Paytm e-commerce narrows losses to Rs 1,171 cr in FY19

Paytm e-commerce narrowed its losses to Rs 1,171.62 crore in 2018-19 from about Rs 1,787.73 crore in the previous financial year, according to regulatory documents.

Paytm e-commerce, which is locked in a battle with giants like Amazon India and Walmart-backed Flipkart, clocked about 25 per cent jump in total revenue at Rs 968.16 crore in 2018-19 as against Rs 774.86 crore in the financial year ended March 2017, the regulatory documents sourced by business intelligence platform Tofler showed.

When contacted, Paytm Mall Director Rudra Dalmia said Paytm Mall is focusing on building out online-to-offline business channels.

"Paytm Mall is focusing on building out O2O business channels whilst continuing the online business at contribution margin positive levels. The goal is to be Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) neutral by Q2-2020 and profitable by Q1-2021," he said.

While e-commerce in the country is at a fledgling stage, reports estimate it to become a USD 200-billion opportunity over the next few years. US-based Amazon and Walmart are placing multi-billion dollars bets on the Indian market, even as their e-commerce ventures here incur huge losses.

Amazon has committed USD 5 billion worth of investment in India in 2016, while Walmart had picked up 77 per cent stake in Flipkart for USD 16 billion last year. These entities have been investing millions of dollars across various operations like marketplace, infrastructure and supply chain management as well as marketing and promotion.

However, this rapid scaling up has not come cheap. Amazon Seller Services, the online marketplace arm of Amazon in India, managed to narrow its losses to Rs 5,685 crore in 2018-19. Its revenues grew 55 per cent to Rs 7,778 crore in 2018-19 over the previous financial year.

Flipkart Internet, the unit that runs Flipkart's marketplace business, recorded 40 per cent rise in losses to Rs 1,624 crore for the year ended March 31. Its revenue increased by 33 per cent to Rs 4,804 crore.