Info Edge (India) Limited ( ?????? : NAUKRI) Q4 2023 Earnings Call dated May. 26, 2023
Corporate Participants:
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Analysts:
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Abhishek Bhandari — Nomura — Analyst
Abhishek — ICICI Securities — Analyst
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Vijit Jain — Citibank — Analyst
Nikhil Choudhary — Nuvama Group — Analyst
Unidentified Participant — — Analyst
Unidentified Speaker —
Presentation:
Operator
Good afternoon, everyone. We are about to start. I’m [Indecipherable] and along with my colleague, Vivek hosting this call. Vivek, we have 100 people with us, we can start.
Unidentified Speaker —
Yeah, thanks, Arun [Phonetic]. Hi everyone, good evening. My sincere apologies for being late on the call. We welcome everyone to Info Edge Q4 and Full-Year Financial Year ’23 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
From the management side, we have Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Vice Chairman; Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter and Managing Director; and Mr. Chintan Thakkar, our CFO.
Before we begin today, I would like to remind you that some of the statement made in today’s conference call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve some risks and uncertainties. Kindly refer to Slide number 2 of investor presentation for detailed disclaimer.
I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Hitesh for his opening remarks. Thanks and over to you, Hitesh.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Thank you, Vivek and apologies once again for starting a little late. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full-year earnings call. We will start with an update on standalone financials and then cover the financials of each business in more detail. The audited financial statements and other schedules on segmental billing, revenues, etc., along with our data sheet have been uploaded on our website, www.infoedge.in.
Overall billings in Q4 stood at INR748.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 15.3%, for FY ’23 billings stood at INR2,366.3 crores, a year-on-year growth of 26.8%. Revenue in Q4 stood at INR564 crores, a year-on-year growth of 23.8%, for FY ’23 revenues stood at INR2158.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 38.2%. Billing and revenues along with acquired businesses Zwayam and DoSelect for the quarter stood at INR770.4 crores and INR586 crores respectively. For FY ’23, billing with acquired businesses stood at INR2,433.4 crores, a year-on-year growth of 28.7%.
Operating expenses for the quarter, excluding depreciation and amortization were INR343.7 crores, a year-on-year growth of 5%; for FY ’23, operating expenses were INR1,374.4 crores, a year-on-year growth of 25.1%. Operating EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR220.3 crores versus INR128 crores reported last year, a year-on-year growth of 72%. And for FY ’23, operating EBITDA grew 69% year-on-year to INR784 crores from INR464.3 crores last year. Operating EBITDA margins for the quarter stood at 39.1% compared to last year, when the margins were compared to last year. For FY ’23, EBITDA margins stood at 26 — 36.3% compared to 29.7% for last year.
Operating EBITDA including acquired businesses stood at INR231.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 70.9%, for FY ’23, operating EBITDA including acquired businesses stood at INR807 crores, a year-on-year growth of 73.3%. During the quarter, we impaired an amount of INR12 crores, granted as ICD to 4B Networks Limited.
Cash from operations — cash generation from operations for the quarter stood at INR412.9 crores compared to INR374.3 crores in Q4 FY ’22, a year-on-year growth of 10%. For FY ’23, cash generated from operations stood at INR1,038.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 14.5%. Deferred sales revenue stood at INR1,018.5 crores as of 31st March ’23 versus INR819.6 crores as of 31st March, 2022, a year-on-year growth of 24.3%. The cash balance of Info Edge during the wholly-owned subsidiaries stands at INR3,490 crores as of 31st March ’23.
In the recruitment market, we are witnessing a period of cautious spending from customers in IT. The Q4 JobSpeak reported a nominal growth of 1%, primarily due to the growth in the IT space. On the other hand, positive hiring patterns emerged in sectors like BFSI, real estate, auto ancillary, travel and hospitality segments during the quarter. The Indian real estate market is — it continues to be stable and certain micro markets are very, very hard. Though the price increases have stabilized in the last quarter, the inventory levels are still lowest in the last decade and we’re expecting a series of new launches in both the residential and commercial space. In the education space, we are seeing stability return to colleges and Universities and the number of students going overseas for education also continues to go up.
Moving on to the financials of the recruitment business, in Q4 of ’23, the recruitment segment billings were INR583.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 13.7%, while revenues were INR437.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 27.1%. For FY ’23, billings stood at INR1,858.7 crores, a year-on-year growth of 29.4%, while revenues stood at INR1,679.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 45.5%.
Operating EBITDA for the recruitment business stood at INR271.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31.3% from — and margins stood at 62.1% against 60.1% in Q4 of last year. For FY ’23, operating EBITDA stood at INR1,030.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 51.6%, and operating EBITDA margin was 61.4%, up from 58.9% last year. Cash generated from operations for the recruitment — in the recruitment business during the quarter stood at INR447.3 crores, up from INR412.1 crores in Q4 of last year.
The business generated INR1,245 crores of cash from operations in — the recruitment business generated INR1,245 crores of cash from operations in FY ’23, a year-on-year growth of 21.8%. Billings for Naukri India Corporate business for the quarter stood at INR494.3 crores, a year-on-year growth of 12.4%. While revenues for the quarter from Naukri India Corporate business stood at INR367.8 crores, a year-on-year growth of 27.3%. Billings for Naukri India for FY ’23 stood at INR1,567.2 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31%.
Recruitment segment billings including acquired businesses for the quarter stood at INR605.3 crores, a year-on-year growth of 14.3%, for FY ’23, recruitment segment billing with acquired businesses stood at INR1,925.8 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31.7%. The quarter witnessed a strong sales effort with judicious use of discount reduction and price increases. Growth drivers in non-IT sectors helped drive billing growth in this quarter and are likely to continue the growth momentum.
