Reporting its first quarterly results as a public company, Paytm said its net loss for the three months to September 30 widened 8 per cent from a year earlier to Rs 473 crore.
Revenue from operations was Rs 1,086 crore, the Noida-based company said in a stock exchange filing.
Paytm had posted a net loss of Rs 382 crore on operational revenue of Rs 890 crore in the fiscal first quarter ended in June.
On a post-results conference call with analysts, cofounder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the company’s focus on generating more revenue from existing user base has resulted in the strong year-on-year revenue growth. “Clearly, our platform leverage can be seen with increased contribution margin and better Ebitda margin and continued growth in all key KPIs (key performance indicator),” Sharma said.
In the September quarter, Paytm posted a loss of Rs 444 crore before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, compared with Rs 445 crore a year earlier.
Ebitda Margin Improves
Its adjusted Ebitda margin, which excludes certain items, of negative 39 per cent has improved from a negative 64 per cent in the same period last year.
Revenue from payment and financial services rose 69 per cent year-on-year to Rs 842 crore, driven by 52 per cent growth in non-UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payment volumes and a threefold increase in financial services and other revenue, the company said. Marketing and promotional expenses increased to Rs 185.7 crore compared with Rs 136.5 crore a year earlier. This expense was close to Rs 138 crore in the June quarter of FY22.
Paytm’s total expenses for the September quarter were nearly Rs 1,600 crore as against Rs 1,166 crore a year earlier. Group chief financial officer Madhur Deora said its commerce and cloud services revenue increased 47 per cent to Rs 240 crore, largely led by rapid growth in its advertising revenue and continued recovery of its commerce business which includes travel and movie ticketing. “That (commerce) is starting to recover,” he said. According to Paytm, it will provide an update on the utilisation of its IPO proceeds from the next reporting period based on actual utilisation of the funds.
On queries around the relatively smaller ticket size of its loans through lending partners – last week, Paytm said it issued 1.3 million loans in October totalling $84 million, or an average of around $65 per loan – the management said it is focused on expanding the number of customers and merchants for lending and that it would increase over a period of time.
