Byju's turns profitable on full-year basis; eyes Rs 3K-cr revenue this year

Edtech company Byju’s on Tuesday said that it is on target to double its revenue to Rs 3000 crore in the current financial year. The Bengaluru-based firm, which provides learning app for school students, announced its audited financial results for the year ending March 31, 2019. The company increased its net revenue from Rs 490 crore in FY18 to Rs 1341 crore with a net profit of Rs 20 crore in FY19. The gross revenue increased from Rs 520 crore to Rs 1480 crore. 

Deeper penetration across India and significant growth in the number of paid subscribers have been the primary drivers of growth. In January this year, Byju's also forayed into the US with the acquisition of Silicon Valley-based educational gaming start-up Osmo, which it bought for around $120 million.

“We have exceeded our financial goals that we set at the beginning of the year. Expanding our base across smaller towns and cities and introducing new products, have been pivotal to our growth. Our performance is a reflection of the increasing acceptance and adoption of digital learning across India,” said Mrinal Mohit, chief operating officer, Byju’s. “With 60 per cent of our students based outside the metros, the aspiration and need for quality learning has never been higher. In the current financial year, we are on track to double our revenue to Rs 3000 crore,” he added.

The company will also be launching  Byju’s Online Tutoring which will further accelerate growth and profitability in the coming year. This year, the firm had also unveiled its product for young learners (Grades 1-3), which completed its learning offerings from grades 1-12.  

“We are also planning to  reach out to deeper parts of India by launching programs in vernacular languages. We have always focused on sustainable growth and our efforts will continue to be on creating learning experiences that will help students become better learners,” said Mohit. “Being the world's most valuable edtech company today, we strongly believe that we have the capability to create a global product that can revolutionize learning for students across the world,” he added.

In March this year, Byju’s valuation crossed the $5-billion mark with new funding round, which was led by US-based growth equity investor General Atlantic (GA), along with Chinese internet giant Tencent. Byju’s has now over 40 million registered users and 2.8 million paid subscribers. The company said the average number of minutes a student spends on the app has increased from 64 minutes to 71 minutes per day over the last 12 months and the annual renewal rates are as high as 85 per cent. 

The global online education market is projected to reach a total market size of $286.62 billion by 2023, increasing from $159.52 billion in 2017, according to a report Global Online Education Market by Research & Markets.