Rediff.com India Ltd, one of the leading online providers of news, information, communication, entertainment and shopping services for Indians, has recorded 53 per cent growth in its revenues in the first quarter this year.
Intensification in online advertising and mobile services resulted in increased revenues for the company, with revenues from India online increasing by 114 per cent to $2.7million in the first quarter as compared to $1.3 million during the same quarter last fiscal year.
The gross margin of the company is up by 68 per cent as opposed to 54 per cent in the first quarter of 2004-05. The net income of the company from existing operations for the first quarter stood at $53,000.
Besides, the immense popularity of the portal has resulted in an increase in the number of registered users, which posted a 19 per cent increase of 37.5 million as compared to last year.
However, higher advertising and product development costs led to an increase in operating expenses, which was up by 40 per cent at $2.7 million in this quarter as compared to $1.9 million for the same period last year.
The portal launched a slew of new products, which included an auction site for its shopping customers, and pay4clicks classifieds module with over 150 sections. Apart from that, rediff.com also launched a beta version of 'Newshound', which delivers news headlines from approximately 700 news sources and is updated every five minutes.
Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman and CEO, Rediff.com India Ltd, said, "We will continue focusing on product innovation as part of our core strategy. We believe that our current range of products, such as our VOIP Instant Messenger service, social networking service, automated news listing service and pay4clicks classifieds, will allow us to attract consumers from both India and abroad."
