ZEE5 Q3 revenue jumps 24% to Rs 145.9 crore, global MAUs cross 100 million mark

Zee Entertainment’s video streaming platform ZEE5 has seen a 24% growth in its quarterly revenue to Rs 145.9 crore for the quarter ended 31st December 2021 compared to Rs 117.8 crore in the same quarter last year. The platform’s revenue has increased 12% sequentially from Rs 130.5 crore in Q2 FY22.

ZEE5’s EBITDA loss for the quarter widened to Rs 182.8 crore from Rs 175.7 crore a year ago and Rs 172 crore in the trailing quarter. The company clarified that the EBITDA loss excludes costs incurred by the business on the ZEEL network.

For the nine months ended 31st December 2021, ZEE5’s revenue stood at Rs 388.2 crore, up 24.6%. The EBITDA loss for the period stood at Rs 558.2 crore.

During the quarter, ZEE5’s global Monthly Active Users (MAUs) crossed 100 million on the back of robust content release in Q3. The global MAUs were up from 93.2 million in Q2 to 101.9 million in Q3. The Daily Active User (DAU) base grew to 9.6 million in Q3 from 9.3 million in Q2.

The impact releases during the quarter included Salman Khan starrer action film ‘Antim’, Taapsee Pannu starrer sports drama film ‘Rashmi Rocket’, and Abhishek Bachchan starrer crime thriller ‘Bob Biswas’ besides ZEE5 originals like ‘Aafat e Ishq’.

ZEE5 released 51 shows and movies including 11 originals during the quarter. The average watch time per viewer per month in Q3 stood at 201 minutes compared to 186 minutes in Q2.

The platform’s Q4 FY22 slate includes titles like ’36 Farm House’ (Hindi), ‘Kaun Banegi Shikharwati’ (Hindi), ‘Abhay 3’ (Hindi), and ‘Bhinno Mot Ek Poth’ (Bengali).

Overall, ZEEL’s operating revenue has dropped 3% to Rs 2112.6 crore from Rs 2178.1 crore. Ad revenue has declined 3.16% to Rs 1260.8 crore from Rs 1302 crore. Subscription revenue was down 6.14% to Rs 790.2 crore from Rs 841.9 crore a year ago. Other sales and services contributed Rs 61.7 crore, which is an 80.4% increase over Rs 34.2 crore in Q3 FY21.

Expenditure increased 6% to Rs 1633.3 crore from Rs 1540.6 crore. Operating expenditure grew 8% to Rs 1017 crore from Rs 941.2 crore. Personnel expenses increased marginally by 2.94% to Rs 213.4 crore from Rs 207.3 crore.

The advertising & promotional expenses have gone up 27% to Rs 228.2 crore from Rs 179.8 crore. The company said that the increase in marketing cost on a YoY basis is on account of new launches and continued investments in ZEE5.

The company’s net profit dropped 10.1% to Rs 298.7 crore from Rs 332.1 crore. EBITDA was down 24.8% to Rs 479.3 crore from Rs 637.5 crore.

According to the company, the Q3 FY21 numbers are normalised for one-off syndication deal revenue in other sales & services of Rs. 5512 mn and operating cost of Rs. 473 crore.

ZEEL’s network share fell to 17.3% from 17.7% in Q2 and 18.2% in Q3 FY21. The company said that its total TV viewership was down during the quarter due to lower contribution by movies.

The network’s weekly impressions and weekly reach stood at 760 billion and 29.7 million respectively in Q3 compared to 770 billion and 31.2 million in Q2. In Q3 FY21, the weekly impressions and weekly reach were 732 billion and 31.3 million.

The company claims that its Bengali, Kannada, and Telugu channels delivered a strong performance during the quarter even as Zee TV regained market share. Zee Marathi and Zee Tamil’s performance was soft during the quarter, the company said.

In the movie business, the company said that the rising COVID cases and lockdown guidelines will have a bearing on Zee Studios’ release plans. The film studio has a strong slate of movies across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and Punjabi languages being planned for release in Q4FY22.

Meanwhile, Zee Music Company (ZMC) witnessed 50%+ YoY growth in YouTube video views. ZMC added 5 million subscribers on YouTube with 68.3 million subscribers it is the second most subscribed Indian music channel on YouTube.