BENGALURU: The Sunil Lulla-led Indian film and media company Eros International Media Limited (Eros) reported 25.3 per cent year on year (y-o-y) jump in profit after tax (PAT) for the quarter ended 30 June 2018 (Q1 2018, quarter, period under review) as compared to the corresponding year ago quarter (Q1 2018). Eros reported PAT at Rs 59.95 as compared to PAT of Rs 47.86 crore in Q1 2018. On account of items that will be classified later as a profit or a loss, total comprehensive income more than doubled (up 1.31 times)y-o-y to Rs 100.91 crore in Q1 2019 from Rs 43.56 crore.Calculated simple EBIDTA for the period under review increased 48.6 per cent y-o-y to Rs 93.33 crore (42.8 per cent of operating revenue) from Rs 47.86 crores (24.2 per cent of operating revenue.)
Eros operating revenue in Q1 2019 declined 16.1 per cent y-o-y to Rs 217.93 crore from Rs 259.62 crore. Total Income declined 18.2 per cent y-o-y to Rs 223.57 crore from Rs 273.36 crore.
The company says in its earnings presentation that revenues during the quarter were driven by releases of Bhavesh Joshi(Hindi), Meri Nimmo (Digital release), Blackmail (Overseas), Haami (Bengali), Goodnight City (Bengali), Alinagarer
Golokdhadha (Bengali) and others. Eros released a total of 14 films during the quarter, consisting of 1 medium budget and 13 low budget films as compared to 5 films in Q1 2018, consisting of 1 High Budget, 1 Medium Budget and 3 Low Budget Films). TV and Others segment included satellite sales of catalogue films to Zee TV and others.
Eros says that Theatrical Revenues contributed – 30.7 per cent, Overseas Revenues – 12.6 per cent and Television & Others – 56.7 per cent as a percentage of income from operations.
Company speak
Eros executive vice chairman and MD Lulla said: "We have started the year on an excellent note on operational and strategic parameters. Our strategy of a content driven approach reflected in a robust green lighting process enabling us to de-risk our model. Our film content is deeply researched and evaluated for its revenue potential across platforms and markets by our business leaders, due to which we were able to again deliver margin enhancing performance in Q1 2019.
The new JV kicking in with V. Vijayendra Prasad for Hindi and regional content and Reliance Eros Productions LLP for USD 150 million already in process is bound further boost our content strategy and reflect in our financial performance in the forthcoming quarters. The first quarter was marked by the successful releases of our films which contributed to the overall growth. Our strong slate across languages, active pre-sales and catalogue monetization of our films ' library further supported the performance during the quarter. Looking ahead, we have drawn a compelling line-up for the remainder of the year featuring high-potential movies such as Color Yellow Productions Happy Phir Bhaag Jayegi, Anurag Kashyap's Manmarziyan, the IndiaChina co-productions, Panda by Kabir Khan, trilingual Haathi mere Saathi and multiple other films across languages.
Lulla further added, "As always, we continue to be a pioneer in industry innovations in catering to the changing tastes and preferences of the audiences. In this quarter, we released Meri Nimmo straight-to-digital on the Eros Now platform. I am happy to share that the film received a tremendous response from the audience and we look forward to launching more such films and originals on the Eros Now platform during the course of this fiscal. Along with it the roll-out of fresh and strong original content, makes us confident that the pace of subscriber addition for Eros Now will further accelerate, going from 50 to 100 cities and almost doubling the subscriber base to 16 million by end of the Fiscal year.”
Let us look at the other numbers reported by the company
Total Expenditure (TE) during the period under review declined 32.8 per cent y-o-y to Rs 146.45 crore as compared to Rs 217.81 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
Films rights costs including amortisation costs in Q1 2019 declined 29.6 per cent y-o-y to Rs 90.15 crore from Rs 128.12 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Employee Benefits Expense in Q1 2019 declined 14.5 per cent y-o-y to Rs 13.54 crore as compared to Rs 15.83 crore in Q1 2018. Other expenses (OE) in the Q1 2019 reduced 63.8 per cent y-o-y to Rs 19.15 crore as compared to Rs 52.84 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Finance costs in Q1 2019 increased 5 per cent y-o-y to in Q1 2019 Rs 19.5 crore from Rs 18.58 crore.
