Latest news with #MadhurDeora
Time of India
8 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Qcomm's ad revenue push; Paytm swings to black
Qcomm's ad revenue push; Paytm swings to black Also in the letter: Quick commerce platforms push brands to boost ad spends in pursuit of high-margin revenues What's happening: Swiggy Instamart has rolled out tiered onboarding packages priced between Rs 4.5 lakh and Rs 9 lakh, which are adjusted against ad spends over three months. Zepto is asking small brands to commit to Rs 2-7.5 lakh per month. Blinkit demands Rs 25,000 per SKU per state upfront, then steadily nudges brands to scale up ad budgets. Why it matters: Brandspeak: Also Read: Paytm swings to first-ever profit in Q1 FY26 By the numbers: Operating revenue: Rose 28% YoY to Rs 1,917 crore. Rose 28% YoY to Rs 1,917 crore. Contribution profit: Jumped 52% YoY to Rs 1,151 crore, with 60% margin (up 10 percentage points). Jumped 52% YoY to Rs 1,151 crore, with 60% margin (up 10 percentage points). Ebitda: Came in at Rs 72 crore (4% margin); PAT at Rs 123 crore. Came in at Rs 72 crore (4% margin); PAT at Rs 123 crore. Cash reserves: Remain healthy at Rs 12,872 crore. Driving the news: Marketing spends remained under Rs 100 crore. remained under Rs 100 crore. Employee costs decreased 32% year-over-year to Rs 643 crore, reflecting a leaner and more disciplined quarter. Boardroom changes: Group chief financial officer Madhur Deora will retire by rotation as an executive director on Paytm's board. Independent director Bimal Julka has resigned to explore his 'areas of emerging technologies and ease of doing business.' Urvashi Sahai has been appointed as an additional director for a five-year term. Also Read: Kissht reports fall in FY25 revenue; net profit at Rs 160 crore Numbers: Net profit slipped 18% Rs 160 crore. slipped 18% Rs 160 crore. Overall revenue declined 20% year-over-year to Rs 1,353 crore. declined 20% year-over-year to Rs 1,353 crore. Profit before tax and Esop cost stood at Rs 253 crore. Context: Also Read: Sponsor ETtech Top 5 & Morning Dispatch! Why it matters: The opportunity: Reach a highly engaged audience of decision-makers. Boost your brand's visibility among the tech-savvy community. Custom sponsorship options to align with your brand's goals. What's next: Kreditbee gets nod to become public entity On to IPO: Yes, and: The consolidation is central to Kreditbee's plan to streamline operations ahead of its listing. Following the merger, the entire business will operate through Krazybee Services, which will either book loans directly or manage them through NBFC partners. Financial snapshot: At a consolidated level, the company closed FY25 with a net profit of Rs 473 crore and total income of Rs 2,712 crore. According to a note by Crisil, Kreditbee has built a total asset base of Rs 7,119 crore. Keeping Count Other Top Stories By Our Reporters IT's Europe hope: Composio raises $25 million: Raise Financial Services appoints new group CFO: Global Picks We Are Reading Happy Wednesday! Quick commerce firms want to make up for mounting losses with ad revenue. This and more in today's ETtech Morning Dispatch.■ Kreditbee closer to IPO■ IT sees revival in Europe■ AI startup Composio raises fundsQuick commerce platforms are ramping up pressure on sellers to spend big on ads, chasing high-margin revenues to stem their mounting revenue, with margins north of 90%, is now a crucial growth engine for consumer internet players. Platforms are pushing out self-serve dashboards and sharper targeting tools to keep the money FY25, Blinkit and Zepto each generated approximately Rs 1,000 crore from advertisements, according to sources.'The problem is that with constant spending on ads like this, it's challenging to gauge the organic retention for our brand,' a founder of a D2C shoecare brand told Shekhar Sharma, CEO, PaytmPaytm has turned in its first-ever quarterly profit , marking a milestone for its parent, One97 Communications. The company posted a net profit of Rs 122 crore in Q1 FY26, a sharp turnaround from a loss of Rs 839 crore a year ago , and Rs 540 crore in Q4 FY25. This shift followed strong revenue growth and tighter control over PaytmGrowth was driven by a surge in merchant subscriptions, better payment margins, and a doubling of revenue from financial Singh, CEO, KisshtConsumer lending startup Kissht has reported an 18% fall in net profit, while its overall revenue took a hit in the fiscal year Mumbai-based firm felt the squeeze after halting ultra short-term personal loans—once a high-margin staple for digital lenders—amid regulatory pressure. It now focuses on loans with tenures over six months and has stepped into secured in 2015 by Ranvir Singh and Krishnan Vishwanathan, Kissht remains IPO-bound despite the dip. The pivot towards longer-duration and secured credit