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Paytm Mall, the e-commerce platform of Paytm, has been trying to find a sustainable model for the past two years. The Paytm Mall’s revenue from operations grew to Rs 282 crore during the fiscal year ending March 2022 from Rs 277 crore in FY21, according to its annual financial statement with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). Sales of products contributed 49.6% of the company's total operating revenue.
Revenue from Paytm Mall grew 85.3% to Rs 139.9 cr. Commission collected from merchants and sellers for providing platform services accounted for 45% of the total collection during FY22, which declined 27% to Rs 126.9 crore from the preceding fiscal year's revenue of Rs 12.7 crore. The company also booked revenue of Rs 8.6 crore during FY22 as a marketing promotion fee for providing advertising services on its platform; this income surged 47.7% from Rs 6.5 crore in FY20. In FY22, the company also collected operating revenue of around Rs 3 crore and recovered claims from courier companies; Paytm Mall also recorded non-operating income of Rs 21.6 cr from liabilities written back & Rs 80.4 cr as interest income related to bank deposits, royalty accounting adjustments, and others which drove the total revenue to Rs 384 crore during FY22.
Interestingly, only 53% of revenue in FY22 came from India with the rest from other countries. The 47% revenue Paytm Mall's revenue came from offshore markets is even odder when one considers that it doesn't have an effective presence in any overseas markets. On the expense front, royalty fees paid in exchange for services received from One97 Communications Limited (Paytm) turned out to be the largest cost element, forming 23% of its total expenditure. For those who aren't familiar with it, Paytm Mall isn't a subsidiary of One97 Communications Limited, but has been licensed to use the Paytm brand, and run on the Paytm app; however, employees don't receive benefits and advertising/promotional expenses declined 29.7% and 59%.
It costs money to run a business, and the cost of connectivity and payment gateway charges decreased by 43% in FY22 from Rs 36.9 crore in FY21 to Rs 21.1 crore. Paytm Mall's expenditure decreased by 43% to Rs 526 crore in FY22, resulting in a loss of Rs 142 crore during that period. The company also booked an exceptional item of Rs 398 crore as an impairment of goodwill taking the losses to Rs 540 crore, as per annual statements filed with the MCA portal. This could be attributed to $398 worth of impairment of goodwill booked under non-cash adjustment.
Entrackr has excluded this expense while calculating overall losses and ratios; Its costs such as connectivity and payment gateway charges have decreased by 43% in FY22 to Rs 21.1 crore from Rs 36.9 crore in FY21. The company's expenditure for Paytm Mall also decreased by 43% to Rs 526 crore during FY22. As a result, the losses of the company decreased to Rs 142 crore in FY22. The company also booked an exceptional item of Rs 398 cr as an impairment of goodwill taking its overall losses to Rs 540 cr, as per the annual statements filed to the MCA portal. Entrackr has excluded this expense while calculating the overall losses and ratios so far; however, we will be running a separate analysis on that at a later date. The EBITDA margin and ROCE improved to -27.34% and -12.88% during FY22.
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In May, the e-commerce marketplace Paytm Mall pivoted from the traditional physical goods marketplace to join the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Meanwhile, Paytm Mall’s early and key backers Alibaba and Ant Financial took an exit from the Bengaluru-based company. While no longer a subsidiary, deep legacy relationships with former parent One97 are nowhere close to unwinding soon; as evident in the numbers. For a truly sustainable future, it needs to look at every cost harder in that respect and build further on the new opportunities it is mining now.
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