NDTV's digital company, NDTV Convergence, has reported revenue of 38 crores for the first quarter of this year - that's 65% up from last year for the same period. The results establish that NDTV's reorganizing of its resources to focus intensively on its digital business is working.
"NDTV's digital content - its app, website and mobile site - has totally outpaced its competition, not just for traffic, but for revenue," said co-founder Prannoy Roy. "Our reorienting the newsroom towards mobile journalism (MoJo) and more is not an overnight strategy. We've been refining our plans for years to skew more towards digital platforms because we really believe this space is now coming into its own."
NDTV Convergence reported profits of 7 crores on revenue of 38 crores despite the fact that Q1 of the financial year is usually a slow one. Expenses were Rs 25 crores, as compared to Rs 26 crores for the same quarter last year. As MediaNama reports, several other publishers have reported of GST and other factors causing a crunch in revenue. NDTV has beaten this trend.
NDTV's Uniques are now at 135 million on Google Analytics - and on Similar Web, so far this year, it has maintained its position as India's second-largest news site.
The premium value of the brand is clear from this comparison: the market leader, Times Internet Ltd., reports losses every year. Yet, NDTV gets more attention and better rates from advertisers because of its high-end demographics and the stickiness of its content - the iOS app, for example, sees each user consuming 270 pages per month and clocks the maximum time spent among iPhone users in India.
NDTV Convergence's team of about 275 people is the smallest among leading online publishers in India and its revenue yield per employee is reportedly 2.3 times that of the market leader.
Over the last year, NDTV as a group has moved to ensure that its biggest news breaks first on its app and sites. The most recent example of this was the coverage of Nitish Kumar breaking his alliance with Lalu Yadav and the Congress - every big development was reported first on digital, and TV took its cues and headlines from what the site and app filed. Lalu Yadav gave an exclusive interview to ndtv.com in the midst of the crisis; Ahmed Patel has spoken exclusively to the site today on his bid for re-election to the Rajya Sabha as the Congress deals with a contagion of defections in Gujarat.
In keeping with its commitment to its user-first policy, NDTV Convergence is reorganizing ads on its site and apps to ensure the fastest and best experience.
Several new products have been launched in the last few weeks: Rail Beeps, a comprehensive mobile site that helps organize train reservations and information; Pricee, which is India's first shopping search engine and offers an insta-comparison of the prices for more than 7 crore or 70 million products ranging from lipsticks to air conditioners.
The tech site, Gadgets 360, is growing traffic at 40% year on year to maintain its leadership position.
Next up: a new Lifestyle site and app, aimed at women aged 21 to 40.
Unlike other publishers, NDTV is growing its traffic organically. Competing publishers have been leasing traffic - renting the traffic of smaller sites in exchange for a fee. NDTV does not believe in these practices - we remain committed to genuine and quality content and NDTV is drawing the financial benefits of its approach.