings. The -- it, of course, coincided with the bad time of the industry, losing advertising revenue significantly due to the COVID. I think the TV advertising is still not fully 100% back to normal, which now there is a reasonable visibility that over the next few months, that should normalize to the pre-COVID levels. I would answer your other question on what is the potential in a slightly different way. The overall Marathi language television, the TV ad spend on the Marathi language category on a steady-state is in the range of between INR 800 crores to INR 1,000 crores per annum. And obviously, the top 6 to 8 channels or thereabouts will take a large part of that pie. So there's a reasonable pie and a reasonable play available on MarathiBana -- on the Marathi category to be able to have a healthy profit margin and contribution. Obviously, we are still -- it's early days as far as the revenue and monetization is concerned. But I think we are -- as of now, I think we are headed in the right direction. And I'll also add overall outlook, I think for the advertising for next year is significantly better on the -- as the economy grows as per whatever projections are being put out, I think the overall ad spend in the economy will be significantly higher. Let's not forget one thing that India is a consumption-based economy with a very large consumer base. And the advertising is the only way that a consumer brand can reach. So media is the only way that a newer brand can -- or a primary vehicle for the brand to reach to its audience. And so any brand-building that needs to happen will need media. And TV is the largest, most mass media in terms of spend and things like that. And it's -- in last -- I mean, almost 15 years last, if you see that India TV advertising has been growing at 14-odd percent CAGR. We've had -- '19/'20 was an overall slowdown year. And '20/'21, obviously, was a year where, because of COVID lockdown, the advertising spends of most brands came off because they were not selling the product. I mean it was capped. Auto manufacturer is not selling a product, they are not going to advertise. So the industry is now coming out of that, I would say, a huge drop or fall in its revenue and looking forward, I think, to a very good '21/'22 as far as ad spends are concerned. Kranti, you want to add something?

Yes. I just want to add that overall as a strategy, we are very committed to delivering within this range of a market perspective. I just want to give you a product perspective. We're committed to giving a very rich experience to our consumers. So we have invested in the best quality content, and we'll continue to invest. And even in terms of the branding and overall experience, we've set the highest standards for the channel. And we also are aware that we have a catching up to do, given that there are new entrances, and therefore, they will also be investing in building the consumption habit and the consumer habits for our brands. That's all.

Great. After having some critical-sounding question, first of all, let me congratulate you because kind of it's very difficult to turn around the complete B2B business into a B2C format, right? So -- and I'm aware that in the last kind of 3.5, 4 years, we have been on that journey, right? And it's a journey and it will take some time to reach to that destination. And management has done a great job, right? So thank you, first of all. But at the same point of time, it would be highly appreciated if kind of from a market perspective, we can get some clear data because having the right positive sounding statements are one thing and having some data is another thing. So for example, if you can tell me that how much is the total investment in terms of the employee kind of salaries and content for all the new initiatives taken together? So when I say new initiative, we launched the kind of the speaker before 1.5 years. We launched the channel before a year, right? We have that ShemarooMe, which launched before 1.5 years, if I'm not wrong, right? Then we have got the Shemaroo GEC launch, right? And we have got very small few initiatives in terms of the hotels and everything, right? So which are very small, I'm aware about that. But let's say, what is the total worth of investment in this kind of new B2C-facing initiatives in last kind of 3.5 years in total together?

We've given this every quarter. Every quarter for last 4 quarters or so, we've been sharing this number. And it's available, it's available on the website also. It's available in our earnings presentation. And then for this particular quarter, if I have to give the number, it's INR 16 crores. It's -- and one second, I will tell you, it's -- for this particular quarter it's INR 16 crores. And for the 9 months ended, INR 45 crores.

And if I'm not wrong, the total kind of if I have taken the total of only last 2 years, right? So the total would be close to INR 155 crores to INR 160 crores?

Not so much. I currently don't really recall what the number was for previous. So Q3 and Q4 also, we had shared in FY '20, those numbers. But it's all available. Our IR team can help you look at where it's available or if they can give you that because this number we have consciously shared because we know that it's a large investment being made. And the consolidated number has been reported every quarter.

