One97 Communication, the parent company of the Financial tech company Paytm, has managed to decrease its losses in FY 20, by cutting down expenses by 19% to ₹5,861 Cr, according to ET. Despite the Covid-19 lockdown affecting the company’s revenue, it managed to curtail losses by 28 percent to ₹2,833 crore in the financial year 2019-20. The significant reduction in losses was reported due to curtailed expenses.
The company’s expenses came down to ₹5,861 crore this year, which is a remarkable step down from last year’s ₹7,254 crore.
This helped in bringing losses down in the midst of a very slight fall in revenue. The company’s revenues fell slightly (1 per cent) to ₹3,350 crore in FY20. One97’s overall revenue from operations stood at ₹3,115 crore in FY20 vs ₹3,049 crore in the previous year.
Paytm has set a seemingly impossible goal of reaching profitability by FY 22, and has been making efforts to fulfill its words. This is why it is trying to reduce losses on its current endeavors, as well as expanding its reach to different sectors of revenue such as lending, health, management and insurance.
Out of all the One97 Communications subsidiaries, Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL) is the only cost-effective one, with a second year of profits. The company said its income has grown 55% from ₹19.2 Cr in FY19 to ₹29.8 Cr in FY2020, largely led by higher customer acquisition in smaller cities and towns to drive financial inclusion in the country. However, the startup realizes that this one single stream is not enough to reach profitability.
That is why, it has rolled out multiple new initiatives this year, including new financial services such as lending, insurance, gaming, etc.
Paytm has over 17 million merchants and is continuously incorporating small enterprises onto its platform using quick response (QR) stickers to gain a share of India’s rapidly digitizing small-ticket retail payments segment.
The platform had also revealed that it will waive all charges on merchant transactions and facilitate its merchant partners to accept payments from Paytm wallet, UPI apps and RuPay cards at zero charges.
While all of these measures have certainly helped the company, it’s unclear if it will be able to take some money home by FY 22.
