- In an exclusive interview with Business Insider,
Hitesh Oberoi , MD and CEOInfo Edge shares the inside joke on how they never thought the company would be worth so much. - Info Edge has just posted its third quarter earnings with a loss of ₹62 crore, from a profit of ₹ 330 crore in the same quarter last year.
- Oberoi also shared their aggressive growth plans in their sectors –
jobs , real estate, matrimony and education.
“If you would have told us five years ago that we’ll be a $5 billion company, I would have said, -are you joking,” says Hitesh Oberoi, co-promoter, MD and CEO Info Edge with a laugh.
In an interview with Business Insider, Oberoi, shares their aggressive growth plans and why they are not slowing down, despite an economic slowdown.
Info Edge, which runs
India is in the middle of a slowdown and Info Edge runs two verticals which are most hit by a slowdown - jobs and real estate.
“Operationally, things have been slowing down and that’s impacted the jobs business as well as the real estate business. But of course, Naukri continues to generate an EBITDA of close to ₹100 crores a quarter. Business is profitable but revenue growth has sort of slowed down,” said Oberoi.
Info Edge’s revenue stood at ₹320.5 crore for Q3FY20, up by 14% from the same quarter in the previous year.
Aggressive growth plans
Oberoi says that they have robust growth plans and strategies in place. While doing so, Info Edge, which also invests in startups, is putting its operating businesses first.
“We are investing in a bunch of areas in and around the job space – we acquired IIMJobs recently. We also continue to invest in data science, machine learning to improve the experience on our platform. We acquired a startup called Ambition Box a few years ago, we are scaling that. We are experimenting with small small things in the blue collar space. The First Naukri business is also coming along nicely,” he said.
Lessons from the slowdown
The 23-year old internet company is not new to slowdowns. In fact, it had also survived the great recession of 2008 and learned a few lessons along the way.
“We are a cash rich company, we have funds available, if we keep investing through the slowdown, what we have seen in the past is we gain share when we get out of the slowdown. We will not be foolish, we will not take stupid risks but we will not cut down on investing. Hopefully, when we do that and we gain share we will emerge stronger,” he said.
Markets have surprised them
The year of 2020 has been off to a good start for them as the company noticed an upward spike in its share prices. Info Edge was one of the earliest internet companies to be listed in 2006. It rose from ₹8 billion market cap in 2006, it has multiplied its value by 46 times to ₹367.6 billion.