Global concerns impacting prospects of clients in the IT services are likely to impact prospects of clients in the IT services companies in India, but we are optimistic of hiring by captives and global GCCs. The Naukri site got around 27,000 new CVs per day, new registrations per day during the quarter, a year-on-year growth of 2%. Daily active user count is up 10% year-on-year as well. We increased our marketing spend by 150% during the year, with a view to enhance our brand salience amongst existing users and focus on increasing reach of our digital-led engagement and social media campaigns, targeting the Gen Z audience. Traffic on Ambition Box also continued to grow at a healthy rate during the year.
Moving on to the 99acres business, billings in Q4 in 99acres grew 30.8% year-on-year and stood at INR103.7 crores, while revenue grew from INR61.3 crores in Q4 to — of ’22 to INR75.5 crores in Q4 of ’23, a year-on-year growth of 23.1%. For FY ’23, billings stood at INR311.6 crores, a year-on-year growth of 35%, while revenue stood at INR284.5 crores, a year-on-year growth of 31%. The operating loss for the quarter for 99acres stood at INR19.1 crores, as against a loss of INR33.8 crores in Q4 of last year. For full-year ’23, operating losses stood at INR107 crores against a loss of INR78 crores last year.
In Q4, the 99acres business reported a cash inflow from operations of INR13.5 crores for the quarter, against an inflow of INR3.6 crores in the same quarter of last year. For the full year, the business reported a cash outflow of INR72.2 crores. The 99acres business witnessed a broad-based growth across all categories in this vertical, retail, rental, commercial and new homes. A healthy demand environment, increased traffic on the platform and multiple initiatives by the business teams to improve content quality led to significant increase in inquiries and leads on the platform for our clients. Stronger sales were — and comprehensive go-to-market to cater to launch marketing stages was a key highlight of the quarter. We will continue to invest on platform, content, client delivery and marketing in the months to come.
Moving on to the education business, in Q4 in Shiksha billings stood at INR40.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 42.4%, while revenue stood at INR32 crores, a year-on-year — Y-on-Y growth of 31.1%. For FY ’23, billings stood at INR123.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 28.4%, while revenues stood at INR116.9 crores, a year-on-year growth of 29%. The business made an EBITDA of INR2.3 crores in the quarter — against an EBITDA of INR4.8 crores in Q4 of last year. For full-year ’23, EBITDA stood at INR7.8 crores, down from INR19.5 crores reported last year.
Cash inflow from operations for the quarter in the Shiksha business stood at INR15 crores against an inflow of INR10.2 crores in Q4 of last year. For full-year ’23, cash inflow from operations stood at INR21.1 crores. The rebound in the Shiksha domestic business helped drive growth for this quarter, with many more sort of private universities and colleges in India being established, we expect this growth back [Indecipherable].
Moving on to the Jeevansathi business. Billings in Q4 in Jeevansathi declined by 27% year-on-year to INR20.5 crores and revenue declined by 26% year-on-year to INR18.8 crores. For FY ’23, billings stood at INR72.1 crores, a year-on-year decline of 29%, while revenue stood at INR77.6 crores, a year-on-year decline of 22.5%. The operating EBITDA losses for the quarter stood at INR21.9 crores for the quarter, against a loss of INR38.8 crores in Q4 of last year.
Operating loss for FY ’23 stood at INR101.4 crores, against an operating loss of INR120.4 crores reporting in — reported in last quarter last year. Cash outflow from operations for the quarter stood at INR19.4 crores, against an outflow of INR29.3 crores in Q4 of last year. Cash outflow from — for FY ’23 stood at INR126.2 crores. The free chat model in Jeevansathi continues to drive profile growth and engagement on the platform, new paid products launched in December resulted in some sequential sales growth. The team is — continues to explore ways in means to monetize the increase in traffic on the platform.
In continuing with our stated strategy, reducing our advertising and promotion spends during the quarter, we continue to reduce our advertising and promotion spend during the quarter. The spend was down — advertising spends were down 51% year-on-year and 6.6% sequentially.
Moving on to the consolidated financials at a consolidated level, the net sales of the company stood at INR604.8 crores versus INR472.9 crores in Q4 of last year. For the consolidated entity at the total comprehensive income level, there is a loss of INR414.8 crores versus the loss of INR6,420 crores for the corresponding periods last year. And adjusted for the exceptional items, PBT stood at — stood at a loss of INR3.95 [Phonetic] crores in Q4 versus a profit of INR285.7 crores in Q4 of last year.
Thank you. That’s all from us. And we are now happy to take questions.
Questions and Answers:
Unidentified Speaker —
Thanks, Hitesh. [Operator Instructions]
Operator
Thanks, Hitesh. The first question is from Vivekanand, Ambit Capital. Vivek, go ahead and ask your question.
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I have two questions. The first one being on the recruitment business. So Hitesh, in your opening comments, you mentioned that there is obviously some pain or perhaps caution as far as IT companies are concerned. So heading into FY ’24, how are you thinking about the billing trends given that JobSpeak has been fairly muted year-to-date? That’s question one.
