After One97Communications, the parent company of fintech major Paytm, managed to narrow its losses in the fourth quarter of FY23, CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the company’s next objective is profitability.
“Our next milestone is to make Paytm cash flow positive in the near future,” Sharma wrote in a letter to shareholders. The fintech giant, in its Q4 results for FY23, managed to narrow its losses to Rs 168 crore (Rs 1.68 billion). This compares to losses of Rs 392 crore (Rs 3.92 billion) a quarter ago and Rs 761 crore (Rs 7.61 billion) in the year-ago period.
Revenues of the firm also surged almost 52 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 2,335 crore (Rs 23.35 billion) in Q4, up from Rs 1,541 crore (Rs 15.41 billion). This was largely driven by growth in the company’s payments and loan distribution business, coupled with a rise in gross merchandise value (GMV). Also, higher revenue from merchant subscriptions contributed to the growth.
Paytm continued to witness sustained growth in GMV during Q4 — its GMV stood at Rs 3.62 trillion, an increase of 40 per cent YoY. Its loan distribution business continued to scale as well, in partnership with the firm’s lending partners.
Average monthly transacting users (MTU) for Q4 grew 27 per cent YoY to 90 million. This comes as adoption of mobile payments by consumers and merchants continues.
Subscription services for payment devices, such as Soundbox and POS machine, also witnessed strong adoption.
Around 6.8 million merchants paid for subscriptions as of March 2023. This is more than double of 2.9 million merchants in March 2022.In Q4, across the company’s three product offerings — Paytm Postpaid, Personal Loans, and Merchant Loans ‘” loans amounting to Rs 12,554 crore (Rs 125.54 billion) were distributed through the Paytm platform. As of March 2023, 9.5 million borrowers have taken loans through the platform.
