Frequently asked questions
Is Info Edge (NAUKRI) a buy at current prices?
DalalBytes rates Info Edge Selective Positive at 68/100. The standalone classifieds business made Rs 3,052 crore of FY26 revenue at a 41% operating margin with Rs 1,098 crore of free cash flow, and listed stakes in Eternal and PB Fintech plus cash approximate 64% of the Rs 1,185 reference price. The deductions are low-teens operating growth, AI disruption already measured at Shiksha, and a full multiple on the operating core.
What are Info Edge's FY2029 price targets?
DalalBytes' FY2029 targets for Info Edge are bear Rs 780, base Rs 1,450, and bull Rs 1,950, from a Rs 1,185 reference price (NSE close, October 23, 2026). Bear: 8% core revenue CAGR, margin slips to about 36%, listed stakes de-rate about 25%. Base: 13% CAGR, margin holds at 41 to 43%, stakes compound about 10% a year. Bull: 18% CAGR, 99acres turns profitable, stakes re-rate.
What is the verdict on Info Edge?
The business quality grades in the high 70s: a dominant live resume database, a 41% operating margin, a decade of free cash flow, a fortress balance sheet, and the best venture record in Indian listed markets. Three deductions bring it to 68: operating growth normalised to low-to-mid teens against a full core multiple, AI disruption that is theoretical in jobs but already measured in education (Shiksha billings down about 25% in H1 FY27), and two listed stakes at roughly 58% of market cap whose values the company does not control. The 14% one-year price fall and the PB Fintech crash have taken some optimism out; what remains is a quality compounder at a full price.
How did Info Edge start?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani founded Info Edge in 1995 after early ventures in salary surveys and trademark searches. Naukri.com launched in April 1997, initially reproducing newspaper job ads online from a small office above his father's garage. The company raised about Rs 7 crore from ICICI Venture in 2000 and did not spend it, which is why it survived the dotcom bust that killed better-funded rivals. It listed in November 2006, among the first Indian internet IPOs. Jeevansathi dates to 1998, 99acres launched in 2005 and Shiksha in 2008, each reusing the same playbook: free consumer pool, paid business side, subscription billing collected in advance. From 2007 the cash machine started writing startup cheques, formalised as Info Edge Ventures in 2020.
What does Info Edge sell, technically?
Attention and access, not goods. The core asset is Resdex: a structured database of 118 million resumes (Q1 FY27), refreshed by about 8.59 lakh profile edits a day and searched about 9.97 lakh times a day by recruiters who pay subscriptions in advance. Standalone deferred revenue was Rs 1,385.9 crore at June 2026. Around the database sit AI products (AI-Rex, Talent Pulse, AI matching and recommendations) and acquired workflow tools: Zwayam (applicant tracking), DoSelect (assessments), AmbitionBox (employer reviews), iimjobs and hirist (premium and tech hiring). The direction is from listings toward workflow, because workflow is harder for LinkedIn or an AI agent to disintermediate. Billings lead revenue: standalone billings were Rs 3,177 crore in FY26, Rs 737 crore in Q1 FY27 (up 14.4%) and Rs 822.3 crore in Q2 FY27 (up 12.8%).
How do the Eternal and Policybazaar stakes work?
Info Edge invested Rs 483.78 crore in Zomato (now Eternal) and Rs 591.40 crore in Policybazaar's parent PB Fintech, and holds about 12% of each. At October 23, 2026 marks, the Eternal stake is worth roughly Rs 38,300 crore (about Rs 591 a share of Info Edge) on Eternal's market cap of about Rs 3.09 lakh crore. PB Fintech fell about 40% in a month to a market cap of about Rs 47,800 crore after the insurance regulator proposed overhauling distribution economics, so that stake now marks at roughly Rs 5,900 crore (about Rs 91 a share); the September 2026 episode cut about Rs 4,100 crore from its value in days. Total invested across the startup platform is about Rs 4,000 crore against a fair value management has put near Rs 37,000 crore, at a claimed gross IRR of about 36% across 111 companies. Book investments on the consolidated balance sheet were Rs 42,299 crore at March 2026.
