Mumbai:Paytm’s parent One 97 Communications has cut its losses by 28% to Rs 2,833 crore in 2019-20, on the back of curtailed expenses, regulatory filings accessed by ET through business intelligence platform Toffler showed.
The Noida-based One97’s expenses came down by 20% to Rs 5,861 crore in the reporting fiscal against a total expense of Rs 7,254 crore incurred by the fintech giant in FY19, as per the disclosures. At the same time, the company’s revenues fell marginally by 1% to Rs 3,350 crore.
In the reporting fiscal, revenue from operations was at Rs 3,115 crore against Rs 3,049 crore in FY19. Similarly, much of the company’s expenses were categorized under ‘other expenses’ totaling Rs 5,861 crore in the reporting fiscal.
This is One97’s seventh straight fiscal year in the red. The company has expressed ambitions to turn profitable by FY22 on the back of forays into several financial services businesses such as lending, insurance, wealth management, commerce and gaming among others.
In Unified Payment Interface and e-wallet business, Paytm competes with Google Pay, Walmart’s PhonePe, Mobikwik, BharatPe and Amazon Pay.
The company has over 17 million merchants and is actively onboarding small enterprises onto its platform using quick response (QR) stickers to gain a share of India’s rapidly digitising small-ticket retail payments segment.
It is also in the business of merchant management where it has launched a slew of focused products such as Paytm for Business app, Soundbox, Business Khata, Payout services.
ET had reported in September that the Paytm’s standalone losses in FY20 had reduced by 37% to Rs 2597 crore. Paytm in a statement at the time had said that the decline in losses was largely on the back of curtailed expenditures, adding that the company aims to be profitable by 2022.
“Optimizing expenses resulted in a 40% reduction in losses as compared to last year, on its path to being profitable by 2022,†according to Paytm’s statement in September.
