Leading local search engine Just Dial faces tough times ahead with sales growth languishing at single digits. The company has been paying the price for not expanding and executing on the sales front for the last two years, Chief Financial Officer Ramkumar Krishnamachari said in an interview with BloombergQuint.
The company is now in the process of expanding the sales team and upgrading technology to attain double-digit sales growth by financial year 2017-18, Krishnamachari said.
Net profit rose by 8 percent in the April to June quarter while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell to 20 percent from 32 percent in the same quarter last year. Last year, Just Dial made no expenditure on hiring new sales force.
The company has since taken corrective steps and added 600 people to their sales force in the April to June quarter, and is looking to add another 2,000 people by the end of financial year 2016-17, the CFO said.
Krishnamachari also spoke about the search engine's latest innovation, JD Social, which is an interactive platform that allows users to review and compare the best deals available by talking to other users.
Also Read: Just Dial Plans to Merge Data Unit With Itself; Stock Falls
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