Committed to enable and empower India's SMEs
Justdial has been leading the way to give SMEs the visibility they
deserve. Our constant endeavour has been to foster growth of Indian SMEs, and thereby
drive the economic cycle of our country and ensure prosperity for all.
Dear Shareholders,
We have always dreamt of connecting buyers with sellers by providing
comprehensive information about services and products, and giving buyers easy and reliable
options to choose from. Now, 27 years later, we are one of the largest local search
platforms in India operating over phone, website, and mobile platforms. We provide rich
information about local businesses to our users, thereby making their decision-making
simpler.
We contribute to the growth of small and medium businesses by
generating quality leads for them and play an important role in helping them grow their
customer base. This way, business expansion from small to medium, and medium to large
sizes happens. In the case of most other platforms, customer data is owned by the
platform, while businesses are mere suppliers.
In our case, we enable businesses to build and foster trusted
relationships with their customers, which is why SMEs in India see us as their true
partners.
Going digital—The way forward
SMEs are cognizant of the fact that going digital is the strategy to
adopt. They understand that having a strong digital footprint improves visibility. The
youth today are more inclined to avail services through internet platforms instead of
visiting a physical shop and for a platform like ours, this is a shift we can leverage to
the maximum. Another advantage for businesses is that our average ticket size is in the
range of Rs.18,000-20,000 annually though it varies by type
of business and geographies, making it quite affordable and delivers an
optimal cost benefit ratio to SMEs. We also have premium listings for enterprises that
wish to have preferential visibility during a search output. This allows us to offer a
variety of choices for our customers based on their capacity to invest with us.
To ensure transparent processes and results, we have deployed the use
of advanced analytics in campaigns that we run for our customers. We have rich dashboards
where customers can see how their campaign is performing. They have visibility on their
listings showing up, searches happening for their listings, the corresponding hit rate and
request for quotes. They can map the effectiveness of their campaigns and the money
invested to the returns they receive. These are the factors that have enabled us to drive
renewals and have repeating customers.
Performance during the year Our database grew to 36.5 million listings
as on March 31, 2023, which is a 14.4% increase over last year. Our paid campaigns grew
16.6% Y-o-Y to 538,220 campaigns as on March 31, 2023. Overall, after two years of COVID
impact, business witnessed a strong recovery this year. Our revenue stood at Rs.8,447.6
million in FY23, a growth of 30.6%. Operating EBITDA was at Rs.860 million with 10.2%
operating EBITDA margins. We exited the year at close to pre-COVID revenue levels, with
revenue for the March quarter at Rs.2,325 million. Our adjusted
EBITDA margin, excluding ESOP Expenses, stood at 15.3%. Our balance
sheet stands strong with net worth at Rs.36,672 million and we shall focus towards getting
back to healthy pre-COVID profitability levels for the business and growing thereon.
A large part of traffic comes through the mobile platform. However, we
have revamped our desktop experience and expect that traffic to go up as well. We are
continuously enriching our content to offer superior search results to our end users.
People and communities
People have been our greatest asset, and naturally we invest in them.
We have increased our headcount across sales, marketing, technology,
product development and content management teams during the year. Promoting an open and
dynamic environment, we are strengthening talent management through trainings and skill
upgradation.
Education is a key focus for us as we realise it contributes greatly to
the development of a nation. We work in providing quality education and as part of our CSR
initiatives, we have been associated with Isha Vidhya Justdial Matriculation School in
Karur, Tamil Nadu, Sri Sri Ravishankar Vidya Mandir, Dharavi, Mumbai and D.A.V High
School, Malad, Mumbai. Healthcare is another area which is close to our heart for which we
have associated with ISKCON to set up an ayurvedic healing centre at Kharghar, Navi
Mumbai.
538,220
Active paid campaigns as on March 31, 2023
Outlook
I am grateful to our parent company Reliance Retail Ventures Limited
(RRVL) for their continued trust and support that has encouraged us to swiftly bounce back
post tough past couple of years. I also thank our Board and all stakeholders for trusting
us and our capabilities. It induces immense encouragement in me and the people at Justdial
to live up to your expectations. The future is digital, and we are well placed to leverage
this opportunity.
In the coming months, we will roll out new offerings and deliver an
even more evolved user experience for both our users and our customers.
Yours sincerely,
V. S. S. Mani
Founder, MD and CEO