The Just Dial stock plummeted over 9% to a 52-week low of Rs 713.30 in intra-day trades on the National Stock Exchange on Thursday, following weak earnings for the three months ended December 31, 2015. The stock ended the session at Rs 731.10, 6.9% down on the exchange.
The classified platform reported a 16% drop in its net profit to Rs 27 crore for Q3 against Rs 32.14 crore for the same period in 2014.
The search engine clocked an 11% rise year-on-year in net sales to Rs 171.33 crore.
Total expenses for the company grew over 28% to Rs 142 crore. The largest component of expenses, employee benefits expenses expanded over 20% to Rs 95.36 crore with an employee head count of 10,198.
Other income of Rs 9.57 crore stressed the total income for the company to Rs 181 crore against Rs 157.88 crore for the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Adjusted operating EBITDA was seen at Rs 47.52 crore for the period, a 15% drop against Q3 2014.
VSS Mani, MD and CEO, Justdial said, “The steps we have taken to address our revenue growth should yield results over the next few quarters. Our search plus product is now ready for mass communication and we are confident that Justdial will ‘make life easy’ for Indian consumers by enabling both search and transact options for all day to day activities.”
Just Dial was launched in 1996, long before the e-commerce wave had hit the country but since then has unveiled various updates on its platform to catch-up with the online trend. It launched its website in 2007 and mobile application in 2011. Justdial works across platforms such as website, app, phone and SMS (short message service).
Justdial is currently servicing over 240 cities and earns largely from a listing fee charged to the merchants. As on December 31, 2015, 16.1 million listing were available on its platform against 14.7 million, a year ago. During the year, Justdial expanded its consumer base 13% to 71.5 million unique visitors.
Start-ups in the home services space such as UrbanClap, Timesaverz, Housejoy, and LocalOye, have been competing with Justdial, the only listed company in the space. In December 2015, Paytm also acquired Near.in, a local services marketplace to ramp-up its focus the local home services industry.
