One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), which owns the Paytm brand, on Monday said it disbursed 3.4 million loans in October, y-o-y growth of 161 per cent. The value of the loans disbursed in October surged 387 per cent year-on-year to Rs 3,056 crore.
“The company’s user engagement too was at its highest with its average monthly transacting users for October at 84 million, registering a growth of 33 per cent y-o-y. This reflects the fact that more and more people are using the Paytm app,” Paytm said in a statement on Monday. It added that the company’s leadership in offline payments strengthened further with its total merchant subscription devices deployed increasing to 5.1 million.
Paytm’s leadership in offline payments strengthened further with its total merchant subscription devices deployed increasing to 5.1 million. With its subscription-as-a-service model, the strong adoption of devices drives higher payment volumes, and subscription revenues, while increasing the funnel for merchant loan distribution.
Paytm had recently said in its earnings release, “Merchant subscriptions is an attractive profit pool for us, driving higher payment volumes, subscription revenues as well as merchant loan distribution.”
The company’s founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma wrote a letter to shareholders as Paytm is close to one year of listing. Sharma further said that the company is aware of the expectations that Paytm carries, and they are on the path to profitability and free cash flows. “Our journey to build a scalable and profitable financial services business has just started,” he wrote.
Paytm in its recently announced Q2 FY23 financials had posted a 76 per cent y-o-y growth in revenue to Rs 1,914 crore. Meanwhile, the company’s losses reduced by 11 per cent on a sequential basis. The company’s contribution profit surged 224 per cent y-o-y to Rs 843 crore. Talking about the company’s growth in the last quarter he wrote, “After our recent quarterly reports which showed strong operating leverage and reduction in EBITDA losses, we are now excited about the next year of our journey, as we get close to EBITDA profitability and free cash flow generation.”
Over the years, Paytm has become synonymous with mobile payments and is a pioneer for QR code-based payments. “In the past ten years, we have embedded our solutions to the last mile – digitising money and enabling small aspirational merchants, artisans, and solution providers to tap into the world of infinite possibilities,” he wrote.
Sharma further wrote that the payment revolution continues in India, with merchants and users enthusiastically adopting digital payment technology. The government incentives to UPI payments and merchants’ adoption of our devices and subscription product, is making payments increasingly monetizable and profitable for the company.
For October, the total merchant GMV processed through Paytm aggregated to Rs 1.18 lakh crore ($14 billion), marking a y-o-y growth of 42 per cent, partly due to the festive season. “In our payments business, we continue to focus on profitable revenue and hence continue to optimise for profitable GMV (gross merchandise value),” said the company in the statement.
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