PhonePe revenue up 138% to Rs 1,646 cr; losses narrow to Rs 671 cr in FY22

Better revenue was primarily driven by robust growth across all businesses; contribution margin grew to 88% from 84% the previous year

Walmart-owned fintech firm PhonePe said it has seen its revenue grow 138 per cent to Rs 1,646 crore, while its losses (without ESOP costs) narrowed by 15 per cent year on year to Rs 671 crore in FY22. The increase in revenue was primarily driven by the robust growth PhonePe saw across all its lines of business. The company's contribution margin grew to 88 per cent from 84 per cent the previous year, on account of improved cost optimisation, process automation and a favourable product mix.

On the cost side, marketing investments grew to Rs 866 crore. The increase is largely attributable to the marketing campaign for its new insurance distribution business during the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2021, and again during IPL in 2022. Employee costs rose by Rs 162 crore in FY21-22, on account of rapid hiring to build future product lines (Insurance, Wealth Services and others).

PhonePer recently completed three steps to move its domicile to India. It is mainly focused on this market and all its employees are based here. It has in the past year moved all businesses, including insurance and wealth broking, and subsidiaries of PhonePe Singapore to PhonePe Pvt Ltd-India.

PhonePe’s board recently approved creating a new employee stock ownership plan and migrating more than 3,000 PhonePe group employees’ ESOPs.

Under newly liberalised automatic overseas direct investment rules, PhonePe has moved the ownership of the recently acquired IndusOS Appstore (OSLabs Pte Ltd) from Singapore to India.

PhonePe was founded in December 2015. It has emerged as one of India’s largest payments app, enabling digital inclusion for consumers and merchants alike. With over 400 million registered users, one in four Indians are now on PhonePe.

The company has also digitised 32 million offline merchants in 99 per cent of pin codes in the country.