Quikr revenue doubles in December quarter

Online classifieds portal Quikr India Pvt. Ltd doubled its revenue in the quarter-ended December over the same period last year driven by a steady increase in the number of users responding on the platform.

"The company more than doubled its quarterly revenue year-on-year, despite a broader macroeconomic slowdown in November and December following the move to demonetise high-value currency in India," its Swedish investor AB Kinnevik said in its annual results on Friday, without giving the exact financials.

Quikr's FY16 total revenue had risen 44% to Rs 94.5 crore, mainly on account of an almost two-fold rise in other income to Rs 53.27 crore. Its net loss for the fiscal had expanded to Rs 534 crore from Rs 446 crore the year before.

Kinnevik holds an 18% stake in Quikr, at a fair value of nearly $168 million.

The Quikr platform, which serves nearly 20 million unique monthly visitors, generated 10.3 million responses in December 2016, its highest-ever. Responses per listing rose 125% over the same period last year, Kinnevik said.

A Quikr spokesperson attributed the rise in responses to "product innovation and strengthening appeal of its verticals."

In December, responses rose 13.2% over September, when Quikr generated 9.1 million responses. In June, the platform had seen 7.9 million responses. There was clearly a small deceleration over the September-December period compared to the June-September period.

In November, Quikr acquired Mumbai-based home rental startup Grabhouse, run by Cryptopy Technologies Pvt Ltd, for an undisclosed amount. In August, it had secured Rs 130 crore ($19.4 million) from Brand Capital, the ad-for-equity investment arm of media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL).

Quikr competes with OLX in the online classifieds segment. Founded in 2008 by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas (who later left the firm), the company originally started as Kijiji India and then later rebranded to Quikr. It counts Tiger Global Management, Kinnevik, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners India, Norwest Venture Partners, Nokia Growth Partners, Steadview Capital, Omidyar Network and eBay Inc as investors.

In January last year, Quikr acquired real estate portal CommonFloor to merge it with its property listings business QuikrHomes. Two months later, Quikr was in the news for laying off 150-200 employees of CommonFloor.