Just Dial Limited (NSE: JUSTDIAL, BSE: 535648) posted a 6.4 percent year-on-year increase in operating revenue to ₹305.7 crore for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, with EBITDA rising 10 percent to ₹95.2 crore. Despite a one-time exceptional expense tied to India’s new labour code, the company ended the quarter with ₹5,703 crore in cash and investments and continued its pivot into artificial intelligence-driven automation. Management framed the quarter as a foundational period for transforming the business from a legacy search engine into an AI-powered transaction-enabling platform.
The company’s traffic declined year-on-year but showed quarter-on-quarter stabilization, while paid campaigns, listings, and geocoded records demonstrated forward momentum. With net profit impacted by a ₹21.1 crore past service cost expense, Just Dial Limited’s real story this quarter lies in its agentic AI strategy rollout and the long-term implications of AI integration across discovery, verification, and customer support workflows.
Is Just Dial Limited’s AI-powered transformation a meaningful shift or just another automation layer?
The most strategic update from Just Dial Limited in Q3 FY26 was not financial, but operational. The company confirmed that it had begun integrating agentic artificial intelligence across its backend systems to identify, qualify, and route genuine business inquiries. These capabilities are being used to analyze voice interactions between users and businesses in real-time, with the goal of auto-generating verified leads that align with category-level intent.
While the company has historically used algorithmic filters, this marks the first confirmed deployment of agentic AI at workflow level. These models are also being applied to backend support, listing validation, and internal sales process optimization. The strategic goal is to convert Just Dial Limited’s high-volume data assets into structured, monetizable engagement through AI-led automation. This will allow the company to scale lead qualification without proportionally scaling operational headcount or human vetting processes.
Chief Growth Officer Shwetank Dixit stated that Just Dial Limited intends to roll out conversational voice and chat AI interfaces to power search, verification, and customer service. These interfaces will eventually handle common support queries, data accuracy validation, and new listing onboarding, transforming how local businesses interact with the platform. This positions the company more as a digital infrastructure provider than a pure listings aggregator.
For users, this means discovery becomes more intuitive and query resolution more immediate. For advertisers and campaign buyers, it raises the possibility of lower cost-per-lead ratios due to AI-filtered inquiries. However, execution will depend heavily on how these models perform in noisy, multilingual environments and how effectively they filter low-intent or fraudulent leads.
What are the operational highlights that suggest deeper platform engagement despite softening traffic?
During the quarter ended December 31, 2025, Just Dial Limited reported total traffic of 184.5 million unique visitors. This represented a 3.5 percent year-on-year decline, but a 6.6 percent sequential improvement. Mobile usage accounted for 86.2 percent of traffic, while desktop stood at 11 percent and voice-based access remained at 2.8 percent. This distribution reflects a maturing but still mobile-dominated user base.
Despite lower total traffic, the platform achieved meaningful engagement milestones. Net active listings rose by over 1.58 million during the quarter, bringing the total to 52.8 million, an 11.1 percent increase compared to the previous year. The number of geocoded listings reached 37.3 million, a 17.3 percent year-on-year increase, pointing to stronger geographic resolution and improved backend verification. Just Dial Limited’s listings are becoming not only more numerous but more structured, which is critical for driving AI-led discovery.
Image content in listings also grew, with total images crossing the 250 million mark, up 15.7 percent compared to the prior year. This level of visual data density strengthens the platform’s ability to surface relevant businesses through both user-driven search and AI-powered suggestion engines. Ratings and reviews hit 155.7 million, with modest 2.9 percent year-on-year growth. Although this metric suggests slower user contribution momentum, it continues to add trust layers to the core marketplace.
Active paid campaigns stood at 629,180, an increase of 4.7 percent over Q3 FY25 and up slightly from the previous quarter. This rise in monetized listings implies a stable or improving willingness among businesses to invest in visibility despite wider macro uncertainty. In tandem with AI-led lead generation, this segment could see stronger conversion efficiency in upcoming quarters.
How did Just Dial Limited’s financial results reflect capital discipline and operational maturity?
From a financial perspective, Just Dial Limited showed stable topline growth with margin resilience, but net profit contraction due to a one-off cost. Operating revenue reached ₹305.7 crore, rising 6.4 percent compared to Q3 FY25. Operating EBITDA stood at ₹95.2 crore, up 10 percent year-on-year, resulting in a margin of 31.2 percent. This represented a 101 basis point improvement over the same period last year and a 243 basis point improvement sequentially. These trends suggest a positive shift in operational efficiency and cost discipline.
