Info Edge India : AGM Transcript 2023

Info Edge (India) Limited

Transcript of 28th Annual General Meeting held through video conferencing mode & other

audio-visual facility on Friday, August 25, 2023 at 05:30 P.M. (IST)

__________________________________________________________________________

Management:	 Mr. Kapil Kapoor, the Chairman of the Company and Chairman of the
	Stakeholders' Relationship Committee
	 Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Executive Vice-Chairman of the
	Company
	 Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co- Promoter, Managing Director and Chief Executive
	Officer
	 Mr. Chintan Thakkar, Whole-Time Director and Chief Financial Officer
	 Mr. Pawan Goyal, Whole-time Director
	 Ms. Jaya Bhatia, Company Secretary
Board of Directors:	 Ms. Geeta Mathur, an Independent Director of the Company and Chairperson
	of the Audit Committee, Corporate Social Responsibility Committee and Risk
	Management Committee
	 Mr. Sharad Malik, an Independent Director of the Company and Chairman of
	the Nomination and & Remuneration Committee
	 Ms. Aruna Sundararajan, an Independent Director
	 Mr. Arindam Kumar Bhattacharya, an Independent Director
	 Mr. Sanjiv Sachar, an Additional Independent Director
Invitees:	 Ms. Tanisha Sharma, Senior Manager
	 Mr. Rupesh Agarwal, Managing Partner, of M/s. Chandrasekaran Associates,
	Company Secretaries, Secretarial Auditors as their Authorized Representative
	 Mr. Abhishek Babbar, Authorized Representative of M/S. S.R. Batliboi &
	Associates LLP, Statutory Auditors
	 Mr. Shashikant Tiwari, partner of M/s. Chandrasekaran Associates, Company
	Secretaries, as Scrutinizer for E-voting
Moderator:	Good evening, all. Proceedings of this meeting are being recorded. During the
	meeting, the participants would be on mute. I now hand over the proceedings of
	the meeting to Ms. Jaya Bhatia, Company Secretary of Info Edge (India) Limited.
	Over to you Ma'am!!
Jaya Bhatia:	Thanks Bevin. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 28th Annual
	General Meeting of Info Edge (India) Limited. I, Jaya Bhatia, Company Secretary
	of your Company participating from Delhi, convey, on behalf of members present
	at this meeting, my warm greetings & welcome Mr. Kapil Kapoor, Chairman and
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Info Edge (India) Limited

