Fintech major Paytm, which is getting ready for listing, has been cutting down on its losses and has also been diversifying into other businesses from just focussing on payments.

One97 Communications Ltd, which is the parent company of Paytm, posted a net loss of ₹2,833.18 crore in the year ended March 31, 2020, according to data sources from Tofler. This was an improvement from the net loss of ₹3,959.64 crore in 2018-19, it revealed.

Revenue from operations and net worth had touched an all time high in 2019-20.

Its revenue from operations also improved marginally to ₹3,115 crore in 2019-20 from ₹3,049.87 crore in the previous fiscal.

Its net worth had increased by 39.35 per cent to ₹8,411 crore as on March 31, 2020.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of Paytm, has earlier indicated that the company would look at a possible listing after cutting down on losses.

Also read:Paytm eyes $3-billion IPO

With the company now looking to launch an initial public offering by the end of the year, it is likely that its financial position may have improved further.

“Paytm has come a long way from a simple digital wallet business to an integrated payments ecosystem...With increased financial discipline , Paytm is on track to break even in 12-18 months,” said a recent report by Bernstein .

Its valuation is also understood to have increased from around $16 billion to about $20 billion.

Its subsidiaries include One97 Communications India Pvt Ltd, Paytm Entertainment, Paytm Money, Paytm Financial Services, Paytm Insurance, Mobiquest Mobile Technology and Nearbuy India Private Ltd apart from other ventures such as Paytm Payments Bank and Paytm Life Insurance.

Payments, banking and insurance clearly seem to be the focus areas for the company at present.

The report by Bernstein noted that Paytm has about a 350 million installed base, about 50 million active user base and over 20 million merchant base.

“Paytm has realigned strategy to focus on merchant payments (on wallet and UPI) and is building a comprehensive merchant payment solution for both offline and online merchants,” it noted.

In terms of UPI market share, Paytm Payments Bank app is the third most used after PhonePe and GooglePe.

Paytm Payments Bank, which has about 64 million bank accounts, has tied up with Suryoday SFB to offer fixed deposits. It also made a net profit of ₹29.8 crore in 2019-20.

Related Topics