MUMBAI: DB Corp?s net profit for the first first quarter ending 30 June fell to Rs 437 million, from Rs 611 million a year ago.

Expenditure rose to Rs 3.14 billion, from Rs 2.65 billion.

The company, which publishes popular Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar, reported consolidated revenues of Rs 3.78 billion, representing an increase of 7 per cent.

Revenues from advertising clocked a marginal one per cent rise to Rs 2.86 billion from Rs 2.84 billion.

Advertising revenues from the company?s print business saw minor dip from Rs 2.71 billion to Rs 2.70 billion in the current quarter. Circulation revenue grew to Rs 656 million, enjoying a 16 per cent growth over the same quarter of corresponding fiscal.

Commenting on the result, D B Corp MD Sudhir Agarwal said, "A challenging economic environment driven by weak GDP numbers continues to plague growth across key industries which in turn has impacted overall media spend. In this quarter, we focussed our strategy of on maintaining our positions in all markets. We studied the environment well and adopted a two-pronged strategy to be aggressive on retaining our readership base and maintaining a very prudent approach towards expenditure control and and cost rationalisation across all operations and in non-core markets. Further, our progress in key regions like Aurangabad and Nashik in Maharashtra and in Jharkhand showed very encouraging results, proven by strong subscription renewal of copies after one year completion of launch of edition."DB Corp?s radio business net revenue increased to Rs 140 million, from Rs 125 million, due to improved advertising revenues.

Net profit from print business stood at Rs 455 million while that of radio business at Rs 4 million.

The company?s Ebitda margin came down from Rs 1 billion Q1 FY?12 to Rs 849 million in current quarter due to forex loss.Print business Ebitda stood at 23.2 per cent at Rs 840 million due to expenses incurred in marketing and launch related expenses.