Digital financial services firm One97 Communications, which operates under the Paytm brand, reported on Friday an increase in its consolidated loss to Rs 761.4 crore for the quarter ended March 2022 due to increases in payment processing costs and employee benefits costs. The company had recorded a loss of Rs 441.8 crore in the same period a year ago.
However, the losses gradually decreased. The consolidated loss was Rs 778.4 crore in the quarter ended December 2021. “As announced in April 2022, we believe we will reach operational break-even (i.e. EBITDA before ESOP charges) by September 2023. This will be driven by continued revenue growth, along with cost moderation as operating leverage kicks in,” Paytm said.
“The company’s EBITDA loss (before ESOP) for FY’22 saw an 8 percent year-on-year improvement from Rs 1,655 crore the previous year. In addition, the company had Rs 809 crore in non-cash ESOP charges,” it added. However, the revenue from operations of One97 Communications (OCL) increased about 89 percent to Rs 1,540.9 crore during the quarter from Rs 815, 3 crore in the same period a year ago.
Expenditure on employees more than doubled to Rs 863.4 crore from Rs 347.8 crore in the March 2021 quarter. Payment processing costs increased 52 percent to Rs 774.2 crore in the March 2022 quarter from Rs 508.7 crore a year ago.
Marketing costs more than doubled to Rs 248.9 crore from Rs 100.1 crore. For the year ended March 31, 2022, OCL’s loss increased to Rs 2,396.4 crore from Rs 1,701 crore in 2020-21.
However, the annual operating revenue increased by 77.49 percent to Rs 4,974.2 crore in 2021-22 from Rs 2,802.4 crore earlier. “We have leveraged our distribution and rich insights to offer financial products to our consumers and merchants, in partnership with financial institutions.
“One of the highlights of the quarter was the rapid growth of our credit products, providing us with an attractive profit pool. In April 2022, we reached an annual run rate of approximately Rs 20,000 crore in payout through our platform,” OCL said in a statement. The average monthly transaction user base (MTU) increased 41 percent year-on-year to more than 7 crore for the quarter, while the trade base grew to 2.67 crore at the end of 2021-2022.
“We continue to witness tremendous growth in our GMV, which stood at Rs 2.6 lakh crore for the quarter, up 104 percent year-on-year,” OCL said. The full-year gross trade value (GMV) has more than doubled to Rs 8.5 lakh crore in 2021-22 from Rs 4 lakh crore in FY 2021, the statement said.
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