Infibeam’s revenue up 83% in Q2

Infibeam Avenues Ltd, the listed operator of e-commerce firm Infibeam and parent of payment gateway company CCAvenue, posted a significant rise in operational revenues in the second quarter of the financial year 2018-19 thanks to the growth of its web services business.

The company said in a statement that its operational revenues rose to Rs 134.82 crore for the quarter ended September 30. This represents an 83% increase over its operational revenues of Rs 73.74 crore during the same quarter in the previous fiscal. Total income came in at Rs 138.2 crore.

Infibeam attributed the significant uptick to its revenue growth across its web services operations, which includes its core e-commerce solution Buildabazaar and payment solutions business CCAvenues. Together, they account for nearly 98% of the company’s revenues since 2017-18 while its e-commerce site accounts for the rest, Infibeam added.

Net losses stood at Rs 4.5 crore in the second quarter of 2018-19. The company had reported a net profit of Rs 1.05 crore in the year-ago period.

“We continue to make great progress in our web services business which shows promising growth,” said Infibeam managing director Vishal Mehta. “We are focused in driving execution across business verticals with our industry-leading web services solutions.”  

Besides, the company said its pricing model also underwent a change from what was largely a subscription–based model to more of a transaction-based one, allowing scalability and profitability.

Total expenses nearly doubled to Rs 137.46 crore compared to the year-ago period, with payment gateway processing charges accounting for nearly 80% of it.

Infibeam had acquired payment gateway firm CCAvenue for Rs 2,000 crore ($298 million then) in February last year.

A fortnight ago, former Snapdeal executive Jason Kothari quit as the president of Infibeam Avenues Ltd just four months after joining the company.

Infibeam's share price has plunged in recent weeks. A WhatsApp message linked to brokerage firm Equirus Securities caused the company’s shares to fall 71% on September 28. The message allegedly questioned the accounting practices and corporate governance at the company. Infibeam had denied the allegations at the time. 

Shares of Infibeam fell 4.94% on the BSE on Wednesday to trade at around Rs 52.95 apiece. Its shares were trading at around Rs 180 before the WhatsApp-related incident and had hit a one-year high of Rs 242.80 on 18 September.

Update: An earlier version of this story stated that Infibeam had reported a net profit. The error is regretted.