August 25, 2023

	other respected members of the Board of Directors of the Company. Now, I
	request Mr. Kapil Kapoor, the Chairman of the Company and Chairman of the
	Stakeholders' Relationship Committee to kindly commence the proceedings of the
	meeting by addressing this dignified virtual gathering, on behalf of the Board.
	I request you all to please welcome, Mr. Kapil Kapoor, who is presiding over this
	meeting.
Kapil Kapoor:	Thank you Jaya. A very good evening dear Shareholders, my fellow board
	members, other stakeholders and dignitaries present in this meeting. I welcome
	you all to the 28th Annual General Meeting of the Company. I hope that you all
	along with your family members and loved ones are keeping safe and are in good
	health.
	Pursuant to the circulars issued by the MCA and SEBI, the Annual General
	Meeting is being held through Video Conferencing facility provided by National
	Securities Depository Limited. We have the requisite quorum present through
	video conference to conduct the proceedings of the meeting. Participation of
	members through video conference is being reckoned for the purpose of quorum
	as per the circulars issued by MCA, and Section 103 of the Companies Act, 2013.
	The quorum being present, I call this meeting to order.
	First it is my pleasure to introduce to you all the members of the board present at
	this meeting. I would also request each member to acknowledge when I introduce
	him or her. Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder & Executive Vice-Chairman of
	the Company, is attending the AGM from Noida.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani:	Good evening.
Kapil Kapoor:	Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, Co- Promoter, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
	of the Company, is also attending the AGM from Noida.
Hitesh Oberoi:	Hi, Good evening.
Kapil Kapoor:	Mr. Chintan Thakkar, Whole-Time Director & Chief Financial Officer of the
	Company, attending the AGM from Noida.
Chintan Thakkar:	Good evening.
Kapil Kapoor:	Mr. Pawan Goyal, Whole-time Director of the Company, is also attending the
	AGM from Noida.
Pawan Goyal:	Good evening.
Kapil Kapoor:	Ms. Geeta Mathur an Independent Director of the Company and Chairperson of
	the Audit Committee, Corporate Social Responsibility Committee and Risk
	Management Committee, attending the AGM from New Delhi.
Ms. Geeta Mathur:	Good evening.
Kapil Kapoor:	Mr. Sharad Malik an Independent Director of the Company and Chairman of the
	Nomination and Remuneration Committee, attending the AGM from Princeton,
	USA.
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	Info Edge (India) Limited
	August 25, 2023
Sharad Malik:	Good evening.
Kapil Kapoor:	Ms. Aruna Sundararajan an Independent Director of the Company, attending the
	AGM from Trivandrum.
Aruna Sundararajan:	Good evening.
Kapil Kapoor:	Mr. Arindam Kumar Bhattacharya an Independent Director of the Company,
	attending the AGM from London & Mr. Sanjiv Sachar an Additional Independent
	Director of the Company, attending the AGM from Gurugram.
Sanjiv Sachar:	Good evening to everyone.
Kapil Kapoor:	Mr. Ashish Gupta, Independent Director of the Company is not attending the
	meeting due to prior commitments and has sought leave of absence.
	In compliance with the requirements of the Secretarial Standard-2 on General
	Meetings, the representatives of the Statutory Auditors and the Secretarial
	Auditors are also present in the meeting through video conferencing. We also have
	other key executives of the Company attending the meeting. Now I request our
	Company Secretary, Ms. Jaya Bhatia, to read the arrangements made for the
	Members at this 28th AGM.
Jaya Bhatia:	Sure, sir. The Company has enabled the Members to participate at the 28th Annual
	General Meeting through the video conferencing facility. The facility for joining
	this meeting through video conference is made available for the members on a
	first-come-first-serve basis. The proceedings of this meeting are being web casted
	live for all our shareholders as per the details provided in the Notice to this Annual
	General Meeting.
	The proceedings of this Annual General Meeting shall be deemed to have been
	conducted at the registered office of the Company. The register of directors and
	key managerial personnel, the register of contracts or arrangements and other
	documents mentioned in the AGM Notice have been made available electronically
	for the inspection during the AGM. Members seeking to inspect any of these
	documents can send their request to [e-mail].
	As the AGM is being held through video conferencing, the facility for
	appointment of proxies was not applicable, and hence the proxy register for the
	inspection is not available. The Company has received requests from a few
	members to register them as speakers at this meeting. Accordingly, the floor will
	be opened for these members to ask questions or express their views and we will
	facilitate this session once the Chairman opens the floor for questions and answers.
	It may be noted that the Company reserves the right to limit the number of
	members asking questions depending on the availability of the time at this AGM.
	Members can also post their views or questions on communication box or send
	their queries on email id [e-mail], the Company will respond to the
	same within 15 days.
	The Company has provided the facility to cast votes electronically on all
	resolutions set forth in the AGM Notice. Members who have not cast their votes
	yet electronically and who are participating in this meeting will have an
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opportunity to cast their votes during the meeting through the e-voting system provided by NSDL.

The Members may note that the proceedings are also being recorded for compliance purposes. Please do not disclose any personal information or personally identifiable information belonging to you or any other person that has no bearing on this meeting. The recorded video of the proceedings of this meeting will be available on the website of the Company and NSDL. The transcript of the AGM will also be uploaded on the website of the Company. Thank you.

Kapil Kapoor:Thank you, Jaya. The Company has taken all the efforts feasible by the Company to enable Members to participate and to vote on the items being considered at this meeting. Before we take up items as per the Notice, let me present to you the key highlights of the performance for Financial Year '23.

Key highlights for Financial Year 2022-23

Dear Shareholder, it gives me great pleasure in once again addressing you all at the 28th AGM of the Company. As I speak, the global economy is going through a structural transformation with several advanced economies witnessing significant economic slowdown, while several new economies emerging as growth drivers.