Secondly, on 99acres, thanks for the opening comments. So it’s clear that all segments of the markets are growing. So my question here is, is the market growing much faster than what we reported as a results, given that we have slipped on traffic when I look at similar web data? And if you could give us some sense on what you are doing to mitigate this decline in traffic or am I looking at it wrongly? Thank you.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Yeah. So to answer your first question, IT hiring. So we expect IT hiring to continue to be slow for at least a couple of quarters. IT hiring — IT jobs in the platform moved into negative territory sometime back and we — from what we are sort of seeing around us, what we hear from our customers, we don’t expect — we expect things to continue to be like they are for some more time. Of course, a lot will depend on what happens to the U.S. economy. And in the past what we’ve seen is, every time, there has been a slowdown for — while Indian IT companies do get it for a few quarters, but after that you always see a sharp bounce-back because more and more jobs are outsourced to India, because companies want to cut costs in the U.S., they end up outsourcing more jobs to India over time, whether that will happen to stem around or not, it’s hard to say.
But yeah, I mean, IT companies are sort of slow right now when it comes to hiring, the non-IT market continues to be rock solid. Many sectors are doing very well. Sectors like BFSI, sectors like travel retail, hospitality, sectors like auto ancillary, sectors like construction, real estate. These sectors are sort of growing well and they continue to hire a lot of people. So, could there be a further slowdown in IT hiring over the next few months? Possible.
99acres. See, we don’t think we’ve lost share in — we’ve lost — we haven’t seen a reduction in traffic, in fact, our traffic has grown over time. And we’ve done a lot of changes — made a lot of changes to the platform, which has resulted in the platform generating many more inquiries and many more [Indecipherable] for our clients than was the case earlier and that’s reflecting in our numbers as well. Q4 billing growth was 31% full-year billing growth of 35%. The business generated cash actually in Q4. We made a INR13 crore cash profit in 99acres in Q4.
And this has happened despite us reducing marketing spends in Q4 and despite heightened competitive activity as well. So it’s not as if competition is not spending a lot of money, some of our competitors are very aggressive in the market. Are we growing at faster than the market? Well, the market — some markets are — some real estate markets are doing well. Real estate is very sort of local and there’s a lot of, for example, real estate is doing really well in Gurgaon and Noida. But maybe not in many parts of Delhi. So real estate very, local, so some hotspots are doing very well. And because there were very few launches during COVID. The amount of unsold inventory in the market has gone down, which has led to — it’s leading to higher prices.
So a lot of the growth that we’re seeing in real estate is price-driven. While we didn’t really aggressively take our prices last year. Our growth is mostly volume driven in 99acres.
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Okay, this is helpful. Just one clarification on the outlook as far as IT hiring and the monetization is concerned. So I understand that IT hiring, there could be more slowdown, but are you taking any initiatives maybe on the product side or on the pricing side or any other such initiatives that is helping you, perhaps, but the trend as far as your billing trends, versus say, perhaps the headcount addition by IT services companies?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
See there’s little that we can do on IT hiring right now, because see hiring has slowed down, so — and of course we are trying to sell more and more new products to our customers. But what we are working on actually a little more right now is the non-IT side because that’s where the opportunity is. So we are seeing — we are fine-tuning our product offering for non-IT customers, because they are still hiring and they are hiring in large numbers and there is scope to monetize them better. So that’s likely to be the focus for the next few months.
On the IT hiring side, we are — it’s a wait-and-watch game, we of course, continue to work on our product, we continue to grow our platform, we continue to invest in some of the long-term projects that we’ve been pursuing, but it’s unlikely that we can do anything in the short-term, which will move the needle on IT monetization for us.
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Okay. Thank you and all the best.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Thanks.
Operator
Thanks, Vivek. Next question is from Abhishek Bhandari from Nomura. Abhishek, go ahead and ask your question.
Abhishek Bhandari — Nomura — Analyst
Yeah, thank you, Hitesh and Chintan. Despite sounding cautious on IT hiring for last two, three quarters consistently, we have been able to do a billing growth in double-digit and given the momentum ex of IT, do you think we could still look at these kind of numbers notwithstanding the problem what we are seeing in IT, at least in FY ’24?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
See 50% of our billing comes from non-IT and about 50% is IT at a very macro level. Now if the non-IT, if the economy does well, if the economy starts to grow at 6%, 7% per annum, for example, the non-IT hiring phase could grow at 25%, 30% per annum, right. On the other hand, if the economy were to slow down, then even non-IT hiring could take a hit. IT hiring has been very, very slow for about three, four, five months now and could continue to be slow for the next three, four, five months, we don’t know when the IT hiring market will be done. And have we hit the bottom? I don’t know, right. We will only in a couple of months.
So we are hoping and banking on the fact that IT hiring will turnaround by H2 — in H2 some time and the non-IT market will continue to be solid. And if the non-IT market continues to be solid and if IT hiring turns around in the second half of this year, then we may still end up with the growth — with Naukri growing in the teens, somewhere. But if IT hiring were to slow down further and the economy were to also sort of move sideways, then it could be a challenge.
Abhishek Bhandari — Nomura — Analyst
Got it. That’s helpful, Hitesh. Hitesh, my second and last question is, any thinking around now lifting the dividend payout for the shareholders? We are collecting [Phonetic] such a handsome amount of cash from our core business, the business does not need too much of investments. We have almost INR3,500 crore cash lying. But yet our dividend payouts like fairly low, just being INR9 in Q4. So do you think you would want to increase the payout ratios from the current level?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Chintan, do you want to take that?
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
Sure. So this INR9 first of all is more as a actual clarification, this INR9 is the final dividend, we already gave INR10 as an interim dividend as well. So it’s INR19 in overall, but I understand the overall question, that look, it’s — in comparison to the amount of cash that we have, this may look from a small. Our policy — if you look at dividend policy, which is there on our website as well that we — usually we can distribute certain portion of cash PAT and that’s what we have done. So if you look at it this year, it’s like 35% of PAT, it’s like one-third of the cash that we earn, we have kind of in a high level it’s is that what we have given, right.
