(Bloomberg) — Paytm’s sales slid for the fourth consecutive quarter as the Indian fintech pushes hard to emerge from the shadow of regulatory curbs a year ago that hurt much of its business.
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Revenue fell 36% to 18.3 billion rupees ($211 million) in the third quarter through December, trailing the 19 billion rupees analysts estimated. Net loss narrowed to 2.08 billion rupees, Paytm said. Analysts, on average, expected 3.32 billion rupees in losses.
India’s banking regulator all but shut down Paytm’s banking affiliate early 2024 after years of warnings about unregulated data flows between that unit and the larger fintech. That clampdown disrupted Paytm, forcing founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma to forge deeper partnerships with other Indian lenders as part of its recovery effort.
Sharma has since sold Paytm’s movie and events ticketing business to Zomato Ltd., helping the company curb expenses. Paytm is also awaiting the Reserve Bank of India’s clearance to become a payments aggregator that’ll help online retailers and merchants on its network to accept customers’ digital payments.
Shares of Paytm advanced 1% in Mumbai trading, after falling as much as 3.1%. The stock plummeted sharply after the regulator’s action in early 2024, but has since recovered as investors bet its business will rebound. It’s still down 58% from its trading debut in 2021.
The company’s average monthly transacting users slipped to 70 million during the December quarter from 71 million in the previous three months. Paytm said it disbursed 38.3 billion rupees in merchant loans during the third quarter, 16% more than in the September quarter.
Sharma pioneered fintech in India with Paytm mobile wallets and QR codes that allow for easier digital payments. His backers included Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma, SoftBank Group Corp. boss Masayoshi Son and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett, making Paytm India’s most valuable startup at one point.
Paytm competes with local and global players including Walmart Inc.’s PhonePe and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Pay in India’s hyper-competitive fintech space.
(Updates with users, loans in sixth paragraph.)
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