Thank you, Hina. A warm welcome to all the participants to the Entertainment Network India Limited Q3 FY26 earnings call.

The investor presentation and the financial results are available on the company's website and on the stock exchanges. Please note, anything said on this call which reflects our outlook for the future or which can be construed as a forward-looking statement must be viewed in conjunction with the risks that the company faces.

This conference call is being recorded, and the transcript along with the audio of the same will be made available on the website of the company as well as on the exchanges. Please also note that the audio of the conference call is the copyright material of Entertainment Network India Limited and it cannot be copied, rebroadcasted, or attributed in press or media without specific and written consent of the company.

To give you a brief business update and to take you through the results, from the management team, we have Mr. Yatish Mehrishi, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr.

Sanjay Ballabh, Chief Financial Officer. I would now request Mr.

Yatish to provide you with a brief update on the quarter. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Sneha. Good evening, everyone.

On behalf of ENIL, I extend a very warm welcome to all participants joining us for our Q3 FY26 earnings call. I hope you had a chance to review the results.

Let me briefly walk you through the quarter key highlights and provide context around our performance. During the quarter, we recorded a domestic revenue of ₹160 crores, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 4% and a sequential growth of 18% for the year.

This performance was led by the continued momentum in our non-FCT business and the digital business. Our EBITDA, excluding digital, stood at ₹23 crores, translating into an EBITDA margin of 18%.

The company continues to maintain a robust balance sheet with a cash balance of ₹372 crores as on 31st December 2025. Let me turn your attention to segment-wise performance.

To start with our non-FCT segment, even with the festive shift, the demand was spread across Q2 and Q3, whereas in the previous year, the entire festive season was in the Q3. Even with that, our event and IP business continued its strong trajectory growth of 10.5%, building on the level of recent quarters.

On to our digital business, digital remains a center pillar of our long-term growth strategy and continue to scale meaningfully during the quarter. Revenues from digital business reached ₹30.8 crores, contributing close to 50% of our radio revenues, up sharply from 27% in the same quarter last year, underscoring the rapid expansion of this vertical.

This performance was driven by an expanding user base and deeper engagement on the Gaana platform, supported by continued investments in content and user experience. Total investment in digital business during the current year at YTD levels stood at ₹29 crores, reflecting a significant 22% decline compared to the same period last year.

As part of our long-term strategy, we have increased our marketing investment to accelerate platform adoption, enhancing brand visibility and driving a sustained user engagement. This reflects a calibrated approach to growth, balancing scale with cost discipline.

Over the quarter, reinforces our confidence in the digital strategy. Coming to the radio segment, the radio industry continues to face a tough advertising environment, like all other mediums.

Advertising activity remained weak partly due to a strong base in the same period last year and the festive shift. While the demand has now started to show early signs of stabilizing, advertisers remain cautious, which has kept a pressure on all traditional mediums, including radio.

We continue to outperform our peers, retaining our position as the market leader in the industry with a strong 25% volume share. In summary, the strength of our diversified portfolio, the rapid scale-up of digital, and our disciplined approach to investment reinforces our confidence in the growth trajectory of the business.

We remain focused on the execution and long-term value creation. With that, I would like to hand over the call to the moderator for the Q&A session.

Thank you.

Hello?

Yes, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. I had a couple of questions.

I wanted to know, what is the Gaana revenue for this quarter?

Yes, and the other question?

I wanted to know how our inventory utilization is like and the FCT and NFCT split for this quarter.

Give me one second. Gaana revenue for this quarter is almost about ₹20.7 crores and our capacity utilization is around 75% for radio.

75%. Okay.

What is your volume growth for this quarter?

It's remained almost flattish this year.

Okay. Have your rates increased this quarter?

More or less remained in the same rank. As I said, there's a festive shift.

There was some bit of drop in the inventory levels and that could have put pressure on the pricing, but more or less in the flattish range, ma'am.

Okay. If we compare it to pre-COVID levels?

It's still a drop. As I said in the last previous years all previous meetings also, it's about almost about, we're down 25% to 30%.

Okay. This time your FCT and NFCT split, how's it like?

Our overall business, radio now contributes to about 51%, the non-radio business is 49%.

Okay. Non-radio includes digital?

What all does it include?

