News Broadcasting
Indian IT industry crosses $37.3 bn in ’05-06,MP3 Players, Digital Cameras sales grow 59%
New Delhi, August 14, 2006 : The Indian IT industry logged in total IT revenues of Rs 164,652 crore (USD37.3 billion) in the year ended March 31, 2006 recording a growth of 33 per cent. (However, based on dollar denominated revenues, the growth was placed at 31 per cent) The industry showed a remarkable growth across all segments. The IT Services and BPO industry exports grew 33 per cent to record revenues of Rs 87,951 crore. The domestic IT industry went up 28 per cent to report revenues of Rs 56141 crore.
The Top 5 IT groups — Tata, Wipro, Infosys, HP and HCL — collectively grew by 34% thus accounting for a third of the total Indian IT industry. The growth of the top 5 IT groups in the previous fiscal was 41 per cent. These findings have been reported in a recent survey of the Indian IT industry by the leading industry journal Dataquest in its 4-part annual survey.
The hardware segment comprising servers, workstations, peripherals, and networking equipment accelerated its growth to 23% to record revenues of Rs 31706 crore.
No 1 IT Trainer grows market share to 31%:
The IT Training industry recorded a growth of 14 per cent to log in revenues of Rs 1453 crore. NIIT strengthened its leadership as the No.1 IT training company with revenues of Rs 450 crore and recording a market share of 31 per cent.
With revenues of Rs 450 crore, NIIT is nearly 1.5 times bigger than the combined revenues of the next 4 players put together. NIIT which was 2.94 times the size of the next player has widened the gap by becoming 3.72 times the size of the No 2 player.
NIIT, which addressed the spectrum of e-Learning activities, like learning content, design and development and integration of learning tools, hosted solutions and learner support services, completed its portfolio by acquiring the US headquartered USD 80 million company, Element K at a cost of USD 40 million last month.
MP3 Players, Digital Cameras sales grow:
External potable storage devices, External Hard Disks, and Pen Drives, drove demand for storage devices led by corporate executives. Non-traditional storage devices like Digital Cameras and MP3 players got the push from the consumer side. The survey estimates the Indian market for flash-based and HDD-based MP3 players to be around 85,500 units, translating into around Rs
95 crore revenues. The market was driven largely by iPod, of course, which became the mainstay for MP3 player boom.
Led by 59 per cent growth during the year, Indian consumer bought 232,265 digital cameras from Kodak, Sony, Canon, Olympus and Nikon. The prices of digital cameras have dropped lower than Rs 10,000. According to Dataquest estimates, the grey market accounted for nearly 30 per cent of the total digital market during the year.
Internet connections cross 5 million mark:
An accelerated 29% growth in Internet connections led to an addition of 1.6 million Internet connections. The Internet subscriber base of the Top 10 Internet Service Providers crossed the 7 million mark, even though it fell short of the 3 million new Internet connections target set by the industry
for itself. India now has the fourth largest base of Internet users in the
world.
The industry attributes the high installation charges for the slow increase in the Internet proliferation. Of the Top 10 ISP providers, only VSNL recoded a drop in Internet connections and revenues during the year.
Under Rs 10,000 PC a reality:
Personal computer industry maintained its 24% growth (like last year) to sell over 4 million computers with a low cost PC under Rs 10000 a piece became a reality in the year. HCL, HP and IBM/Lenovo were the top PC brands selling nearly 38 per cent of the personal computers in the year.
A drop in laptop computer prices below the Rs 35,000 mark saw sales grow by 168 %, shipping 588,592 laptop computers in 2005-06, led by HP, Lenovo and Toshiba.
Over 2 million printers were bought in the second year when printers and scanners gave way to Multi Function Devices or MFDs with competition forcing the inkjet based MFDs below the Rs 5000 price point. While Hewlett Packard topped the sales charts in the Inkjet, Laser Printers and MFDs in the inkjets and A4 sized lasers, India’s TVS Electronics was the numero uno in the impact printer category.
There was a marked shift in favour of TFT-LCD monitors. The Indian individual and corporate users bought almost 5 million monitors during the year with LCD based Monitors contributing 16 per cent of all the monitors sold. The users preferred larger screen sizes, from 15 to 17 inch and above in both CRT and TFT monitor categories.
News Broadcasting
Network18 Q4 revenue grows 9.7 per cent, EBITDA at Rs 30 crore
PAT improves to Rs 306.6 crore, margins steady amid cost pressures.
MUMBAI: Not all news is breaking, some of it is quietly improving. Network18 Media & Investments Limited appears to be doing just that, tightening losses and stabilising margins even as costs continue to weigh on the business. For FY26, the company reported revenue from operations of Rs 1,955.1 crore, up from Rs 1,896.2 crore in FY25, signalling modest top-line growth in a challenging media environment. Total income stood at Rs 1,978.2 crore, compared to Rs 1,913 crore a year earlier.
Profit after tax came in at Rs 306.6 crore for the year, a sharp turnaround from Rs 3,225.4 crore in FY25, largely reflecting the absence of large exceptional items that had inflated the previous year’s numbers. On a more comparable basis, the company’s operating performance showed signs of gradual stabilisation.
However, the quarterly picture remained under pressure. For the March quarter, Network18 reported a loss of Rs 53.1 crore, narrower than the Rs 98.1 crore loss in the same period last year, but still indicative of ongoing cost challenges.
Expenses continued to track high. Total expenses for FY26 stood at Rs 2,235.7 crore, up from Rs 2,197.8 crore in FY25. Key cost heads included operational expenses of Rs 765.9 crore, employee benefits of Rs 475.9 crore, and marketing, distribution and promotional spends of Rs 427.1 crore, underlining the continued investment required to sustain reach and engagement.
At an operating level, margins remained under strain. Operating margin stood at 2.33 per cent for FY26, marginally higher than 1.77 per cent in FY25, while net profit margin remained negative at -13.02 per cent, though improved from -14.89 per cent.
On the balance sheet, total assets rose to Rs 8,957.6 crore as of 31 March 2026, from Rs 8,317.5 crore a year earlier. Equity strengthened to Rs 4,958.7 crore, while borrowings increased to Rs 3,112.8 crore, reflecting a higher reliance on debt to support operations.
Cash flows told a mixed story. While financing activities generated Rs 83.9 crore, operating cash flow remained negative at Rs -24 crore, highlighting ongoing pressure on core cash generation. Cash and cash equivalents, however, improved to Rs 33.9 crore from Rs 1.8 crore.
The numbers point to a company in transition growing revenues, trimming losses, but still grappling with structural cost pressures. In a sector where scale often comes at a price, Network18 seems to be inching towards balance, one quarter at a time.
