Our finances are looking up

Reliance MediaWorks still turned a small loss for the most recent quarter, but a significant improvement on the previous quarter and the outlook is very rosy, as this interview in ET with our CEO Anil Arjun makes clear. Some key stats:

How would the remainder of the year pan out for entertainment players?

You have to look at it in perspective. When we spoke about it last quarter I talked about the resolutions of the issues; we have seen an 80% growth in this quarter in terms of our topline itself. Now if I look at the market performance in terms of the box-office, like I said, it has been a 20% growth in terms of box-office. What is important is that the realisation per film has increased by about 38%. If you look at numbers like for instance the wide release films, which are about the 500 print release, it has been about a 68% increase in topline.

You are still at a net loss level of about Rs 11 crore, while revenues have jumped. When do you start to see the bottomline becoming profitable?

We have seen a major improvement between Q1 and Q2, in fact our EBITDA from operations was a minus Rs 9 crore in Q1, and it has grown to Rs 35 crore in Q2; our loss was about Rs 65 crore and it is now down to Rs 11 crore. A lot of that has been attributed to the depreciation in the interest cost because we went through a very large capital expansion in the past one year. I see a lot of gain flowing from Q3 onwards. Clearly by the third-fourth quarters will reflect positively on our topline and bottomline.

The war chest of INR 600 Cr (US$ 130m) will enable us to do some spectacular thing in the second half of this financial year. Stay tuned for details.

Apparently we are the 25th biggest cinema chain in the US

A good article from the LA Times that gives an overview of our cinema chain in the US. There is even mention of what we are doing on the digital front:

Seeking to upgrade the experience and the environment, Big Cinemas is spending $12 million to renovate theaters -- many of which it acquired from mom-and-pop operators -- with new digital projectors and sound systems, computerized accounting controls, stadium seating and concession stands serving Indian food.

...

Reliance reached out to Indian film distributors, offering to act as a "one-stop shop" to deliver their movies across the U.S. via a company-owned fiber-optic network that pipes films directly from Mumbai to New York. That assures quicker and cheaper distribution than in the past, when canisters of film would have to be flown in and could get held up in customs, causing costly delays.

The Hindi films are subtitles, so any of you non-Indians out there tempted by this, go and have a visit and see it for yourself. You can say that 'Patrick sent me" - but that won't qualify you for a free mango lassi drink or samosa. Just admire the digital picture.