MUMBAI: UTV Software Communications posted a net profit of Rs 231 million in Q3 2008, which was up by 1055 per cent as compared to Q3 2007.
Its operating revenues stood at Rs 1232 million, up by 183 per cent, whereas the operating income was up 1050 per cent at Rs 230 million.
The operating revenues and operating income of the company for the nine months ended 31 December, 2007 reported a growth of 86 per cent and 435 per cent at Rs 2,504 million and Rs 503 million, respectively as compared to the same period last fiscal.
The company consolidated the financials of UTV-US, UTV-UK, UTV-IOM and UTV BL and the group’s indirect subsidiaries Ignition Entertainment, Indiagames, and UTV-Mauritius and UTV’s joint venture Windmill Entertainment Ltd.
Screwvala said, “Our strong results in the third quarter of fiscal year 2007/2008 are further proof that we can deliver sustained growth which are a result of the hard work, dedication and team work that has been our strong foundation over the few years of our existence. Our revenue and profit growth in this quarter further solidifies the UTV growth story and proves that we are delivering on the high growth trajectory which we have been strategically investing into since the past six quarters.”
“Our movie business has again witnessed a triple revenue growth for this quarter over Q3FY07. Our perseverance and commitment to produce good quality cinema has made us capable of standing in the league of pioneers in the film industry in India and globally. Our focus has always been on pleasing our customers through intriguing and interesting concepts where we have experimented with multi-genre, multi-budget and multi-language films,” he added.
Speaking about the company’s television projects, he said, “We have made sincere efforts to revamp our television content business where we are currently forming multiple joint ventures with well known names like Smriti Irani and Shekhar Suman jointly producing shows for various channels. This will be in addition to the existing television business currently undertaken by the Company. We plan strong growth through our partnering initiatives.”
“Our Interactive business comprising animation and gaming provides us with a valuable and interesting business model which is not only scalable but also enables right diversification in a fast growing interactive space in South East Asia. What we see now is only the tip of the iceberg but the true impact of this M&A and integration will be seen in the next fiscal year and thereafter as we build another high growth and margin business for UTV,” he said.
“In our Broadcasting venture that will become part of UTV going forward, we have developed an interesting bouquet of channels out of which Bindass and Bindass Movies were launched on 24 September. We look at Bindass as being young India’s first entertainment brand where we touch the lives of our target audience through all mediums like TV, mobile, internet, events, and merchandise etc. The other two channels lined up for launch during the fourth quarter of this fiscal year are The World Movies Channel and The UTV Movies Channel, former focusing on world cinema from various parts of the world, but not from Hollywood and India and latter will showcase Hindi movies. We foresee this business creating tremendous value going forward,” he said.
This quarter, UTV also completed its acquisition of Indiagames, which is a Mumbai based mobile and online gaming company. Indiagames is present in 75 countries with more than 150 relationships with wireless operators and channel partners. This acquisition gives UTV a strong foothold in the rapidly growing mobile games industry, which in India, is exponentially growing.
UTV recently sold its interest in the post production and VFX business to Prime Focus. “With an objective of focusing on businesses, which caters to the end consumer and allows us to be on the top end of the value chain, the Company decided to exit this service oriented business as it did not seem viable at the current scale of operations,” Screwvala said.
Related story:
UTV Motion Pictures targets 14 films in 2008
