Witnessing The Beginning Of The End Of Tough Times For Paytm: Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Even as the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) curbs continue to loom heavily over Paytm, the fintech major’s founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma believes that the June quarter (Q1 FY25) marked the “beginning of the end of tough times”. 

In its earnings call, Sharma said that the June quarter reflected the full impact of the challenges faced by the company. 

“This quarter reflects the full impact of the challenges we faced. As a team, we are committed to navigating through these times with a focus on compliance. My team and I are committed to ensuring we return to profitable quarters,” Sharma said.

Paytm’s loss widened and revenue declined on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) as well as year-on-year (YoY) basis in Q1 FY25. Sharma said that the performance during the quarter was in line with expectations, adding that the startup demonstrated “resilience and capability of Paytm’s products and services”.

Sharma also claimed that Paytm remained “aligned” towards financial services vertical driving its profitability.

“We also remain aligned that our profitability will be driven by our ability to sell more financial services to customers. Further, we continue to enable merchants to do more commerce activities which are consolidated under our marketing services,” he said during the earnings call. 

Beyond the lofty claims, the fintech major continues to be saddled by heavy losses, largely on account of the central bank’s crackdown on Paytm Payments Bank. 

In January this year, RBI barred the payments bank from taking any deposits or credit transactions or top-ups in any of its customer accounts. It also stopped the payments bank from offering any other banking services, such as UPI facility and fund transfers.

Since then, Paytm has been witnessing a steep increase in losses. The company’s loss jumped 3X year-on-year (YoY) to INR 550.5 Cr in Q4 FY24. Net loss soared 134% YoY to INR 840.1 Cr in Q1 FY25. 

On similar lines, revenue from operations declined 2.9% YoY to INR 2,267.10 Cr in Q4 FY24 and then fell 36% YoY to INR 1,502 Cr in the quarter ended June 2024. 

The company’s shares have also been on a free fall, plummeting more than 27% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis. The stock is also down by nearly half (45.5%) in the past 12 months.

Shares of the fintech major ended Friday’s (July 19) session 3.07% lower at INR 458.7 on the BSE.

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