Delhivery FY18 loss widens on higher costs, revenue jumps

Gurugram-based logistics company Delhivery Pvt. Ltd has reported a 38% rise in operating revenue for the year through March 2018, but its loss widened due to higher expenses.

Consolidated operating revenue climbed to Rs 1,023.05 crore for 2017-18 from Rs 743.70 crore the previous year, according to the company’s financial statements filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Net loss widened to Rs 692.21 crore from Rs 637.83 crore.

The numbers include revenue earned by providing last-mile logistics services and reverse logistics services for e-commerce deliveries. Delhivery’s consolidated financial statements includes revenue and loss figures of wholly owned subsidiaries Skynet Logistics Pvt. Ltd, Delhivery USA LLC and Delhivery Corp Ltd, and associate Leucon Technology Pvt. Ltd.

The pace of growth in revenue slowed from the previous year. For 2016-17, Delhivery had clocked a 50% rise in net sales to Rs 743.70 crore from Rs 495.71 crore the previous year.

Total expenses for 2017-18 rose 27% to Rs 1,765.73 crore from Rs 1,393.54 crore the previous year. Like in the previous year, “miscellaneous expenses” was the biggest cost head. At Rs 1,020.46 crore, miscellaneous expenses were nearly 58% of the total expenditure. In 2016-17, these expenses accounted for 60% of the total expenses.

The financial statement did not shed light on what these miscellaneous expenses were. The other major expenditure heads include staff costs (Rs 284.49 crore) and vehicle running expenses (Rs 168.38 crore).

Email queries sent to Delhivery seeking comments on the company’s financials did not elicit a response till the time of publishing this copy.

Delhivery, earlier known as SSN Logistics Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2011 by Sahil Barua, Mohit Tandon, Suraj Saharan, Kapil Bharti and Bhavesh Manglani. It started off as a company providing local on-demand services and subsequently became a full-fledged logistics services provider.

Delhivery is one of the most-funded logistics companies. It has raised about $250 million from private equity firms Carlyle and Multiples Alternate Asset Management, US-based investment firm Tiger Global, China's Fosun International, venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners and Times Internet Ltd. The company competes with the likes of Rivigo and Ecom Express.

In October and November this year, media reports said the company was in talks to raise between $250 million and $450 million from potential investors including Japan's SoftBank.

This came after VCCircle reported in September that Delhivery had put plans for an initial public offering on the backburner and was seeking fresh private funding.