Paytm parent clocks revenue of Rs3,629 crore in FY’20, loss shrinks by 30%

Revenue has remained unchanged in FY’20 compared with Rs3,579.6 crore in FY19.

Paytm has reduced total expenses by 20% to Rs6,226.31 crore in FY’20 compared with Rs7,730 crore in the preceding year.

The company said on Friday that Paytm has aggressively expanded into financial services, its biggest driver of revenues at present, including lending, wealth management and insurance offerings, which the Noida-based payments major has entered over the years.

It also said that the firm is on the path to becoming profitable by 2022.

Last November, OCL had raised $1 billion from new and existing investors including Ant Financial, Softbank Vision Fund, T Rowe Price Associates Inc. and Discovery Capital. The round valued the startup at $16 billion, making it one of the highest valued startups in India.

"We are on the path to empowering millions of Indians with digital financial services that would play a key role in building Atmanirbhar Bharat. We are also investing heavily in building digital services for our merchant partners so that they can benefit from technology and financial inclusion. Our efforts have started reflecting in the strong adoption of more profitable services by our consumers and merchants," said Madhur Deora, President, Paytm.

The company has also been aggressively focusing on tier-II, tier-III geographies and has launched several products for merchants in these regions, including Android-based PoS devices, such as Paytm Soundbox; digital ledger and reconciliation product Paytm Khata, and its bulk payment service Paytm Payouts, this year.

Paytm Payouts has already processed Rs1,500 crore in salaries, for more than 5,000 medium and large enterprises, during the lockdown, and has already sold 200,000 units of its PoS device in the market, since launch in February, this year.

From a payments perspective, the company also said that it has witnessed digital transactions grow over 50%, on its platform, year-on-year.

In July, OCL along with its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma also announced the acquisition of Mumbai-based private sector general insurer Raheja QBE for Rs568 crore to fast track the launch of its insurance operations by 24-30 months. The acquisition allows Paytm to build and launch unique insurance products in the market.

In February 2018, Paytm incorporated two new entities—Paytm Life Insurance Corporation Ltd, and Paytm General Insurance Corporation Ltd—for distributing insurance products in the market.

Recently, through its wealth management arm Paytm Money, the Group also launched stock trading services for customers, with a full-scale launch expected this month.

While the ongoing covid-19 crisis has provided tailwinds to sectors such as online education and gaming, segments such as travel and entertainment continue to reel from the impact of the pandemic.

OCL has a big play in these segments with Paytm Entertainment and Travel.

“Our incremental revenue plan would be extended by a quarter. But, owing to our digital-first strategy, post the next quarter, we see on a group level, things will return to normal. We are confident that our losses on a year-on-year basis will be down, as we see revenues from other verticals pick up, in spite of an impact on verticals such as travel and entertainment," Sharma said in an earlier interaction with Mint.