Other income, primarily driven by interest and treasury investments, stood at ₹84.6 crore. This marked a 9.3 percent increase year-on-year and a 15.5 percent rise sequentially. The company ended the quarter with cash and investments totaling ₹5,703 crore, a 12.6 percent year-on-year rise. The ability to consistently generate returns from treasury without exposing itself to volatility reflects well on the company’s conservative cash management practices.
The reported profit before tax was ₹145.6 crore, which declined 2.4 percent year-on-year. This was due to the recognition of a ₹21.1 crore exceptional cost resulting from the implementation of India’s new labour code. Specifically, the cost was linked to past service cost adjustments in gratuity calculations as per revised definitions under the Social Security Code. Net profit for the quarter was ₹118 crore, down 10.2 percent year-on-year.
It is worth noting that the effective tax rate normalized to 19 percent for Q3 FY26, compared to 12 percent in the prior year. The lower tax rate in FY25 was due to deferred tax reversals. When normalized for these variables, the underlying core earnings trajectory appears more stable than the headline figures suggest.
Could monetization opportunities expand as Just Dial Limited transitions from listings to enablement?
Beyond AI, Just Dial Limited continues to position itself as a business enablement platform through initiatives like JD Mart and JD Pay. JD Mart targets the B2B discovery and commerce space, offering catalog-based vendor listings for manufacturers and wholesalers. JD Pay provides digital payment tools, creating a potential layer of monetizable services for vendors already on the platform.
Although monetization from these newer initiatives is not yet material in reported financials, the long-term play is clear. By embedding payment solutions, catalogue management, and discovery into one interface, Just Dial Limited is building an integrated stack that can serve small and medium enterprises beyond visibility alone. This vertical integration aligns with how local commerce is evolving in tier 2 and tier 3 Indian cities, where digital enablement tools are still nascent.
If Just Dial Limited successfully integrates AI-driven automation with transaction facilitation, the platform could evolve into a default local commerce stack for small enterprises. This would deepen monetization per user and extend lifetime value while also creating moats against both search-based and e-commerce incumbents.
How are market participants likely to interpret the Q3 FY26 earnings and platform strategy?
Investors may view the drop in net profit as a temporary setback rather than a structural issue, especially given that it was driven by an exceptional non-cash adjustment. The expansion of AI capabilities, improved margins, rising geocoded listings, and modest gains in paid campaigns all point to underlying operational progress.
The cash reserve of ₹5,703 crore gives Just Dial Limited significant optionality for strategic acquisitions, technology investments, or even buybacks if management chooses to pursue them. As macroeconomic conditions stabilize and platform usage patterns normalize post-COVID, institutional investors are likely to focus on execution of the AI roadmap and monetization milestones rather than short-term earnings volatility.
Execution remains the central risk. AI models trained on Indian voice data must handle regional accents, mixed languages, and noisy input environments. Additionally, the regulatory landscape around AI usage and data privacy is tightening. But if Just Dial Limited can deliver measurable improvement in campaign ROI, listing accuracy, and customer support resolution time, its transition to an AI-led enablement platform could redefine its role in India’s digital economy.
Key takeaways on Just Dial’s Q3 FY26 results and evolving AI-driven strategy
- Just Dial Limited reported ₹305.7 crore in Q3 FY26 revenue, up 6.4 percent YoY, with a 10 percent EBITDA growth and 31.2 percent margin.
- Net profit declined 10.2 percent due to a ₹21.1 crore one-time cost linked to India’s new labour code impacting gratuity accounting.
- Total traffic dipped 3.5 percent YoY to 184.5 million unique users, but mobile remained dominant at over 86 percent share.
- The company added 1.58 million net listings in the quarter, with geocoded listings rising 17.3 percent YoY to 37.3 million.
- Active paid campaigns reached 629,180, up 4.7 percent YoY, while app downloads rose 8.2 percent to 42.2 million.
- AI-led automation was deployed across backend workflows, with agentic AI now expanding to lead generation, discovery, and support.
- Strong cash and investments of ₹5,703 crore give Just Dial Limited firepower to fund platform evolution without near-term capital pressure.
- Execution risks include AI deployment complexity, competition from horizontal players, and monetization lags despite improving data quality.
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