Now, is there a case for any special dividend? I think that’s a very separate consideration. We still think that there could be an opportunity for us to invest in this money and investing and we continue to look for good opportunities for the same. So right now we would like to hold on to the same, but should then opportunity arise for that — occasion arise where we think that is cash is in excess of what we think we require. Certainly, we can look at special dividend or buyback or something, but right now, there is no thinking on those.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
May I add to that? Sanjeev here. So, look, I think we have customer advances that money doesn’t belong to us. So what is the amount of customer advances we have Chintan right now?
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
Should be around INR800 I could be wrong but —
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Around INR1,100 crores, so that is not our money, right. So that is — back — tomorrow in case a customer ask for it back, something goes wrong and we give back that goes back to customers. So you know we’ll hire close to INR3,400 crores, INR3,500 crores, you left for INR2,300 crores, right. You want to give some money, you want to give some money for acquisitions, you want to give some money in case of a serious downturn and cash surplus will go down, right. So it’s not that much money, but I’ll give you couple of examples or situations where this seemingly high cash balance has helped us, most latest one being COVID.
So in March 24, 2000, there was a lockdown enforced by the Government of India, April-June 2000, Naukri billing growth I think was minus 44%. There was no clue, nobody had a clue as to what was going to happen, how long lockdown continue, how severe the pandemic is going to be, is there a vaccine, is there a cure, what is going to happen hospital capacity and everybody was at home, right. At that time, we asked Chintan and we gave him a simple sort of thing to solve, which is okay, assuming sales revenue goes to zero and marketing expenses goes to zero and increments goes to zero, how long can we run on the current cash balance and he came back with the answer three years, right. And that embolden us to take a call that we will not sack anybody, right.
There are very few companies in the digital space that did not sack people in India, right. We’re one of them and no, in our opinion, at a time like when the pandemic has just begun, people anyway tense about their own lives and their health. We — if you start downsizing them and they’re going to drop many months, it will get very, very intense for them. And we can’t do that because this company has been built by people and we were able to take that call, simply because we had this cash balance, right. So — and this has happened earlier as well when Lehman [Phonetic] went down, we had the cash balance to not sack people, right. And so therefore, I personally believe that this is the right thing to do and therefore, we do it.
Abhishek Bhandari — Nomura — Analyst
Got it. Thank you for the detailed answer, Sanjeev, Hitesh and Chintan and all the best for next year.
Operator
Thanks, Abhishek. Next question is from Pradyut Ganesh from ICICI. Pradyut, go ahead and ask your question.
Abhishek — ICICI Securities — Analyst
Yeah, hi, this is Abhishek [Phonetic]. Sir, on the Jeevansathi business, there has been a lot of competitive action there. If you could give us some clarity on how the competitive landscape is looking there and what is your outlook on monetization going forward?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
In Jeevansathi?
Abhishek — ICICI Securities — Analyst
Yes, Jeevansathi.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Well, it’s a very hotly contested market, so we have two big players in that market, Jeevansathi and Bharat Matrimony and they’ve been spending a ton of money on marketing. And the pricing — has also been very aggressive. So we changed our strategy a while back. We moved to a freemium model, we made chat free on the platform. So some of the stuff we are charging earlier is now free. And in line with that strategy, we’ve also fine-tuned our marketing sort of strategy. We are not spending as much money on marketing as earlier because of proposition in itself, helping us acquire users cheaper, the new proposition. So that’s been our approach.
So we’ve brought down our marketing spend substantially in the last two quarters. And despite that, our user growth is solid and there’s a lot of engagement and we are enabling many more matches on the platform than earlier. Now, of course, this has also resulted the strategy, this has also resulted in our revenue [Indecipherable] revenues down 27% year-on year. And now the team is sort of working on ways and means to monetize better. Now that is still work in process, still early stages of that. So we don’t know how things will pan out.
But traffic growth is healthy. Engagement is healthy. There is much more matchmaking happening than earlier. We are not — we have cut marketing spend and it still seems to be okay, okay. I don’t know what — how competition will react going forward. And yeah — and at the same time, we are also seeing a lot more activity in the dating sort of space, right. So there are some players who are active in that space. But that’s not a market which Jeevansathi competes in. But we are of course seeing a lot more activity in that market as well compared to earlier.
Abhishek — ICICI Securities — Analyst
Understood. So in terms of market shares, would you say that you have gained there. I mean, how is your position vis a vis say one year back?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
See we’ve lost revenue share. Okay, but we have gained traffic share, we have gained share — users share compared — with Jeevansathi, for example. In the North and West, which is where we are sort of mostly present. So, and we have of course got one.
Abhishek — ICICI Securities — Analyst
Got it, got it. And sir would you give us some flavor of what you’re thinking about in terms of investment opportunities, what kind of businesses you’re looking at, whether it’s still B2C or B2B because has started to become a very hot space. So would like to hear your thought process on what would be the best investment opportunity that you are trying to —
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Financial or strategic, which ones are you?
Abhishek — ICICI Securities — Analyst
Financial.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Financial, Sanjeev, you want to take that.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Sorry, could you repeat that?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Which space are we looking at for financial?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
No, look, we — so in financial investment, we look at every sort of tech space other than jobs and careers, education classifieds and matrimony enriching okay and real estate. But other than that all is opening in the space. So we’ve got a whole wide range, we typically don’t do a top-down, we do bottom-up, we meet — we access some of the 1,000 start-ups a quarter. I got some meetings or through — or phone calls or even just looking at the [Indecipherable] come to us. And then maybe we invested a few. So it’s bottom up. Good founders creating good ideas are seemingly good ideas we might going.
