Brands
FY-2015: DB Corp revenue up 8%; My FM op profit up 52%
BENGALURU: DB Corp Limited, home to flagship newspapers Dainik Bhaskar, Divya Bhaskar, Dainik Divya Marathi and Saurashtra Samachar reported an 8.1 per cent increase in Total Income from Operations (TIO) at Rs 2009.57 crore in FY-2015 (year ended 31 March, 2015, current quarter) as compared to the Rs 1859.76 crore in FY-2014.
In Q4-2015, DB Corp TIO at Rs 455.6 crore was 6.9 per cent more than the Rs 454.17 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, but was 12.4 per cent lower than the Rs 554.57 crore in the immediate trailing quarter.
Note: 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10 million = 1 crore
The company’s radio segment – My FM, which contributes less than five per cent (4.77 per cent in FY-2015) to its overall revenue, reported 20.7 per cent increase in revenue in FY-2015 to Rs 95.87 crore from Rs 79.45 crore in the previous year. My FM operating profit improved 51.9 per cent in FY-2015 to Rs 31.23 crore from Rs 20.56 reported in the previous year.
My FM revenue in Q4-2015 at Rs 26.68 crore was 24.8 per cent more than Rs 21.37 crore in Q4-2014 and 3.9 per cent more than the Rs 25.69 crore in Q3-2015. The segment reported 38.4 per cent growth in operating profit to Rs 9.95 crore in the current quarter as compared to the Rs 7.19 crore in Q4-2014 and 5.4 per cent more than the Rs 9.44 crore in Q3-2015.
Advertising revenues
In its earnings release, DB Corp says that revenue from print advertisement grew 1.3 per cent y-o-y to Rs 319.1 crore in Q4-2014 from Rs 315.1 in Q4-2014, while q-o-q, print advertisement revenue declined 18.9 per cent from Rs 393.4 crore in Q3-2015.
Radio advertisement in Q4-2015 grew 24.8 per cent to Rs 26.8 crore as compared to the Rs 21.5 crore in Q4-2015 and grew 4.3 per cent as compared to the Rs 25.7 crore in Q3-2015.
Digital advertising revenue grew 107.8 per cent in the current quarter to Rs 9 crore from Rs 4.3 crore in Q4-2014, but fell 1.2 per cent as compared to the Rs 9.2 crore in Q3-2015.
Company speak
DB Corp managing director Sudhir Agarwal said, “Going forward, our focus on managing growth will continue to be the key to healthy financials. In addition to market expansion, we are working hard to ensure a healthy bottom line through stronger internal operating efficiencies, tighter billing structures and better expense management. Over the past few months the government has put in process several initiatives to boost economic growth and we expect to observe its visible on-ground impact over the coming quarters. Our business fundamentals continue to be strong and we are confident of our business strategies that have positioned us as India’s largest print media company amongst national dailies.”
Let us look at the other results reported by DB Corp:
DB Corp reported 3.2 per cent higher PAT (Profit after Tax) at Rs 316.34 crore in FY-2015 as compared to the PAT of Rs 306.65 crore in FY-2014. PAT for Q4-2015 at Rs 64 crore declined 15.7 per cent from Rs 75.92 crore in Q4-2014 and declined 39.1 per cent as compared to the Rs 105.11 crore in Q3-2015.
The company’s total expenditure (TE) in FY-2015 at Rs 1535.46 crore was 11.9 per cent more than the Rs 1423.72 crore in FY-2014. TE in Q4-2015 at Rs 390.74 crore was 6.8 per cent more than the Rs 366.02 crore in Q4-2014 and almost flat (lower by 0.4 per cent) that the Q3-2015 TE at Rs 392.19 crore.
Raw material consumption (RMC) in FY-2015 at Rs 647.57 crore was 2.3 per cent more than the Rs 632.95 crore in FY-2014. Q4-2015 RMC at Rs 151.7 crore was 2.6 per cent lower than the Rs 166.59 crore in Q4-2014 and 9.6 per cent lower than the Rs 167.9 crore in Q3-2015.
Segment Revenue
The company’s radio segment (My FM) results have been mentioned above.
Printing and publishing of newspaper and periodicals (Printing segment) revenue at Rs 1877.7 crore in FY-2015 was 6.6 per cent higher than the Rs 1762.16 crore in the previous year. Q4-2015 revenue from this segment at Rs 448.41 crore was 4.7 per cent more than the Rs 428.21 crore in Q4-2014, but 13.6 per cent lower than the Rs 518.9 crore in Q3-2015.
Printing segment reported operating result of Rs 490.23 crore in FY-2015, which was 6.8 per cent more than the Rs 458.9 crore in FY-2014. In Q4-2015, the segment reported operating result of Rs 112.21 crore, which was 17.5 per cent more than the Rs 95.5 crore but 28.8 per cent lower than the Rs 157.76 crore in Q3-2015.
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
