Info Edge's Profit Jump Isn't Hiring Boom

Is Naukri's hiring market actually recovering or just steady?

Steady, not recovering. Info Edge's own boss, Hitesh Oberoi, called it 'not a very hot market', and Naukri's revenue grew because it charged existing recruiters more per user, not because far more jobs opened up. Naukri's own hiring index shows growth cooling through 2026, from double digits in some months to single digits by June, well below a genuine upturn.

How has Naukri's own hiring index trended across 2026?

Naukri's JobSpeak index rose 12% year-on-year in February, then 9% in March as FY26 closed at +8% growth overall, up from just +2% in FY25. But by June the pace had slowed further to +6% year-on-year, pulling the first quarter of FY27 down to a 4% growth rate, a clear deceleration rather than acceleration.

Which sectors are still driving whatever hiring growth exists?

Non-IT sectors are carrying the market: Hospitality (+21%), BPO/ITES (+18%), Oil & Gas and Education (+15% each) led FY26's final month, while IT stayed flat. The one bright spot inside IT is AI/ML roles, up 37% to 45% year-on-year, concentrated at the highest salary bands, meaning most of the job market itself is not broadly hot.

What's stopping 99acres from finally turning a profit?

99acres posted a small loss this quarter, Rs 2.13 crore, not because business is bad but because it still spends heavily on marketing to defend its lead. Growth is strong, billings up 17% and traffic, listings and enquiries all rising, but that growth hasn't yet outrun the cost of acquiring customers. Management expects the business to turn cash-generative sometime in FY27.

Why did 99acres' losses shrink so fast this quarter?

The underlying loss narrowed from about Rs 17 crore last quarter to roughly Rs 2 crore now, an 89% improvement quarter on quarter. Management credits billings growing faster than costs, with marketing spend kept deliberately restrained rather than ramped up to chase growth, so more of each extra rupee of billings is falling through to profit.

Why has competition in real estate listings eased up?

A rival platform changed ownership, specifically the acquisition of Housing.com, and that has reduced the intensity of the marketing battle for customers in online real estate. With one fewer aggressive spender in the market, 99acres doesn't need to match big promotional budgets just to hold its traffic lead, which frees up margin without needing higher prices.

What would it take for 99acres to hit its 30% margin target?

Management's own condition is billings growth staying above 20% a year, sustained, not a one-off quarter. Right now billings are growing 16-17% year on year, below that bar. The business also still hasn't cracked monetising builders and new-home launches, one of its three revenue pools alongside resale and rental listings, which remains an open gap.

Why did profit drop 35% from the previous quarter?

The core recruitment business barely slipped, revenue actually rose 1.3% quarter on quarter. The drop came from below the operating line: Q4FY26 included a much larger one-off gain of Rs 702 million and a bigger swing in "other income" (Rs 496 crore versus Rs 192 crore in Q1FY27), so the comparison flatters last quarter rather than reflecting weaker hiring demand now.

How much of Info Edge's profit comes from investment gains, not Naukri?

A large share. Total income for the quarter was Rs 1,073 crore, but revenue from actual operations (Naukri, 99acres, Jeevansathi) was only Rs 881 crore. The rest, over Rs 190 crore, came from "other income" such as investment gains, which swings sharply each quarter and can inflate or deflate reported profit independent of the jobs business.

Why do one-off exceptional gains distort quarter-to-quarter profit?

Info Edge books gains from stakes in other companies as "exceptional items," separate from operating profit. These swung from a Rs 70.2 crore gain in Q4FY26 to Rs 135.6 crore in Q1FY27, but the base quarter also carried other large one-time boosts. Because these are lumpy and unrelated to hiring volumes, comparing raw net profit quarter to quarter mixes real business trends with investment noise.