Fintech firm One97 Communications, which owns Paytm brand, has reported a narrowing of consolidated loss to Rs 208.5 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2024 mainly on account of reduction in expenses across the board, mainly on payment processing charges and employee costs.
The company had posted a loss of Rs 221.7 crore in the same period a year ago, the company said.
The revenue from operations of Paytm declined by 35.8 per cent to Rs 1,827.8 crore during the reported quarter, from Rs 2,850.5 crore in the December 2024 quarter driven by dip in revenue from payments and financial services (34 per cent), payment services (40 per cent) and marketing services (48 per cent).
The revenue was, however, up 10 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis showing a sign of recovery in the company's business.
The company is also looking for international expansion. It has set-up three overseas step-down subsidiaries of Paytm Cloud Technologies in the United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Singapore.
"We believe that our technology-led merchant payments and financial services distribution business model has the potential for expansion in similar international markets.
"We have developed a portfolio of innovative hardware, software and services stack in India, which can be deployed and monetised internationally. We are exploring various approaches, including organic expansion/local licenses, strategic investment and partnerships," the filing said.
During the quarter, Paytm's gross merchandise value (GMV) reached record high to touch the Rs 5 lakh-crore mark.
The operational loss or the EBITDA before employee stock options of the company narrowed to Rs 41 crore on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis, from Rs 186 crore, primarily on account of reduction of non-sales employee costs.
"Non-sales employee costs, which includes our business, technology, operations and support teams, has come down by 11 per cent QoQ and 36 per cent YoY as we continue to leverage AI for improving productivity across businesses," Paytm said.
Paytm's payment processing charges dropped by about 42 per cent to Rs 570 crore on a year-on-year basis.
The company's monthly transacting user base reached 7.2 crore in December, after touching an all-time low of 6.8 crore in September 2024, following the impact on its business due to restrictions imposed on Paytm Payments Bank.
Cash balance of Paytm increased to Rs 12,850 crore mainly on account of stake sale in Japanese payments company PayPay to the Softbank Group for Rs 2,372 crore.
The company said that its contributing profit improved by 7 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis to Rs 959 crore.
Paytm excludes payment processing charges, promotional cashback and incentives expenses, connectivity and content fees, contest, ticketing expenses and logistics, deployment and collection cost from operational revenue to compute contributing profit.
The company has onboarded former Information and broadcasting secretary Bimal Julka as a non-executive independent director.
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