Digital and our Solutions business, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, Yatish.

Can you, first of all, highlight what are the gross margin and EBITDA margin for the non-FCT business, which we earlier used to highlight in the presentation?

Ronak, can you be a little bit clear? I just missed you.

Sure. Can you highlight the gross margin or EBITDA margin for the non-FCT business, which we earlier used to highlight in the presentation?

The gross margin right this year has been around 27.2%.

For the quarter?

That for the quarter, I said.

Okay. For the EBITDA margins, then?

EBITDA margins are about 18.6%.

Got it. Sir, from the marketing spend perspective, if we see last few odd quarters, it has ramped up drastically.

How we see it going to pan out over next 2 to 3 odd years?

See, the way we look at it this quarter there has been a sudden shift in the marketing, because we look at a balanced growth in our subscriber numbers. To balance out, we went with a little higher marketing spend compared to the quarter, but we remain as per our plan of overall marketing spend, what we want to do as a disciplined approach.

We balance growth and the spend simultaneously. We remain committed to get Gaana breakeven in the few quarters going forward.

Okay. From the Gaana's perspective, earlier you were highlighting that around 60-odd percent of the users are now into the new pricing.

How much it has improved from the current quarter's perspective?

Last quarter, I had said about 54%, now it is about 66%.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Sir, do we have any plan to spin off the company digital business from the rest of the business due to the profitable nature of the business? Is there any plan for spin-off the digital business?

Good question, Prashant, but it's too early to say about this. We want to build the business first, make it profitable, one milestone at a time.

In future, nobody knows right now, but as of now, as I say, we remain committed to delivering profitable growth and to get the digital business profitable first.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Yatish. My name is Rahul.

Just wanted to ask you a few questions regarding your performance. You have mentioned that the market share has increased in the last quarter compared to the previous quarters in your radio business.

Earlier it was around 25%, has it gone up from there?

On radio volumes, it remains at 25%. That's what I said, that we remain leaders in the industry, and our market share is robust 25% on the volume basis.

Okay.

Value-wise it will be higher, but on volume basis, it remains at 25%.

Because of the traditional radio business, are other competitors of yours kind of shutting shop, or how are they, because the revenues of other companies are dwindling in this business?

Yes, I agree that's largely been the media landscape this year and particularly because of the festive shift. The overall economy remains muted, a lot of media companies have seen a very muted quarter this year.

On the radio front, yes, couple of companies have not had a very good quarter, really really poor numbers on that. I would not want to comment on the performance.

On closures, yes, there has been one radio station which has not closed down, but sold to another player. In that regard, still remains robust because somebody is still buying the radio company, it's not doomsday, or people are closing down.

Yes, somebody wanted to start a new business, they have taken over. The Ishq FM from TV Today got sold to another radio player.

Okay. In your this quarter results, your other expenses have increased to ₹39 crore from basically ₹31 crore quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.

Why is there such a sharp increase in the other expenses as well as production expenses?

Two things: one is on the marketing front on Gaana, we spent a little more on this quarter compared to the last year quarter because we were in a building phase and there were market requirements and competitors' performances also which were happening. It pushed us to increase our marketing spend on Gaana to drive our subscriber growth and also fight out competition.

And

Okay. You can look at it as an investment rather than an expense.

Yes. We look at our investment on Gaana very carefully.

On quarter-on-quarter basis, we keep reviewing, and where we feel, we do it. We remain disciplined on that because our aim is very clear to get a profitable path and a journey very, very soon on that.

Okay. Regarding the subscription charges, what I believe I'm hearing and understanding is that has the annual plan been reduced from ₹600 to ₹300 by JioSaavn as well as Gaana, or the subscription levels are at ₹600?

In any industry, there will always be a competitive tactical offers going on. In fact, it started with Spotify, which reduced its price for a couple of months to 399, which led to another competition driving to 499.

Right.

I think it's more a tactical offer. I don't think price plays a role of going straight as growth.

We have seen that, and I don't think at that price business model works. We are very clear that we don't reduce the price.

We came under a little pressure, our marketing spend went up, but we remain focused of getting it at the right price, and we believe there are enough subscribers available at the right price and not to undercut on the price. It might be a little patience game.