Abhishek — ICICI Securities — Analyst
Understood. Thank you so much, sir.
Operator
Thanks, Pradyut. Next question is from Ankur Rudra from JPMorgan. Ankur, go ahead and ask your question.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. So the first one is on IT. Did you say that the mix is still 50% IT versus non-IT on a billing basis?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Approximately.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Okay. So given the difference in growth rates and the difference in how the growth is trending out, do you think that the balance of growth, whatever you see the weakness in IT, will be more than made up by the strong momentum you are seeing at the moment in non-IT over the course of this year?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
It will depend on how much the Indian economy grows at going forward and it will depend on when IT recovers. So right now it looks, okay, because the non-IT companies are doing well. And of course, if the Indian economy starts growing faster than they may do even better in the past we’ve seen that went growth starts to hit, 6%, 7% domestic growth is possible to grow at 25%, 30% at least in the non-IT space. As far as the IT hiring these goes, a lot will depend on when IT starts to recover so and how bad the slowdown is, right. So have we hit rock bottom? I don’t know, okay. Will these start get better from here on? I don’t know, it’s hard for me to predict at this stage.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Sure. Can you give us some more color, Hitesh, on the IT billings trajectory. I think you said it hit negative on a billings basis, few months ago, was that in the March quarter or was that in the current quarter?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
In this — so it’s — we’ve been trending south over the last few months. The Job Index I said hit new territory has been a negative territory for the last at least three, four months now and I don’t have the exact — it was minus 27% for software services, the JobSpeak index you publish, right, which basically captures volume more than anything else. So in April, and it’s not as of May is looking any better. So the IT hiring has been sort of very, very slow for at least four, five months, six months.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
On a billing basis, could you give us a sense how is IT billing growth momentum right now? And if that trajectory has gotten worse, because you’ve obviously seen two more months of the current quarter. How is that trending in the June versus the March quarter?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
It’s not getting any better.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Okay. And is this — is it already negative on a billings basis also, is what we’re seeing on JobSpeak representatives?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Chintan, do we give out that data I mean?
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
It’s not for us — the quarter is still going on and most of the billing also happens in the third, in the last month of the quarter. So it would probably be wrong one also, even if you have to give some estimate.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Okay. But you can clarify that it didn’t hit negative on a billings basis, at least in the March quarter, right, IT part of the hub?
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
No, I think you are talking about Q4 — yes, so Q4 even Q3 in that sense, actually it was — the growth rate was more reflected because of the non-IT rather than IT. So original question whether it’s non-IT growth will compensate for IT. So far the trend has been on that in Q3, as well as in Q4. Now, what it is we’re seeing is that will it happen — will it remain the same in Q1 or not, I think we have yet to see and we’ll have to see we complete the quarter and come out with the results.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
No, I totally understood. Was wondering if you can share us — share with us any color four if IT hiring not hiring, sorry IT billings hit a negative trajectory for any of the months of the March quarter.
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
I don’t have the exact number like, but as I said, that it’s been the growth trajectory of non-IT was more than enough to compensate for the production in the IT.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Okay. Maybe changing tracks a little bit, fourth quarter has always been a strongest quarter and many deals close. Has there been any increase in discounts given out this time given the weakness in half year portfolio?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Sure. See, this is always that case, whenever the market — wherever the market slows down, you end up getting more discounts, because that’s the nature of this, so I’m sure that’s happened in a lot of cases with a lot of clients in IT, they must have happened.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Would this is something you’re concerned about from a pricing perspective for the next year?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
No, this is standard stuff, this is what happens in every slow down and once the market starts to recover, then prices will go back to normal.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Okay. Last question on this side. Do you think there is ability to sustain margins given where the momentum is right now?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
So in Naukri, see, we continue to invest in many areas, which are we think important for the long-run. We are hoping that this slowdown will not last for more than a couple of quarters. And so if we are able to grow billings at even 14%, 15% this year there I don’t think our margins will be impacted. On the other hand if billing growth slows down and we start growing in low-single digits, then of course margins will be impacted this year in Naukri. Because we don’t want to cut our investments in areas like data science and the blue-collar job we’re working on some of the other stuff that we’re doing, which we think is strategic and important from a long-term standpoint. Can we maintain margins, we want to regain but I don’t think it’s necessary at this stage and we’re hopeful and confident that, we are hopeful — hoping that the market will come back, IT hiring market will also come back by Q3 or Q4 of this year.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Okay. One question on 99acres, any changes in thought process about monetization, besides the classified model that you’ve thought about in over the last one year? I know you’ve written off, 4B, but in general for 99acres?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
So see we have — the resale in the resale business, the rental market we sort of have a classified model [Indecipherable]. But increasingly for some other large customers in the new home sort of category, we run a lot of CBL cost per lead campaigns and so our billing is indexed to how many fees we are able to generate for them and it’s not just our listing fees which we charge them. So business has slowly been moving in that direction as far as new homes — as far as the new home monetization goes. We currently follow this model with a lot of large claims.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
And how big —
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
For customers, we have the existing model.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Understood. How big would this be in terms of volumes or revenues Hitesh, could this be a significant part going forward?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
It will — it could be a significant part of the new home business going forward.
Ankur Rudra — JPMorgan — Analyst
Okay, understood. Thank you and best of luck.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Thanks.
