Jagran Prakashan - Excellent Results

Jagran Prakashan Net Profit Up 140 % At Rs 76.22 Crore

Jagran Prakashan Limited (JPL), publishers of Dainik Jagran, has acquired a net profit of Rs 76.22 crore, which is up by 140.45 per cent from Rs 31.70 crore in the corresponding period of last year. JPL has reported total revenues of Rs 622.98 crore for FY07, an increase of 27.95 per cent as compared to Rs 486.88 crore in FY06.

The EPS for the year was Rs 12.65, as against Rs 6.23 at the end of FY06. The performance of the company in the last quarter of FY07 was commendable with total revenues increasing by 29.71 per cent to Rs 170.25 crore, as compared to Rs 131.25 crore in Q4 FY06. EBIDTA and net profit increased by 28.58 per cent and 42.53 per cent to Rs 33.96 crore and Rs 18.09 crore respectively in the quarter ended March 31, 2007.

In the last fiscal, JPL saw significant revenues from out-of-home advertising and event management activities, which was over Rs 30 crore. During the year, the JPL made two new launches -- a bilingual daily newspaper ‘I-Next’, and a weekly infotainment newspaper ‘City Plus’. Both are targeted at the youth.

Commenting on the performance of the company in the last fiscal, Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, JPL, said, “In the last fiscal, we have taken steps to expand our product and services portfolio, and now JPL has presence in all media genres which includes print, out-of-home advertising, event management, and the new emerging media. Being a 360-degree media house, we have become one of the most diversified media player, providing complete media solutions to all the clients, while maintaining our primary focus towards maintaining our credibility in giving detailed, accurate and up-to-date news to our readers.”

JPL also entered into an alliance agreement with Yahoo! India, under which the company’s news portal www.jagran.com will be co-branded as www.jagran.yahoo.in. Yahoo! India would be responsible to host, maintain and market the website on revenue sharing basis. In addition to these, a separate profit centre named ‘J9’ was created to take the short code service division of JPL to a higher level.

Apart from these new initiatives, JPL’s flagship brand Dainik Jagran also ventured into new territories of Indore, Siliguri and Amritsar. The advertisement and circulation revenues continued to increase with advertisement revenues at Rs 388.21 crore and circulation revenue at Rs 170.83 crore for the year. The advertisement revenue for Dainik Jagran grew by 25.7 per cent, higher than the industry’s overall growth rate of 22.8 per cent. The advertisement revenues were driven by the increase in card rate, increased focus on local market and increase of about 18 per cent in colour advertisement space.