MobiKwik posts 116% rise in FY19 revenue; eyes swing to operating profit by 2019-end

In its unaudited annual report, digital wallet company MobiKwik said that its gross revenues rose 116% to Rs 184.6 crore for the financial year 2018-19, from Rs 85.6 crore the previous year.

Chief operating officer Upasana Taku says that the company would swing to operating profit by the end of 2019.

“Mobile wallet payments are enough to cover costs but profit-making is driven by fintech products. We are sitting on the data of 100 million registered users on our platform, why wouldn’t I extend a line of credit to them. I have more indicators other than just the credit score of a user on the platform,” Taku told TechCircle.  

Mobile wallet transactions grew 85% from March 2018 to the same period in 2019, according to central bank data.

One MobiKwik Systems Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates MobiKwik, has not filed its audited annual filings with the ministry of corporate affairs. In its audited results for financial year 2017-18, losses widened to Rs 203 crore from Rs 133 crore the previous year even as operating revenues more than doubled.

MobiKwik, which offers loans, insurance products and wealth management apart from gold savings, said that it will disburse over 70,000 digital loans in May 2019 and is on track to disburse 1.2 million loans for financial year 2019-20.

With a view on profitability, Taku says that the company spends little or nothing on customer acquisition for its financial products business. “We have double-digit monthly active users who do payment transactions on the app. We don’t have to go out and acquire them, we just give them an alert saying they are eligible for a line of credit or push an insurance product when they are transacting at a gas station for their vehicles,” says Taku, adding that these are early days. “We have brought down the ticket size required to invest in mutual funds and provide insurance with a premium of Rs 20, which gives a cover of Rs 1 lakh to an app-based cab driver. We are serving the section which even NBFCs have not been able to reach and with products that are difficult to find online with the insurers directly,” she added.

While multiple fintech companies faced a slowdown in business post the September 2018 apex court judgment banning the use of Aadhaar-based eKYC by private entities, MobiKwik COO says that the company was back to business as usual by December 2018. “Close to 55% of our total user base has completed KYC on the platform,” adds Taku.

Alibaba-backed rival Paytm has also been competing in the wealth management space with the launch of a separate app for wealth management and the launch of a credit card recently with Citibank.

Founded in 2009 by Taku and CEO Bipin Preet Singh, MobiKwik last raised Rs 24 crore from previous investors Sequoia Capital, Japan’s GMO Payment Gateway and South African payment solutions company Net1 UEPS Technologies Inc. at a valuation of $281 million. While the company is expected to raise another round of investment this year, the COO did not wish to comment on the same.