Operator
Thanks Ankur. Next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi. Vijit, go ahead and ask a question.
Vijit Jain — Citibank — Analyst
Yes, thank you. Hitesh, my question is just going back to the recruitment side, you mentioned earlier that in the non-IT side, you see scope to monetize better and you also single out certain sectors where you’re seeing good growth. So I guess I’m just wondering, in the non-IT space, are all sectors looking similar broadly in terms of how you monetize them or are you further ahead in certain sectors still lagging in certain other sectors. If you can just throw more color on non-IT segment wise, it will be great?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
So let me tell — so let me just remind to about 15 years ago. 15 years ago, when infrastructure was hard, cluster sectors like infrastructure, construction, real estate, heavy engineering, auto, energy these sectors together were almost 25% — 27% of our business. And till last year, these sectors were — the revenue from these sort of segments were down to 14%, 15% of our business. So because these sectors didn’t grow for a long time. After a long-time, we’re seeing a lot of action in real estate, we’re seeing a lot of action in construction, we are seeing a lot of action in similar sectors, these sort of infra sectors.
Now if this action continues for a long time then there is no reason why we should not be able to bill a lot more from companies in these sort of spaces going forward. So that’s one thing we are seeing in non-IT. The services space continues to be solid, banking, financial services, insurance companies, travel, hospitality, retail sectors driven back to back COVID, they are bouncing back. So there’s a lot more action in these sectors when it comes to hiring. We have — we are seeing a slight slowdown in sectors like consumer durables, in sectors like fast-moving consumer goods and sectors like healthcare and education, which were super hard till sometime back. There has been a slight slowdown which we’ve seen in some of these sectors in the last few months.
But by and large, the non-IT market continues to be strong, hiring market continues to be strong. Now at our end, see our product works reasonably well for non-IT companies also, so a lot of companies hire salespeople, customer service professionals, finance professional, HR professional, marketing folks through Naukri. But — and there is an opportunity for us to sort of expand our business to more cities, for example. So right now, we operate in about 40, 45 cities, there’s no reason why we can’t take our business to over 100 cities in the next two or three years, right, the markets are supportive, because there is a — we are seeing a lot more growth in small towns in earlier, because it may not result in a lot of revenue in the short-term, but long-term, these can become interesting market for us to operate and they are mostly all non-IT driven services layer and so on.
We are fine-tuning our search and recommendation engines, so that they work better for non-IT hiring. A lot of our focus over the last few years or two, three years within IT hiring because that’s where — the IT hiring market was very hard. And — but now that we’re seeing a bigger opportunity in non-IT, we are going to find — work on fine-tuning our sort of search and recommendation engines to ensure that companies are able to hire more people to our platform in some of these segments as well.
So that’s just to sort of help you understand — see where we are seeing the biggest slowdown right now is in our recruitment consultants business, right. Because about 30% of our business comes from recruitment firms and these recruitment firms hire — a lot of them hire for IT companies and they are the ones which are hit first, because they are in some ways the more expensive way to hire and when companies cut sort of budgets, they are the ones who get impacted first, and therefore their spend on Naukri gets impacted as well. So that’s just to give you a sense of how the market is panning for it. I hope I was able to answer your question.
Vijit Jain — Citibank — Analyst
Yeah, Hitesh, that was super helpful. My second question is just on the 99acres business, the property segment, you mentioned some of your competitors have been super aggressive spending on marketing in everything. And in revenue terms as well, it does look like some of them at least especially say Housing.com, which REA has already disclosed numbers for has grown faster than you guys, is that something that is happening you think, because there are more products on their end, which is still work in progress at your side because you monetize a little bit differently. Do you think that is driving that difference or is it something else?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Well, you have to sort of lift the veil. So we’ve — our — we still believe that we are the largest in this space and we are doing this really well. Q4 was great and we think we are — sort of in some sort of markets we have gained share. And we don’t do a lot of stuff with other companies do. So we don’t do any butters, we don’t do combo deals with newspapers, we don’t have any pass-through revenue through our platform. We don’t monetize other services we sell only real estate advertising. So we don’t make money from packers and movers, we don’t make money from home loans, we don’t make money from a lot of other ancillary services, which are all these companies do, we don’t have any transaction revenue, which all these companies have. So we are relatively speaking, a purer play than some of our competitors. So it’s important to compare apples to apples.
Vijit Jain — Citibank — Analyst
Got it. Yeah, sure. Thanks, Hitesh. Those were all my questions.
Operator
Thanks, Vijit. Next question is from Nikhil Choudhary, he’s from Nuvama. Nikhil go ahead and ask your question.
Nikhil Choudhary — Nuvama Group — Analyst
Hey, hi Hitesh. First question is regarding your comment on discount in pricing. You mentioned that you have cut some discount and there is some increase in pricing. So just wanted to understand how much of the billing growth basically came from this initiative and how much further tail room you have to increase it further going ahead?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
See, it’s unlikely that we will of pricing in IT, given that the IT hiring market is very slow, where we may be able to realize more is in the non-IT sort of — some of non-IT customers going forward, because they are hiring large numbers. So we’ll have to — going forward, see, last year first six months, we were very aggressive on pricing. A lot of our revenue growth was pricing-lead. Of course, there was a lot of volume growth as well, because the market was really hard. But if you maybe in the second-half our growth will be mostly pricing-led and not somewhat volume-led. Going forward, this year, in non-IT, our growth is likely to be volume-led to a large extent and also pricing-lad. But in IT, we are unlikely to see any growth because of either volume or pricing.
