Digital financial services firm One97 Communications Ltd which owns Paytm on Friday reported a net loss of Rs 168.4 crore for the fourth quarter that ended March 31, 2023. In the corresponding quarter last year, the company posted a net loss of Rs 761.4 crore.

In the March quarter, consolidated revenue from operations stood at Rs 2,334.5 crore during the period under review, up 51.5 percent against Rs 1,540.9 crore in the corresponding period of the preceding fiscal, led by an increase in GMV, higher merchant subscription revenues, and growth of loans distributed through our platform.

In the fourth quarter, across our three product offerings (Paytm Postpaid, Personal Loans, and Merchant Loans), loans amounting to Rs 12,554 crore were distributed through the Paytm platform. As of March 2023, 95 lakh borrowers have taken a loan through our platform.

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Average Monthly Transacting Users (MTU) for the fourth quarter grew by 27 percent year-on-year to 9 crore as the adoption of mobile payments for consumers and merchants in India continues.

Subscription services for payment devices, such as Soundbox and POS machines, are also witnessing strong adoption, with 68 lakh merchants paying us subscriptions as of March 2023, more than doubling from 29 lakh as of March 2022.

GMV

The company continued to witness sustained growth in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV), which stood at Rs 3.62 lakh crore for Q4 FY23, an increase of 40 percent year-on-year.

Including the current quarter's UPI incentive only, Q4 FY23 revenue growth was 43 percent year-on-year and the contribution margin was 52 percent, versus 35 percent in Q4 FY22. The fourth quarter EBITDA before ESOP, excluding Rs 133 crore UPI incentive pertaining to 9M FY 23, was Rs 101 crore, an improvement of Rs 469 crore year-on-year.

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As of the quarter ending March 2023, the company has Rs 8,275 crore as cash balances as compared to Rs 9,271 crore as on March 2022. The company completed a buy-back of 1.56 crore shares by utilising Rs 850 crore of cash, implying an average purchase price of Rs 545 per share.

Loans

The number of postpaid loans distributed grew 86 percent year-on-year in Q4 FY23, while the value of postpaid loans grew 211 percent year-on-year. The total number of unique user base has crossed 86 lakh customers.

The number of Personal Loans distributed grew 193 percent YoY in Q4 FY23, while the value of personal loans grew 328 percent year-on-year to Rs 3,447 crore. The average ticket size is Rs 130,000 with an average tenure of 15 months.

Cross-sell from Postpaid continues to see traction with over 40 percent of personal loans distributed in Q4 FY 2023 to existing Paytm Postpaid users. Penetration for personal loans is at 0.9 percent of MTU.

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"Since the launch of our UPI Lite platform in February 2023, we have already onboarded 55 lakh customers. NPCI's wallet interoperability guidelines will allow Full KYC Paytm Wallet to be universally acceptable on all UPI QRs and online merchants, it said.

"We believe India has the potential of at least 10 crore merchants and more than 50 crore payment users in the near future. With the addition of nearly 9,000 members, our sales team now has more than 28,000 members and caters to nearly 550 towns and cities," the company said.

"Since the launch of our UPI Lite platform in February 2023, we have already onboarded 55 lakh customers. NPCI's wallet interoperability guidelines will allow Full KYC Paytm Wallet to be universally acceptable on all UPI QRs and online merchants," it said.

(Edited by : Pradeep John)