BENGALURU: The Sunil Lulla led Eros International Media Limited (Eros) reported almost 2.5 times (2.496 times) consolidated profit after tax (PAT) for the quarter ended 31 December 2016 (Q3-16, current quarter) as compared to the corresponding year ago quarter (Q3-16). Eros PAT for the current quarter was Rs 101.88 crore (30.7 percent of Total Income from Operations or TIO, margin) as compared to Rs 40.81 crore (12.2 percent margin) in Q3-16.
The company’s release slate was affected by demonetisation in Q3-17. Arsing from this, Eros said in its investor presentation that it has withheld the release of some films until the situation normalises. It says that the marginal decrease in consolidated revenues is on account of a narrower film slate comprising three medium budget and 5 small budget films in Q3-17 as compared to one high budget, 4 medium budget and 10 small budget films during the Q3-16 offset by comparatively stronger catalogue revenues. Hence consolidated TIO in the current quarter declined 1 percent year-over-year (y-o-y) to Rs 332.12 crore as compared to Rs 335.38 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
Company speak
Commenting on the performance of Q3-17, Eros, executive vice chairman & MD Sunil Lulla said, “This quarter results gave us a chance to bring out the strength of our valuable library. In spite of demonetization move by the Government which had a temporary negative impact on theatrical revenues, we demonstrated our robust business model by bringing in strong contributions from catalogue sales across television and other distribution channels. Rock On 2 although impacted directly by the demonetization benefited from strong pre‐sales in television and digital streams. Although the movies released during the quarter witnessed weak box office performances due to lack of footfalls, we firmly believe, that the demonetization step, in the longer term, will throw up a huge opportunity for us to strengthen our lead in corporatising the Indian Media and Entertainment industry.”
“As we look ahead, we are investing smartly for the longer term in‐line with our portfolio approach across varied budgets and languages. Our strong industry‐leading production slate of over 50 movies in CY-17 (Calendar Year) has gone through a stringent green‐lighting process for many months. The upcoming line‐up includes highly promising projects such as five films from Trinity, two Indo‐China co‐productions, a Shahrukh Khan film from Color Yellow, two sequels from our own IPs like Vicky Donor‐2, Badlapur‐2, Munna Michael starring Tiger Shroff, Chanda Mama Door Ke starring Sushant Singh, amongst others.”
Let us look at the other numbers reported by Eros
Simple EBIDTA without other income in Q3-17 almost doubled (increased by 97.2 percent) y-o-y to Rs 131.39 crore (39.6 percent margin) from Rs 66.64 crore (19.9 percent margin).
Consolidated Net Finance cost in the current quarter increased 48.2 per cent y-o-y to Rs 11.93 crore from Rs 8.05 crore.
On account of the lower number of films released, Total Expenditure in Q3-17 declined 25.2 percent to Rs 203.18 crore from Rs 271.54 crore in Q3-16. The company’s Films rights costs including amortisation costs in Q3-17 declined 24.1 percent y-o-y to Rs 151.23 crore from Rs 199.28 crore.
Employee Benefit Expense in the current quarter increased 43 percent to Rs 20.48 crore from Rs 14.32 crore in Q3-16. Other expenses in Q3-17 declined by almost half (declined by 49.5 percent) y-o-y to Rs 28.86 crore from Rs 57.11 crore in the corresponding of the previous year.
ErosNow
The company says that Eros International’s OTT Platform Eros Now has over 20 lakh (2 million) subscribers worldwide, it has 5.5 crore (55 million) registered users worldwide across WAPP, APP and the web. The platform has rights to over 5,000 films, 250,000 audio tracks with 13 music labels providing music content.