So if IR team can really provide me that, that would be great, right? It's helpful. And last thing so it would be great if we can provide more data about this kind of new initiatives in terms of the revenue also for -- right? And I know the revenue will be small, I know the revenue may not turn into profit for a period of time. But quite often, so let's say, we've launched the digital speakers or speaker business before 1.5 years. And after that, we haven't heard anything other than positive statement that it's doing great. Because if it is doing great, we should have got some numbers because the market having positive kind of statements are one thing and having some data -- some numbers to look at and something to measure is another.

Sure.

I mean before me also a few people have already given this kind of feedback and I haven't seen much changes in the presentation in -- or data pointing.

Sir, in fact, based on the feedback itself, we had shared the investment number separately. But I take your feedback. See, there are some information that we can share. There are some we cannot due to various reasons. Either there are confidentiality issues, there are competitive issues. There are different reasons for which some of the numbers are not shareable. And we'll still come back and see what all -- we can still do out of that in a best possible way.

Because you should understand the concern of the market because if the market didn't get the data not -- something is not going right when actually a good B2B business is being converted into a very good, I would say, B2C business, right. So that's what I kind of the concern because quite often whether the data is positive or negative market needs data. That's what is my only point. And last thing is kind of on the debt part of it, right? So I know we are investing kind of hugely into the new initiatives so that kind of has increased in kind of last 3 years and specifically last kind of 2 years, I'm aware about that and I have tracked that kind of very closely. My only question is, from the management perspective, what is the trajectory for the debt, both short term and long term going forward because that is also one time that market looks very closely, whether the cash flow is positive or not and whether the company has got a significant amount of debt in proportion to the market cap or not. So right now, if I see our market cap to debt, debt is kind of a bit more than even that total market cap, right? So what is the feel of the management towards that our trajectory, if you can clarify?

As of now, if I had to overall give outlook on the debt, my own sense is that March quarter, we should be peaking on the debt front. And even if I have to give a -- I can share the number for December also. So September, the total borrowing was INR 267 crores; and December, it is INR 270 crores. So we are more or less at that level. Marginally, it may go up in March. And I would say we are largely the investment with -- as far as the new -- the channel, particularly, which is a large project, is kind of -- in this quarter, we should get done with that.

Okay. So if I put that in kind of prospect to the cash flow, we have got a cash flow of INR 45 crore, if I'm not wrong in the last 9 months?

Hello?

Yes.

[ Mr. Trivedi ], may I request to please rejoin the queue. We have the participants waiting for their turn. The next question is from the line of [ Anand ], an individual investor.

Yes. I think the previous question covered I wanted to ask. This, I think, it is covered.

The next question is from the line of [ Rupal ] from Deloitte.

It's a 2-part question. Hopefully, folks can hear me. The first question is that in terms of -- when it comes to nonpremium content, right, and to give you an example, let's say, Bollywood movie that's been there for 7 years and there's a chance to monetize it, right? Does Shemaroo have a compete in terms of it comes to monetization? The reason I ask that is because all the platforms to which Shemaroo seems to be present, right, I mean it's pretty exhaustive. I doubt that a competitor will be able to make or monetize that much of a money that Shemaroo can do over the course of a few years post acquiring the nonpremium content? That's one. And if this is true, right, what is the strategy to make sure that, that this -- it further expands its scope of monetization and keep this level of compete, right, it does well. That's all, that's the question.

Sorry, I'm not able to grasp the question. Sorry, if you can just slightly repeat it?

Sure, sure. So the first question I was asking is when it comes to nonpremium content, right? And by that, what I'm referring to is some Bollywood movies that have been there for 7 years and then you acquired content for that, right? The ability to monetize older content, right, or nonpremium content, does Shemaroo have a serious competitor in that space?

Competitor, okay.

Serious competition, right, who can actually do more of the monetization than Shemaroo itself. My one hypothesis is based on all the new platforms, which Shemaroo sells, that's very hard for somebody else to actually go and mirror that, right, including YouTube and traditional media and all of that put together. And second thing is how do you make sure that going forward, right, you have this leg up always if first is true, that is.

