Shemaroo expects YouTube tie-up to boost revenue

Company has up to 60 million views a month

Shemaroo Entertainment, a film content and entertainment business provider that recently went public, is expecting its five-year-old tie-up with YouTube to contribute to its business growth.

"We had tied up with YouTube five years ago. Whenever an ad is displayed on any of the 32 YouTube channels, we do get our pie of revenue as per the agreement with Google," Shemaroo director Jai Maroo told PTI, without disclosing the percentage of ad revenue from share from Google.

He further said the company is witnessing 1.5-2 million views per day or 45-60 million views a month, on an average.

"Digital ad spend is likely to grow at 32 per cent per annum over the next five years. More interestingly, 10 per cent of overall media and entertainment ad spend is on digital platform," Maroo noted.

The company cannot make any forward-looking statement as it is currently in a silent mode.

Internet subscriber base is constantly growing. By 2017 we will reach 49.6 crore from the current 10 crore, Maroo said.

The company's operational flow has been negative for the past couple of years.

"Currently we are in an investment mode for past couple of years and hence our operation flow has been negative (for past couple of years). Once our investment mode is completed, we will be in a much better position. It is for the same reason we raising money through an IPO," he said.

Mid last month, Shemaroo went public with an IPO, which got subscribed 7.37 times for Rs 100-crore issue.

Following the issue, the company got listed on the BSE and NSE on October 1.