What do Info Edge's financials show?
| Fiscal year | Standalone revenue (Rs cr) | Standalone operating profit (Rs cr) | Operating margin | Standalone FCF (Rs cr) | Consolidated revenue (Rs cr) | Consolidated PAT (Rs cr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY22 | 1,562 | 470 | 30% | 701 | 1,589 | 12,882 |
| FY23 | 2,159 | 792 | 37% | 730 | 2,346 | (70) |
| FY24 | 2,381 | 968 | 41% | 807 | 2,536 | 595 |
| FY25 | 2,654 | 1,084 | 41% | 904 | 2,850 | 1,310 |
| FY26 | 3,052 | 1,261 | 41% | 1,098 | 3,285 | 1,763 |
| Q1 FY27 | 824 | 363 | 44% | n.v. | 881 | 490 |
Screener.in standalone and consolidated series, October 23, 2026. Consolidated PAT is dominated by investment fair-value items (FY22 other income of Rs 13,810 crore on the Zomato revaluation) and standalone FY26 PAT of Rs 5,536 crore includes Rs 5,503 crore of other income: neither is an operating measure. Standalone operating PBT was Rs 1,137.7 crore in FY26, up 16.9%. Segment FY26: recruitment revenue Rs 2,374 crore, profit Rs 1,277 crore; 99acres revenue Rs 488 crore, loss Rs 59 crore.
How strong are the balance sheet and cash flow?
Fortress grade, with an unusual composition. Consolidated borrowings were Rs 259 crore at March 2026 against investments of Rs 42,299 crore and net worth of about Rs 37,914 crore; standalone cash was Rs 5,034 crore at June 2026. Standalone operating cash flow was Rs 1,169 crore in FY26 and free cash flow Rs 1,098 crore, positive every year in the reviewed series on both bases, because customers prepay and capex is trivial. The FY26 final dividend was Rs 3.60 a share post-split (the shares split 1:5 in May 2025), a payout of about 38% of consolidated PAT and a yield of about 0.71%. The board meets on October 28, 2026 to consider an interim dividend. The honest split: the walls of this fortress are listed equity stakes, not cash, so its market value moves with Eternal and PB Fintech prices.
Who runs Info Edge, and is governance clean?
A founder-led team with professional depth: Kapil Kapoor as non-executive Chairman, founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani as Executive Vice Chairman, co-promoter Hitesh Oberoi as Managing Director and CEO (with the company over 24 years), Chintan Thakkar as CFO and Pawan Goyal running Naukri. The said-versus-did record is specific and checkable: FY26 recruitment billings up 10.04% and non-recruitment operating PBT losses down 15.8% as reported, while 99acres revenue grew 19% but its full-year loss widened to Rs 59 crore, so the profitability leg trails the revenue leg. AI deployment claims are graded as effort, not delivery, because no AI revenue line is disclosed. Promoters held 37.19% in September 2026 with no pledging reported; foreign investors held 25.46% and domestic institutions 26.81%.
Who competes with Info Edge?
LinkedIn is the strategic threat in jobs: professional identity, AI matching and employer brand tools, stronger with startups and senior roles, while Naukri owns IT services and staffing volume through Resdex. Indeed and FoundIt contest listings without Resdex depth. In property, 99acres faces Magicbricks (Times Group), Housing.com and NoBroker, which is why the vertical still loses money. In matchmaking, Jeevansathi is the challenger to Matrimony.com (about 24x earnings) and Shaadi.com. In education, the competitor is Google itself: AI search answers cut Shiksha referral traffic in H1 FY27. Affle 3i, the closest listed platform cash-flow peer, trades at about 41x; Just Dial, at about 12x forward, shows what the market pays when classifieds growth stalls.
What is Info Edge worth?
At Rs 1,185: about 52x consolidated reported FY26 earnings on Screener's print (vendors range from about 41x to 52x depending on the trailing fair-value window), about 2.0x book value of Rs 585, market cap about Rs 76,938 crore, 16.5% below the 52-week high of Rs 1,420 and down about 14% over one year. Sum of the parts at October marks (DalalBytes estimates): Eternal about Rs 591 a share, PB Fintech about Rs 91 (post-crash), cash about Rs 78: roughly Rs 760 a share, or 64% of the price, is stakes and cash, leaving about Rs 425 a share for the operating classifieds and the unlisted book, about 22x FY26 standalone operating profit. Motilal Oswal's SOTP target was Rs 1,250 in August 2026 (Neutral, struck when PB Fintech marked higher); Nomura and HSBC were reported at Buy with targets around Rs 1,500 to Rs 1,525, and Citi held a Sell. FY2029 scenarios: bear Rs 780, base Rs 1,450, bull Rs 1,950.
What are the key risks for Info Edge?
AI first, on both sides: AI matching attacks the product while AI automation of entry-level IT work attacks the customer's hiring volume, and Shiksha (billings down 22.8% in Q1 FY27 and 27.2% in Q2 FY27) shows the traffic version of the risk is already here. Growth second: billings grew 10.3% in FY26, and a full core multiple needs more. Concentration third: Eternal alone is roughly half the market cap, and PB Fintech's regulatory fall showed how fast a holding can gap. Then 99acres monetisation after two decades, and the mechanical trap that reported P/E and ROE (about 2%, because the equity base carries stakes at fair value) mislead screens in both directions. Q2 FY27 results on October 28, 2026 are the next checkpoint.
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