BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian digital payments firm Paytm reported a 51.5% rise in fourth-quarter revenue on Friday, aided by a surge in loan growth, and posted an operating profit for a second consecutive quarter.
Paytm’s parent, One 97 Communications Ltd, said revenue rose to 23.35 billion rupees ($285.80 million) in the January-March quarter, from 15.41 billion rupees a year earlier.
Operating profit, which the company defines as core profit before cost of employee stock-owning plans, was 2.34 billion rupees, including 1.82 billion rupees paid for the full year from a government scheme to incentivise UPI payments, compared with a loss of 3.68 billion rupees a year earlier.
That was still higher than the 310 million rupees in the previous quarter, which was the SoftBank-backed firm’s first-ever operating profit since it went public in November 2021.
Paytm’s consolidated net loss narrowed to 1.68 billion rupees, from 7.61 billion rupees a year earlier. Loans distributed through Paytm more than tripled to 125.54 billion rupees, powering an 183% surge in revenue in its fast-growing financial services business.
Revenue at Paytm’s two biggest divisions, from payments services to consumers and to merchants, rose 12% and 61%, respectively.
Its contribution margin — a measure of revenue less cashbacks and charges such as payment processing — rose to 55%, from 35% a year earlier.
($1 = 81.7000 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nishit Navin and Anirudh Saligrama in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