Okay. Understood. So at this point, I agree with you and it's an important part that, today, with the size of library and the kind of effort we have been making to build a monetization pipe, we definitely have multiple, multiple revenue streams. Virtually, I can say that anywhere that you see a movie play, we would be participating in some way or the other or earning revenue in some way or the other. There is absolutely no doubt about that. To look at competition. So competition, can we look at in a couple of ways. One is at a business model level, I don't see any organized player. There may be a few individualist or mom-and-pop or proprietary kind of players, but not with the scale and brand and so many other things, organization, structure, process, system, institutionalization, et cetera, and wide monetization base. So I don't see that. There may be, individual platform level, there may be a few -- so for example, television, we obviously compete and coexist with our broadcast partners. So we also buy -- so channel buys directly from the producer and we also buy it from the producer. To that extent, we, in a way, compete with them, but we -- it's a competition or whatever you may call it. The -- in fact, in many cases, there -- the -- in most cases, actually our aggregation actually helps and actually creates more value for them in most cases. So that's really how I would look at in terms of competition.

Okay. And what is...

Second question on what do we do to maintain cash, I think, continuous innovation, investment in people and processes and in the brand. Not only that, I think on a lot of partnerships that we've created with -- whether it's with DTH partners, with many other platforms, I think those are definitely giving us a significant edge. Kranti, you want to add?

Yes. I just want say that it's a continuous effort on how do we keep our content relevant and in the consideration set for our consumers. And it varies from -- one is, of course, a very wide distribution and deep partnerships. Second is also a lot of innovation in reinventing, refocusing the content. For example, shorter format platforms are becoming very popular. For example, all the user-generated platforms that have been coming up recently, how do we partner with them? And we actually have big partnerships with each of them also. Also something as basic as, can I take a 3-minute clip and make a video out of my content? So we have been focused just on mining the content. At the same time, we have a very active marketing effort across platforms and across, what do you call it, media to keep the older content refreshed and from time to time resurface older content and add value for them. So it's quite an effort is what I would say.

It is awesome. I also hope that you are investing in the AI/ML space in terms of figuring out the relevancy.

Yes, yes. There is a lot of -- in fact, we have data specialists in our team who actually fully look at data in significant way in different types of data across -- consumption across different platforms.

Also [ massive ] thought to current -- what's happening in the current ecosystem. For example, if there is a web series releasing with a particular actor, we actually resurface a lot of older content of that actor across platforms, even if that particular web series is on a particular platform because we know that the demand and search result for that actor will go across.

Yes. And to give a very small example, recently, a web series had a song from an old movie and some of that song clip as well. And we -- our team actually promoted it significantly across all platforms. And the impact on consumption for us on YouTube actually went up literally more than 20x and it still continues to consume -- it still continues to get tremendous traction after more than a month. I mean, in fact, this one has been a standout many times with friends flat and back in like 2, 3 days or a week, but this one has actually held on for more than a month now. So of course, in the -- I mean, what I'm saying is that this is a continuous exercise of reconnecting the content to the consumer and in a way so we actually do follow actually internally in our whole listing process, which is something we're mining and mapping. And this -- all of this forms part of how we mine and map the content.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of [ Anand ], an individual investor.

Yes. So I quickly wanted to check on the box office initiative finishes. So I think from the previous quarter, the earlier quarter, there was a box office initiative as well. So do you see traction on that? Or I know that lockdown is getting eased, I want to check on that.

So I would say that box office was an innovation that we had done. It wasn't a very big investment. And it was more in terms of trying to see whether the TVOD model can gain any traction or not. Thankfully, our investment has not been very high. The response has overall been quite mixed, I would say, not significantly high. It has been movie to movie. A couple of movies did well, but not all of them. So content, obviously, was a big driver. Promotion was another driver. Now that the theaters are reopening, that particular offering may not have much of a way forward in that out there. We are relooking at a couple of options on how to take that box office forward. But definitely, it has not seen any major traction on numbers.

Yes. But it helped. We connect to the consumers in a relevant way at that point in time. So from a consumer point of view, the consumer wants to keep seeing something new from the plan.

I would say it helped rejuvenate and reenergize the brand, connect significantly. And that is a good positive for us.

[Operator Instructions] As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Hiren Gada from Shemaroo Entertainment Limited for closing comments.

Thank you, everyone, for joining. I would say that this was definitely a good quarter of consolidation and turnaround for us. And we're looking forward to the overall economy and sector moving to the next level. And hopefully, that should have a positive impact on the overall business. So thank you very much for joining the con call and spending time. Thank you.

Thank you. On behalf of Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.