New Delhi: One97 Communications Limited (OCL), the parent firm of Paytm, on Friday announced its fourth quarter (Q4) results ended March 2022 and full financial year (FY22) earnings.
The revenue of the company jumped by 77 per cent in FY22 to Rs 4,974 crore from Rs 2,802 crore the previous year.
In Q4 alone, Paytm's revenue soared 89 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to Rs 1,541 crore, while Ebitda (before ESOPs) for the quarter improved 12 per cent YoY.
The growth in revenue was led by the increase in consumer and merchant payments and disbursements of loans through its partners on Paytm.
The company’s Ebitda loss (before ESOP) for FY22 saw an improvement of 8 per cent YoY to Rs 1,518 crore from Rs 1,655 crore the previous year. In addition, the company had Rs 809 crore of non-cash ESOP expenses.
Paytm has reduced Ebitda (before ESOP cost) loss despite making investments in user growth, merchant device deployment, and technology. The company’s cost structures in Q4FY22 are largely sufficient to support its growth plans in FY23. As a result, Paytm believes it will show accelerated reduction in Ebitda losses and is well on track to achieve profitability (before ESOP) by September 2023 quarter.
Monetisation strategy is gaining momentum
Paytm has a strong two-sided ecosystem of consumers and merchants, where it is seeing the monetisation strategy kick in to yield results. On the consumer payments side, the company is recording increasing usage of the Paytm app and Paytm Payment instruments.
On the merchant payments side, the company serves the entire base of merchants through (a) QR for payments (typically free), (b) sound boxes (which generate subscription revenues), (c) card machines (which generate subscription and MDR revenues), and (d) payment gateway for online merchants (which generates MDR revenues and platform fees).
Leveraging this distribution and rich insights, Paytm offers financial products to its consumers and merchants in partnership with financial institutions.
Increased consumer engagement and merchant base leads to higher revenue from payment services
The company has recorded a jump in its average monthly transacting users in FY22 to 6.08 crore, the average for the last quarter further increased to 7.09 crore. Paytm’s merchant base has also grown to now have 2.67 crore merchant partners, with 29 lakh devices deployed as of FY22.
The increased consumer engagement and merchant base has also led to increased revenue from payment services (both to consumers and merchants).
Paytm’s revenue from payment services to consumers was up 58 per cent to Rs 1,529 crore in FY22 from Rs 969 crore for the FY21. For the full year, revenue from payment services to merchants was up 87 per cent to Rs 1,892 crore in FY22 from Rs 1,012 crore for FY21.
Recognises an attractive upsell opportunity in the loan disbursement business
One of the highlights of Q4FY22 and FY22 has been the rapid scale-up of Paytm’s loan disbursement business, where it offers Paytm Postpaid (Buy Now, Pay Later), personal loans, and merchant loans. In April 2022, the company reached an annualised run rate of about Rs 20,000 crore of disbursement through its platform.
For the full year, the number of loans disbursed through the Paytm platform has grown 478 per cent YoY to 1.52 crore in FY22 from 26 lakh in FY21. The value of loans disbursed has grown 443 per cent YoY from Rs 1,404 crore in FY21 to Rs 7,623 crore in FY22.
The number of postpaid loans disbursed grew 373 per cent YoY in Q4FY22, while the value of postpaid loans grew 425 per cent YoY, thus highlighting increased usage by customers.
On the other hand, personal loans disbursed through partners on Paytm grew 947 per cent YoY in Q4 FY22, while the value of personal loans grew 1,082 per cent YoY.
The number of merchant loans disbursed grew 123 per cent YoY in Q4FY22, while the value of merchant loans grew 178 per cent YoY. The average value of loans, with consumer loans at about Rs 86,000 and merchant loans at nearly Rs 1,36,000 has risen from the previous year.