The good news is that the WHO announced in May 2023 that it no longer considers COVID-19 to be a global health emergency. Supply chains have largely recovered, and shipping costs and suppliers' delivery times are back to pre- pandemic levels. However, the forces that hindered growth in the Calendar Year 2022 persist. Inflation remains high and continues to erode household purchasing power. Policy tightening by central banks in response to inflation has raised the cost of borrowing, constraining economic activity.

Immediate concerns about the health of the banking sector have subsided, but high interest rates are filtering through the financial system, and banks in advanced economies have significantly tightened lending standards, curtailing the supply of credit. According to IMFs World Economic Update in July 2023, global growth is projected to fall from 3.5% in the year 2022 to 3.0% in both the calendar years 2023 and 2024.

Since, Infoedge is largely an India focused business group, the global economic and business dynamics will have some indirect repercussions in terms of capital flows, market valuations of its investments and the demand dynamics of its different businesses. Importantly, India stands out as a bright spot in terms of economic fundamentals and growth projections. In fact, with a strong recovery in the second half, India's GDP grew by 7.2% in the Financial Year 2023.

The growth levels are lower than the 9.1% growth recorded in the Financial Year 2022, but that was on the back of a COVID driven economic contraction in the Financial Year 2021. Going forward, according to a United Nation's estimate, even as higher interest rates and weaker external demand will continue to weigh on investment and exports, India is expected to grow by around 6.7% in the calendar year 2024 and this level of growth is expected to persist in the near term. This makes India one of the fastest growing economies of its size in the world. Clearly, while one appreciates that short term challenges exist, India stands out as a potential economic outperformer in the global context.

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A major positive externality of the pandemic has been the impetus it has provided to adoption of online activities in the country. It can easily be said, in terms of internet penetration, the country has reached levels that it would be at 5-7 years from now if the pre-COVID rate of penetration growth was maintained. According to the latest IAMAI Kantar study for the calendar year 2022, 52% of Indians, that is, 759 million are active internet users, who are accessing the internet at least once a month. The number is expected to grow to 900 million by 2025.

In a population of over 1.4 billion, this is for the first time that the majority of Indians have become active internet users. Of the 759 million active internet users in India for 2022, 399 million are from rural India, while 360 million are from urban India, indicating that rural India continues to drive the growth of the internet in the country. In fact, urban India, with approximately 71% internet penetration witnessed only 6% growth, while most of the overall gain in numbers came in from rural India, which witnessed 14% growth rate over the past one year.

It is estimated that 56% of all new internet users in India will be from rural India by 2025. Clearly, India has already a large online population, which is also expected to grow over the next few years. Info Edge is a Company with a portfolio of businesses in the internet space and this development provides major impetus to our future business prospects.

In addition to the growth in connectivity, India in line with global developments is witnessing accelerated adoption of certain technology changes. The primary development is in the field of Artificial Intelligence, which is poised to disrupt many existing business processes. Info edge has been focusing on adoption of these new technologies to support the next generation of productive tools being deployed in the organisation.

Consequently, there are steady investments in data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. These are essentially driven by initiatives around generative AI and machine learning. All these efforts continue to augment our user experience, brand building on social media and our go to markets initiatives for new products and services. It gives me pleasure to highlight, that within naukri.com today there is one of the India's largest Data Science Labs with over 50 highly qualified data scientists. They are regularly working on leveraging AI and ML to improve matching algorithms and recommendations.

The Government of India and its regulatory framework continues to play a proactive role in the growth and development of the internet-based businesses industry, our area of operations. As I speak, there are certain ongoing developments in the Indian Internet regulatory environment, which will potentially impact the business. These include:

• The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022, has been passed in the Parliament and has recently become an act. This act will affect the way industry processes personal data going forward.
• Separate laws for regulating the digital space are being formulated, which includes the Digital Competition Bill and the Digital India Bill to regulate competition, and encourage online safety, trust and accountability in the digital medium.

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