Nikhil Choudhary — Nuvama Group — Analyst
Sure, sure. Second question, Hitesh, is on the impairment of ShoeKonnect, just if you can give color what happened in basically what led to the impairment and one of the thing, which is mentioned in the filing about unspecified buyback liability. So just —
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Yeah, can I can I address that? It’s Sanjeev.
Nikhil Choudhary — Nuvama Group — Analyst
Sure, sure.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
So, like to see in all our asset raise, we have a waterfall drag alarm there, in three years time, you exit on five years’ time, even exit, the exit could be a listing. It could be strategic cell, it would be buyback. If you fail to do that, we will be at the right to impose a buyback. All investors together, if you fail to order back, then we can drag you along for sales, right. You have standard [Indecipherable] investment agreements, all VCs do it.
Now, this clause was construed to be a liability and not a contingent liability, right. Now if it’s a liability in F&B, I mean, F&B of witnesses is what is this, given the last round of valuation. Then it was construed that the company may not have enough money to pay off the investors should they ask for the money, right. And therefore we were post write — obviously technical write-off in my view. It does not reflect the business prospects of the company. But it just we aren’t for principal conservatism and that’s what it is.
Nikhil Choudhary — Nuvama Group — Analyst
Sure Sanjeev. Just one follow-up here. Do you see any possibility of such scenario happening in any other portfolio companies, any large portfolio companies?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
I don’t think so, the reduction you announced here but, Chintan, any observation there.
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
I think, every case has been different, because the agreement and the language of the agreement would be different. The investors insistence on whether they want it or they can dilute this also is different. I’ll tell you that one of the big difference is that because we are a listed entity, we are expected to fund Ind-AS. While some of the other [Indecipherable] funds may not be under obligation to follow that in. So that’s why these are certain standards that the auditors want to apply on to knowhow the assets are being valued for us, could be very different than what the standards that might get followed by based on the opinion. So like Sanjeev said that this is not a reflection on what their growth and what the potential of the business model of that company, but this is more arising because of the shareholders’ agreement is being interpreted.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Let me explain if this had been construed to be a contingent liability, there would be no problem. But because it was construed to be a liability, not a contingent liability that we had to write it off. That’s a big difference.
Nikhil Choudhary — Nuvama Group — Analyst
Sure, Sanjeev. Thanks a lot, Hitesh, Chinan, Sanjeev, very helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Thanks, Nikhil. Next question we have from [Indecipherable]. Zenia, go ahead and ask your question.
Unidentified Participant — — Analyst
Good evening, all. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir I just have one question which is considering the current slowdown in the startup funding and a decline in valuations of many startups. What are your perspectives on when the startup funding pipeline is likely to be normalized?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Sanjeev, you want to take that?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Sorry, apologize, could you repeat, I’m really sorry about that.
Unidentified Participant — — Analyst
No problem sir. Sir like, considering the current slowdown in the startup funding and there are many decline in valuations of many startups. What are your perspectives of the funding pipeline is likely to normalize?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Look, it’s hard to predict. But in general, we are finding that there are still enough entrepreneurial activity, there are lot of number of startups. It’s actually a good time to invest. If you you should look back — if I look back and our best investments, Policybazaar and Zomato were made in just around the loan transfer question just upgrade or just maybe just afford it, right. And these are actually good times to invest if you have a seven, eight, 10-year perspective, which is what we do have. So, for us actually is quite good.
Unidentified Participant — — Analyst
Okay sir, thank you.
Operator
There is one question in the chat box for you, Hitesh. It’s the question is from Sanjay Ladha [Phonetic]. I’ll just — I’ll read the question for you, how should we think the business will move going forward? Which business to drive growth going forward, what is your focus area in each of the business segment? And how should we think business growth in next two to three years?
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
So, I mean, see the business, the Naukri business done really well in the last — for the last two years. I mean, be more than, I think we managed to almost triple our cash flows from operation. We’ve almost more than doubled our revenue in the last two years. We are seeing hopefully a temporary slowdown in IT hiring. Hopefully, the AI boom will actually end up creating more sort of opportunities for Indian IT services going forward. That’s what’s always happened with at least in the past and hopefully India as part of the solution, if companies in the U.S., want to cut costs, it will also end up outsourcing more and more jobs to India.
And it, I mean, it looks like infrastructure is back in concomitant investing a lot of money in infrastructure and that is also want to lead to a lot of job creation in the short term and in the medium-term. And in general, the economy seems to be in good shape, it’s perhaps in better shape than it was when we went into COVID. So, if the economy continues to sort of do well and IT hiring bounces back then — and we are able to grow at 6%, 7% per annum, then the Naukri business can grow very — at a very healthy rate, at more than 20%. And it’s a very high Margin business, it’s not as if we need to — we will have to invest a lot of money to get this growth, right. We already have offices, we already have salespeople, the platform is already built. Now we have also — we’ve also been acquisitive over the last three, four years, we’ve invested — we’ve acquired a few startups and of course, it’s also — our plan is also to grow these businesses that we’ve acquired over time. Business like Zwayam, business like IIM Jobs, businesses like DoSelect. We are working, if I sort of — so hopefully, these businesses will start scaling once we put the Naukri behind them.
And then, of course some more opportunities we’ve identified which I don’t want to talk about right now, which like I mentioned, small town. So we will expand into more and more cities going forward. We’ve — we’re investing in the platform in our ad-tech platform, CodingNinjas, right. We won 51% of that company. And we intend to work closely with them to help them grow their business faster and to also get improve our offering for candidates for jobseekers on Naukri. So there are a bunch of things we’re working on as a platform which and we will continue to invest behind these sort of initiatives. Some of them are short-term, some are more medium-term.
