Just Dial Limited, India's leading local search engine company, announced its financial results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2025, demonstrating steady revenue growth and improved operational efficiency despite facing regulatory headwinds. The company reported operating revenue of ₹305.7 crores, marking a 6.4% year-on-year increase, while maintaining healthy profitability margins across key metrics.

Financial Performance Highlights

The company's financial performance for Q3FY26 showcased operational resilience with several key improvements. EBITDA margin expanded to 31.2%, representing a 101 basis points improvement year-on-year, while absolute EBITDA grew 10.0% to ₹95.2 crores. Operating profit before taxes increased significantly by 14.4% to ₹82.1 crores, demonstrating strong underlying business fundamentals.

Impact of Regulatory Changes

The company's net profit declined 10.2% year-on-year to ₹118.0 crores, primarily due to exceptional expenses related to regulatory compliance. Just Dial recorded a one-time exceptional expense of ₹21.1 crores arising from past service costs due to implementation of the new labour code. This regulatory change, effective November 21, 2025, amended the definition of wages for gratuity calculations and expanded coverage to fixed-term employees.

Other income contributed ₹84.6 crores, growing 9.3% year-on-year and 15.5% quarter-on-quarter due to higher treasury levels. The effective tax rate normalized to 19.0% for Q3FY26 compared to the lower 12.0% in the previous year, which had benefited from deferred tax reversals.

Business Operations and User Engagement

Just Dial's operational metrics presented a mixed picture during the quarter. Total traffic measured by quarterly unique visitors reached 184.5 million users, declining 3.5% year-on-year but growing 6.6% quarter-on-quarter. Mobile platforms continued to dominate user engagement, accounting for 86.2% of total traffic, while desktop and voice platforms contributed 11.0% and 2.8% respectively.

Technology and AI Integration

The company continued advancing its artificial intelligence capabilities during the quarter. Chief Growth Officer Shwetank Dixit highlighted the evolution toward agentic AI, enabling automation of critical workflows including AI-driven analysis of user calls to businesses for identifying genuine category-level intent and automatically creating qualified leads. The company deployed AI across backend operations and sales functions while planning to roll out agentic AI voice and chat interfaces for data verification and customer support.

Financial Position and Liquidity

Just Dial maintained a strong balance sheet with cash and investments totaling ₹5,703.0 crores as of December 31, 2025, compared to ₹5,062.7 crores in the previous year and ₹5,569.7 crores in the preceding quarter. Deferred revenue stood at ₹521.9 crores, representing a 2.9% year-on-year increase, indicating sustained customer prepayments and business visibility.

The company's workforce remained stable at 12,731 employees, with sales employees comprising 10,135 of the total headcount. Total app downloads reached 42.2 million by quarter-end, growing 8.2% year-on-year, with Android platform accounting for 37.3 million downloads and iOS contributing 4.1 million downloads.

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Just Dial Limited announced its unaudited financial results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2025, showing a mixed performance with revenue growth offset by declining profitability. The company's results were notably impacted by regulatory changes in labour codes that created a significant one-time expense.

Financial Performance Overview

The company's financial performance for Q3FY26 demonstrated resilience in revenue generation despite facing regulatory headwinds:

Revenue Growth and Income Sources

Just Dial's net revenue from operations increased to ₹3,056.9 million in Q3FY26 from ₹2,873.3 million in Q3FY25, marking a solid 6.4% year-on-year growth. The value of services from contracts with customers reached ₹3,607.1 million, up from ₹3,390.5 million in the previous year. Other income contributed significantly at ₹846.3 million compared to ₹774.1 million in Q3FY25, including fair value gains on financial instruments of ₹747.3 million and profit on sale of investments of ₹9.3 million.

Expense Management and Operational Efficiency

Total expenses for the quarter increased to ₹2,236.2 million from ₹2,155.7 million in Q3FY25. Employee benefits expense, the largest cost component, rose to ₹1,790.7 million from ₹1,731.7 million year-on-year. Other notable expense categories included:

• Finance costs: ₹20.0 million (down from ₹28.3 million)
• Depreciation and amortisation: ₹111.7 million (down from ₹120.1 million)
• Other expenses: ₹313.8 million (up from ₹275.6 million)

Impact of New Labour Codes

A significant development affecting the quarter's results was the implementation of new labour codes. Effective November 21, 2025, the new labour code on Social Security 2020 amended the definition of "wages" for gratuity calculations and expanded coverage to fixed-term employees. This regulatory change resulted in a one-time exceptional item of ₹210.8 million, treated as past service costs under accounting standards. Without this exceptional item, the company's profit before tax would have been ₹1,667.0 million.

Nine-Month Performance Analysis

For the nine months ended December 31, 2025, Just Dial demonstrated consistent operational performance:

Capital Structure and Share Information

The company maintained a stable capital structure with paid-up equity share capital of ₹850.4 million, consisting of 85,044,657 equity shares of ₹10 each. During the nine-month period, the company issued 2,500 equity shares upon conversion of stock options under its Employee Stock Option Scheme. The earnings per share for Q3FY26 improved to ₹16.35 from ₹15.44 in the previous year, despite the decline in absolute profit figures.

Just Dial operates in a single reporting segment of 'Search and search related services' and does not have any subsidiary or associate companies, eliminating the need for consolidated financial results. The results were reviewed by the Audit Committee and approved by the Board of Directors on January 13, 2026.