Walmart-owned payment services provider PhonePe’s consolidated operating revenue has more than doubled (growing by 138%) to Rs 1,646 crore during the year ended March 31, 2022, the company said in a filing.
“The increase in revenue is primarily driven by the robust growth PhonePe has seen across all its lines of businesses,” it added.
The fintech platform’s EBITDA or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, without accounting for ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) costs, narrowed 15% to Rs 671 crore during the year.
The company had last reported a net loss of Rs 1727.87 crore in FY 2021, as per its latest available financial statements that it filed with the Registrar of Companies.
However, the Bengaluru-based startup’s expenses also jumped over the last year.
Marketing expenses, which form a major chunk of the company’s costs, grew about 62% to Rs 866 crore during the year.
“The increase is largely attributable to the marketing campaign for its new Insurance distribution business during the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2021, and again during IPL in 2022,” PhonePe said.
The employee cost rose by 41 % to Rs 555 crore in FY 2022.
PhonePe reported other operating expenses of Rs 697 crore during the year, up 57 % over the same period last year.
Earlier this month, the company had moved its domicile from Singapore to India ahead of its initial public offering. All PhonePe Group businesses and entities are now wholly owned by and consolidated under PhonePe Pvt Ltd - India.
PhonePe was founded in 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer. It provides several financial services on its platform including investments and insurance and has over 400 million registered users. It has added more than 30 million offline merchants across Tier II, III and IV cities and towns.
In the digital payments space, PhonePe pits against Paytm, GooglePay, MobiKwik, and Freecharge as well as new entrant Cred.
The digital payments company plans to go public once its core businesses turn profitable, which the firm hopes to achieve by 2023.
In March, PhonePe acquired Explorium Innovative Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates GigIndia, a network for freelance micro-entrepreneurs for an undisclosed amount. As part of the acquisition, GigIndia integrated with the digital payments platform.
