Paytm 2018-19 annual report: Key takeaways

One97 Communications, the parent entity of digital payments company Paytm, reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 4,217.20 crore for the financial year 2018-19 compared to Rs 1,604.34 crore during the last year.

The company incurred huge losses on its ecommerce venture Paytm Mall and is said to be looking at banking and wealth management, business-to-business payments and entertainment for revenue generation, according to the annual report for the year 2018-19.

Here are the seven key takeaways from the report:

• The standalone net loss of One97 Communications was Rs 3,959.64 crore for the year ended March 2019 compared to Rs 1,490.47 crore in the previous fiscal.
• Expenses doubled to Rs 7,730.14 crore from Rs 4,864.53 crore in 2017-18.
• The holding company has four wholly-owned subsidiaries in Singapore, Nigeria, USA and Dubai and a joint venture Ciqual in the United Kingdom. As much as 83.04% is held by foreign investors under the foreign direct investment scheme of RBI.
• One97 Communications holds 63% shares in subsidiaries Little Internet and Nearbuy which was acquired by Little Internet. The holding company granted preferential equity shares to complete the acquisition of Orbgen Technologies, which owns and operates Ticketnew, acquired by Paytm in May 2018. The company also made preferential-cum- private placement of equity shares for Little Internet.
• As part of its employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), the company cancelled 95,561 outstanding unvested employee stocks. As on March 31, 2019, the outstanding vested options stood at 362,016. The money realised by exercise of ESOPs stood at Rs 1.47 crore.
• The company has 33 Indian and offshore subsidiaries, joint ventures and joint ventures by Paytm Entertainment and subsidiaries of investee companies.
• The shareholding of founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma stood at 15.73% at the end of fiscal 2019 with 90.51 lakh shares, down 0.63% from the previous financial year.