It may not be a very fast growth in the music industry. Having said that, I think there is a lot of price elasticity available and the price headroom available to increase price.

I think it could be a short-term competitive pressure which came because they dropped price, which led to this change. I think everybody will be back to the original pricing.

I don't think at that pricing the business is sustainable.

The thing is that probably if the prices have been reduced, then the breakeven time which you had previously mentioned that you would breakeven in the next one or two quarters, would that be delayed?

I don't think we have reduced price. We are going to be back on the same price soon.

It's not like we've reduced the price a lot. It's just that our Q3 generally, our subscriber growth remains muted because of the business time we started off.

If you look at our last year performance also, the Q3 numbers on growth on subscribers remain a little muted compared to other quarters. Yes, a month or two months here and there can happen because that may be competitive pressure or the marketing budgets taking a toll because the marketing budgets on digital spends is not just about your music competitors, it's about the overall ecosystem.

If everybody starts spending more, then the price of performance marketing can go up. We were thinking with real money gaming stopped, the ban coming in, the price would subside, but I guess all other platforms like short-form dramas and other things also coming up, that also put a pressure.

The entire ecosystem on the subscription economy puts pressure on the marketing monies also. Having said that, we remain committed.

We believe next two, three quarters we have a path to profitability on that, one or a month here and there, but we should be there.

And

We are not in a price-drop game.

Basically, would you like to talk more about your competition? I think so you are just directly facing competition from JioSaavn, Spotify as well as Apple Music and YouTube Music.

Do these people have an edge over ENIL, or you all guys because of your radio services and your radio business and your events business and the Times of India Group, you all have an edge over these, say, JioSaavn who has a mobile app and stuff like that?

The way I look at this industry, Rahul, is everybody has his own advantages. We have a massive advantage of being present in 63 markets for us to advertise that, our radio jockeys who are about 150 are like your first case influencers.

We have a massive strength on the media might and also for last two decades, people in India have been listening to music which has been curated by Mirchi. From that perspective, yes, we have a massive strength compared to a Spotify or a JioSaavn, while JioSaavn has a massive funnel of Jio mobile.

Everybody has his own advantage. The way I look at this industry, it's not like a Pepsi-Coke fight that you have to gain from your competition.

There is enough subscribers available in India. If I was to look at video subscription, the numbers are about 100 million, while in audio the numbers still stand at 15-20 million.

There is enough room available. I think all players together can increase the size of the cake and have enough share.

Generally, with the content being same on Spotify, us, and Saavn, people may not have multiple subscription. It's not like a Netflix and Amazon Prime that you would want both.

In this case, you have one. Chances of gaining from competition are less.

It's about finding your own subscribers. In that case, we are better placed with our strength in tier 2, tier 3 markets, with our radio network, and our sister concerns.

It just helps us to be in a better place to market it. I would look at competition as increasing the category and get people to spend on music.

I think people in the past have also spent on music a lot, even though it was pirated music or all, people have been tendency, you bought CDs, you bought cassettes. It's just that in between for 10 years, people were offering free, the behavior has changed.

I think over a period of time, people will value that music and will pay for it. I think all players are looking at increasing the category rather than fighting against each other.

Okay. See, if you talk of Spotify, they are, I think so, in more than 60 countries and they have a market cap of in billions of dollars.

Would you also foray into overseas markets where the NRI population is there, or you all are just kind of seemingly want to focus on India? Because you all have such reserves of ₹300, ₹350 crore rupees in your bank, you all guys should go all out to try and promote yourself and try to create a spot for yourself.

Good one, Rahul. The thing is, we as Mirchi, we are present as radio market in Gulf and New Jersey also.

Our radio stations are there. It's not that we are not present.

Even Gaana is present in more than 100, 120 countries, it's not that we are not present. To give you a perspective, for us, it's wherever the South Asian population is there, we target them.

It's not just Indian population, the South Asian population because of Hindi, Telugu music being very, very famous, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, the Indian music industry being very famous across South Asian countries. Wherever there is a South Asian diaspora, we focus on that.

Just that, compare our journey. We took over Gaana 2.5 years back, where the product was not so great, the experience was not so great, it took us time to build that, while Spotify has been the business for more than a decade.

For us to get the product right was critical. You are absolutely right, the biggest subscription market globally is US.

