Jasper Infotech, the parent company of e-commerce player Snapdeal, has posted losses worth ₹2,638 crore in FY 2016.
However, the revenues of the New Delhi-based company have also almost doubled to ₹1,866 crore during the period, compared with ₹933 crore in FY 2015. This was according to data provided by data analytics and research firm Tofler that collates financial data from of listed and unlisted companies.
According to a filing with the Registrar of Companies, Snapdeal said the company has been focussing on providing a better customer experience on the back of speed of forward and reverse logistics, and that the company’s revenue grew 50 per cent over the past year.
“In order to deliver the best-in-class customer experience and to set up the necessary infrastructure for future growth, there was an increase in fulfilment and overhead expenses. We believe we will get significant operating leverage out of these investments in the subsequent years... We are absolutely confident that it is heading in the right direction to achieve profitability,” the company said in the RoC filing.
The company’s losses had increased almost five-folds from ₹265 crore in 2014, according to the data provided by Tofler.
The firm had taken several measures — from cutting down on marketing spends to laying off employees — in a bid to rationalise the mounting losses. It had reduced its workforce to almost half, and added several temporary workers.
As on April 2016 the company had about 10,000 permanent employees. Total expenses for the company has also doubled to at ₹4,416 crore.
The losses were also due to whopping losses posted by major subsidiary companies such as e-wallet division FreeCharge and order fulfilment software Unicommerce.
The company, founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, has so far raised foreign capital worth $1.76 billion from marquee investors including SoftBank, Foxconn, eBay, Kalaari Capital and Ratan Tata, in a bid to take on largest domestic player Flipkart and global giant Amazon.
The company, which is indirectly backed by China’s Alibaba, however, is way behind Flipkart, at least in terms of revenues. The Bengaluru-based e-commerce player’s revenues crossed ₹13,000 crore in FY 2016.