MUMBAI: Eros International Media, the pure play movie production company, has posted a consolidated third-quarter net profit (after minority interest) of Rs 427.9 million, up 167.27 per cent over the year-ago period.
Eros’ total income jumped 86.8 per cent to Rs 2.8 billion for the three-month period ended 31 December. Expenses, however, rose to Rs 2.19 billion, from Rs 1.28 billion in the year-ago period.
Profit from operations before other income, interest & exceptional items was at Rs 610.6 million, from Rs 215.1 million in the earlier year.
On a standalone basis, Eros‘ net profit increased to Rs 347.1 million, from Rs 96.9 million a year ago. Total income was Rs 2.17 billion (from Rs 1.36 billion), while expenses were at Rs 1.66 billion (Rs 1.21 billion in year ago period).
Eros was listed on Indian bourses on 6 October after completing its Rs 3.5 billion IPO. The company raised funds primarily for acquiring and co-producing Indian films including Hindi as well as certain Tamil and other regional language films.
During the first quarter, Eros has released 25 films across Hindi and regional languages. The list includes movies such as Golmaal 3, No Problem, Toonpur Ka Superhero in Hindi, Idea Chi Kalpana in Marathi, Mynaa, Virudha Giri, Nandalala and Uthama Puthiran in Tamil.
The company released a total of 64 films in the nine-month period ended December, which include Housefull, Anjaana Anjaani, Paathshaala and overseas release of Dabangg and Endhiran (Tamil & Telugu),.
Eros said that it continued to focus on its de-risking strategy of monetising film content through pre-selling its new and catalogue movies.
In order to maximise monetisation of its catalogue and new films, Eros has undertaken a new media initiative of setting up in house ‘Digital Asset Management’ platform (DAM), which will digitise and catalogue the movie library and archive the same in the platform.
The VFX facility, Eyeqube, has delivered two Hollywood projects, Tron Legacy and Moby Dick, and a South Indian film project, Shakti. Furthermore, Eyeqube is currently working on films including Ra.One and Desi Boyz which are slated to release in next fiscal.
Commenting on the results, Eros International Media MD Sunil Lulla said, “I am proud that we have capitalised on our key competitive advantages of content library and global distribution network and steadily maintained our market leadership position within film entertainment over the years. Further, our portfolio strategy and de-risking through pre-sales has allowed us to rapidly yet effectively scale up our business. Going forward, we expect a sustained growth in revenues and profitability considering our strong portfolio of films, our focus on capitalising on opportunities offered across all our business segments and our expansion into regional cinema such as Marathi, Punjabi, Telegu and Bengali.”
