MAM
Ybrant Digital Q2 net falls 3%; to raise funds for expansion
MUMBAI: Global digital marketing company Ybrant Digital Limited reported a 3.11 per cent fall in its net profit in the second quarter ended 30 September on increase in expenses.
The company‘s net profit for the second quarter was Rs 502.1 million, down from Rs 518.2 million a year earlier.
The fall in profit margin has been attributed to a 36.3 per cent rise in expenditure in the second quarter to Rs 3.45 billion from Rs 2.52 billion a year earlier, largely contributed by increase in employee benefit cost, software purchase expenses and general administrative expenses to Rs 1.84 billion from Rs 1.25 billion a year earlier.
Ybrant‘s revenue in the second quarter was Rs 4.25 billion, 37.86 per cent more than Rs 3.08 billion a year earlier.
The company‘s revenue for the first six months of the year was Rs 8.06 billion, up 38.84 per cent from Rs 5.80 billion a year earlier. Its net profit in the first half of the year was Rs 1.1 billion, up 15.07 per cent from Rs 954.5 a year earlier.
The company said, “The Board has discussed and considered the proposal to raise funds via QIP/FCCB/PIPE to meet the expansion plans of the company. We have constituted a sub-committee to facilitate the process including appointment of bankers, legal counsels and other advisors.”
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