We have been working on a blue collar job board for the last three, four years, we’ll try and start monetizing this sort of product sometime this year. But this is more long-term play, we don’t expect any significant revenue from this business in over the next two to three years. But long-term, it’s a — we think it’s a good bet and it’s important that we sort of have a foothold in this space. So these all the things we’re doing in Naukri, which will hopefully drive what going forward.
Similarly in 99acres, we’ve done well in the resale and rental categories, if you ask me that part of the business has done quite well, commercial part of the business has also done well. What we see a lot of opportunity in new home monetization. There are lots of new developments being constructed everywhere, there are lots of satellite towns emerging. Inventory is down to — of existing homes is down to an all-time low. There is a lot of interest in the industry once again from buyers and investors. Now we need to crack open this market, it’s not a dundee. We are a very small part of this market over few thousand crores are invested in or spent on new home marketing, we got to get a small fraction of that.
Actually, if we can somehow do a better job of executing in the new home space, then that can drive both in 99acres over the next few years. Of course if the team executes well, then of course, there will also be option to gain more market share over time in 99acres and that would again even higher growth in 99acres going forward.
In Shiksha, we are investing a — we have the domestic business, which is growing at 20%, 25% per annum but about few years ago, we have also entered the study in broad space that is today a small business for us, but we spent — we sent over 1,500 kids overseas last year and this year we are targeting to send more than 2,000 kids overseas. And if we get a good handle on this business and this business can also become a large business over time.
In Jeevansathi, we are working on the new model. And if we’re able to get our act together monetization, if we’re able to cut burn, the Jeevansathi business could sort of get to a decent place and we’ve also acquired 76% stake in Aisle, which is building platform. Again, early days, but we are investing in that business. And if you see good traction, then we will double down on the dating category as well. So these are some of the areas where we are investing. All of them are work in process. But hopefully some will work out over the next two to three years for us.
Operator
The next question is from Vivek from Ambit Capital. Vivek, go ahead and ask your question.
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Hello, thank you so much for the follow-up opportunity, how much of the committed AIF money has been deployed already, Sanjeev if you could give us an update on the four AIFs that you currently have.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Well there’s fund one and a follow-on fund that has been a significant chunk of that has been deployed. Fund two and capital 2B it’s comparatively less because we’ve been going slow and careful and there’s still enough time left to do our first checks. We typically — we do not announce exact numbers on this.
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Okay. And the reason why it’s taking you longer to deploy in the Fund 2 and capital 2B is because you have to start from new names in it.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
No, it’s not like this. We do more recent funds. After the final close, typically we have I think there’s a rule, I think the final [Indecipherable]. We’ve got three years to write the first checks, right. We want to take our time and be very, very selective given the state of the market. I’m particularly careful about valuation or enterprise, we want to particularly careful about getting — going after capital efficient companies, given the type funding environment, so we are taking our time. That’s all. And yes, we do not invest from fund two into fund one companies or from capital 2B to fund one companies, those are what are compartments.
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Okay. My last question is on the financial investments that sit on the balance sheet, not included in the AIFs. So did you make any major investments in the current fiscal year as follow-on rounds in to say [Indecipherable] or Shopkirana or some of the —
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
I’m not sure, it’ major, but we’ve done some, Chintan can you —
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
I don’t have the numbers right now, but yes, we would have made some follow-on rounds and some small investments even in companies like —
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
The big ticket are done there.
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, it’s not — nothing major.
Vivekanand Subbaraman — Ambit Capital — Analyst
Okay, great, thank you.
Operator
Thanks, Vivek. The next question is from Vijit Jain from Citi. Vijit, go ahead and ask your question.
Vijit Jain — Citibank — Analyst
Yeah, hi thanks. Sanjeev, my question is to you. I guess if you look at what’s been trending in the space in India and globally. More recently in India it’s ONGC specifically. I guess, AI obviously globally. My question is, are you seeing any opportunity —
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
What’s the questions?
Vijit Jain — Citibank — Analyst
Sorry, my question is, are you seeing any opportunities in those two that you are excited about are these focus areas or any interest areas for you in terms of how you look to deploy?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Like I said, we do a bottom-up not top-down, but yes, of course, some of the deals we have looked at and possibly even done. Have components of AI, machine-learning, right, there’s a number of people trying. We typically have — ONGC is — so we don’t do D2C typically in our fund. We preferred — we don’t think that’s central to our mandate. We — and therefore ONGC may or may not work for us. Now having said that, if we see a really great deal grid, we’ll do it we might. So I’m not ruling anything out, but it’s less likely.
Vijit Jain — Citibank — Analyst
Got it. Thanks, Sanjeev.
Operator
Sanjeev, there’s a question in the chat box from [Indecipherable]. On start-up investment, how is our portfolio companies as a whole performing in the current macroeconomic scenario? Are there any signs of stress or mark-down in some other companies?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
I think we’ve — look, every portfolio will have some situation of stress and we are no exception. Having said that, I think we’re doing fairly, fairly all right so far, but tomorrow is another day, we don’t know. We are waiting and watching.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
No more questions on the Q&A.
Operator
Yeah, that was the last question we had.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
So since there are no more questions, we’ll conclude the call on behalf of the company.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Founder and Executive Vice Chairman
Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Have a great evening.
Chintan Thakkar — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks everyone.
Hitesh Oberoi — Co-Promoter and Managing Director
Thank you.