We intend to start focusing on that market soon. It's a very, very profitable subscription market, which is US and North America.

That is the immediate need for us. As I said, for us it's a step.

You can't just expand across the board and lose the discipline while your product was still not ready. Having that

Correct. Now you think your product is ready?

The product is ready. The content is at par with Spotify.

Then you can start looking. You are looking at Indian market, get the Indian diaspora first, get a basic number up there.

Now we, as I said, the international market is a given, is the most profitable. US is the biggest subscription market for any industry.

For us also it remains the same. Our focus on international will start going forward, and which will give us more benefits also.

Okay. What about just a few thoughts that, say, because you all are also in the events business, when you all sell tickets, you all can give Gaana coupons to the subscribers who attend the events in your business, and people who probably advertise on your radio, you can give them Gaana coupons or vouchers to them also.

Are you all doing such practices, or it's more kind of blatant in the sense that not too aggressive?

Rahul, maybe next time I'll get you on our marketing room also. Thanks for all the advice.

We do that. We love doing it.

It's just that, as I said, the first two years have been on the basic hygiene side. You're absolute, right, and we do a lot of concerts.

We started doing that for superfans. We can get them to meet the stars.

All the marketing strategies are in place. As I said, for the last 2 years, 2.5 years, the important part was to get the product hygiene and the catalog ready, the app experience more ready because to get a customer once and having a bad experience, you'll never get the customer back.

The whole idea was to get the basic hygiene ready. All these marketing strategies are in place.

Some work, some don't work. You can work market-wise, language-wise, region-wise, you can work it out.

You're absolutely right, there are enough and more opportunities for us to drive subscriber growth. As I said, for people to spend money, you don't want to give an habit of free product.

Because that's where the industry ails. Because if it's available for free, why will people pay?

The whole idea is to make them see value. If they see value in the product and they have a better experience, they will tend to pay for it.

That's what our belief is. Yes, we give trial offers during concerts, during other events, but you're up to the point that marketing strategy will surely help.

Thanks, Rahul, for that.

No, Operator: Mr. Rahul, Mr.

Rahul, thank you. You may rejoin the queue for the follow-up question.

The next question comes from the line of Chetan Thacker from M3 Investment Private Limited. Please go ahead.

Good evening, sir.

Good evening, Chetan.

Sir, just wanted to understand, is there a spike in production costs this quarter? Any particular thing there due to which that has gone up?

Sorry, come again?

The production cost has gone up this quarter, just wanted to understand anything there that we should read into?

No, it's largely our events and solutions business, which events has shown growth, for that the production cost has gone up. It's the production on those lines.

It's in line with our EBITDA margins and on that, nothing to worry on that part.

Understood. Some early trends on the ad revenue growth for this quarter, given we are seeing some amount of recovery in the economy?

There is some bit of recovery. We are seeing that, not major, I would not say we are very bullish on that.

There is some bit of recovery, some base effect coming in, some sentiments improving. It's little bit there.

I haven't seen great on the sports side also, I'm not looking at this radio, but when I look at the overall media scene, I'm not seeing much growth on even the cricket tournament, cricket World Cup also. I would still remain cautious.

There is a base effect of last year because even last year Q4 was not so great, it could be a little bit of base effect and some bit of sentiment improving, but definitely better than the previous quarters.

Understood. A last bit on 9 months, what do we have spent for Gaana?

Just give me 1 second. About ₹29 crores, Chetan.

Understood. Sir, next year fair to assume Yes, sir.

Am I audible?

Yeah.

Next year fair to assume that nature of this spend will change a bit because we are through with the investment phase of getting the UI/UX in place, the platform in place? The nature of this spend should change in FY27?

It will be more on marketing to drive subscriber growth as we break even in 2 to 2, 2.5, 3 quarters. The nature of spend will largely towards marketing, which will be on the same three level and not on the CM1 levels.

The gross margin we believe, as I said, 66% of our subscribers are gross margin positive, hoping that number also goes up. It will be more marketing spends.

Understood. Sure.

Thank you so much. All the best.

Thank you, Chetan.

Thank you, Hina. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

It's a pleasure to have you all. We remain committed to driving our profitable growth and creating long-term value for our shareholders.

Thank you once again for joining this call. Have a great day.

Thank you.