PhonePe revenue jumps 77% to ₹2,914 cr in FY23

Revenue of Walmart-owned digital payments platform PhonePe surged 77% year-on-year to ₹2,914 crore for the financial year 2022-23 compared with ₹1,646 crore in FY22.

The growth in revenue was led by PhonePe's focus on market expansion and leadership in the digital payments market, especially in major revenue-contributing use cases like money transfers, mobile recharges and bill payments, the company says in a statement.

PhonePe's revenue growth was also driven by the launch and scale-up of new products and businesses such as smart speakers, rent payments, and insurance distribution, the payments firm says. As of August 31, 2023, smart speaker deployment stood at 4.1 million.

The company clocked the highest market share in UPI Total Payments Value (TPV) at 50.54% as of March 2023.

PhonePe's standalone PhonePe India Pvt Ltd entity, which houses the company's payments business, reported an operating loss of ₹1,755 crore in FY23, up from ₹1,612 crore in FY22.

Excluding ESOP expenses, operating loss stood at ₹159 crore in FY23 as against ₹455 crore in FY22. "Substantial ESOPs were granted in FY23 towards the corporate restructuring and as one-time rewards for setting up and incentivising new business," the company says.

In FY23, PhonePe completed its spinoff from the Flipkart Group. It also moved its domicile to India from Singapore. The payments startup concluded an equity fundraising of ₹7,021 crore from long-term investors like General Atlantic, Walmart, Ribbit Capital, TVS Capital Funds and Tiger Global, pegging PhonePe at a $12 billion pre-money valuation.

"These actions enable us to invest in India for the long-term and create a sustainable ecosystem and shareholder value in India. The fundraise equips us with the required capital to invest behind new businesses which in turn will simultaneously grow and diversify our revenue and profit pools," it says.

"Going forward, our focus will remain on strengthening our leadership position in Digital Payments while growing the business sustainably and profitably. We are also at a unique juncture where we have launched multiple new businesses, which are now ready to be scaled up with sufficient investment capital," the digital payments firm says.

"We believe the combination of our sustainable and profitable payments business along with the suite of new businesses will result in a well-diversified revenue portfolio with robust growth and Group level profitability in the ensuing years," it adds.

In August, the Walmart-owned company forayed into stockbroking. PhonePe subsidiary PhonePe Wealth Broking Pvt Ltd launched an app called Share(dot)Market that allows users to open trading accounts, invest in stocks, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETF), and quantitative research-based WealthBaskets — investment products by SEBI-registered intermediaries that align with specific themes, sectors, or market.

The digital payments firm earlier this year rolled out an online shopping app called Pincode based on the ONDC platform.