products signals a more cautious growth path, even as the lending space adjusts to a tighter credit Top 5 and Morning Dispatch are must-reads for India's tech and business leaders, including startup founders, investors, policy makers, industry insiders and Reach out to us at spotlightpartner@ to explore sponsorship Ekambaram, CEO, KreditBeeBengaluru-based fintech company Kreditbee has taken two crucial strides towards its Dalal Street debut, securing board approval to become a public company and a regulatory green light from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).The company's board passed a special resolution to convert Kreditbee into a public entity, according to a filing reviewed by ET. This comes shortly after the startup relocated its parent company from Singapore back to India—a key move in its IPO playbook. Kreditbee now joins a growing queue of fintechs preparing for public listings, including Aye Finance, Kissht, and the RBI recently approved the merger of Kreditbee's tech arm, Fonnivation Tech Solutions, with Krazybee Services, its non-banking finance company, sources told demand for outsourcing from Europe has supported revenue growth for at least three of India's top six software services exporters during the June quarter. HCLTech, LTIMindtree, and Tech Mahindra secured new business from European clients, indicating a resurgence in business from that AI startup Composio has raised $25 million in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company's cofounder and CEO, Soham Ganatra, told ET in an Financial Services, the parent company of stock trading platform Dhan, has appointed Amit Gupta as its group chief financial officer (CFO), according to a LinkedIn post by founder and CEO Pravin Jadhav on Tuesday.■ OpenAI's ChatGPT agent is haunting my browser ( Wired ■ The 'hallucinations' that haunt AI: Why chatbots struggle to tell the truth ( FT ■ Tesla entry into India after a decade of false starts ( Rest of World
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Business Standard
16 hours ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Paytm CFO to retire from company board, ex-bureaucrat Bimal Julka resigns
Paytm owner One97 Communications' Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Madhur Deora will step down from the board as he is not seeking reappointment, according to a regulatory filing. Former bureaucrat Bimal Julka, a non-executive independent director of Paytm, has resigned from the board, according to the filing. "Madhur Deora, Executive Director, President and Group CFO, being a director liable to retire by rotation at the ensuing Annual General Meeting (AGM), is not seeking reappointment at the ensuing AGM," the filing said. Deora will continue in his full-time role as President and Group Chief Financial Officer of Paytm and will also support the CEO in expanding the business & strengthening profitability. "I have been on the board for about two-and-a-half, three years. There was never the intention that this should be a permanent thing. We wanted one executive director on the board, so I did a term. Now our general counsel is being nominated for this," Deora said. Paytm's general counsel Urvashi Sahai will be appointed as an additional director in the capacity of Whole-time Director and designated as key managerial personnel of the company for a term of five years. "On a personal level, I have been very much looking forward over the last two or three years to drive some business priorities for the company. But quite frankly, we did not have the bandwidth with everything else that was going on. I am really looking forward to going back and driving certain big business initiatives and we just need to free up bandwidth for that," Deora said. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Time of India
20 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Paytm's maiden profit; Eternal's Rs 3 lakh crore m-cap
Paytm's maiden profit; Eternal's Rs 3 lakh crore m-cap Also in the letter: Paytm swings to first-ever profit in Q1 FY26 By the numbers: Operating revenue: rose 28% YoY to Rs 1,917 crore rose 28% YoY to Rs 1,917 crore Contribution profit: jumped 52% YoY to Rs 1,151 crore, with 60% margin (up 10 percentage points) jumped 52% YoY to Rs 1,151 crore, with 60% margin (up 10 percentage points) Ebitda: came in at Rs 72 crore (4% margin); PAT at Rs 123 crore came in at Rs 72 crore (4% margin); PAT at Rs 123 crore Cash reserves: remain healthy at Rs 12,872 crore Driving the news: Marketing spend remained under Rs 100 crore. Employee costs decreased 32% year-over-year to Rs 643 crore, reflecting a leaner and more disciplined quarter. Boardroom changes: Group chief financial officer Madhur Deora will retire by rotation as an executive director on Paytm's board. Independent director Bimal Julka has resigned to explore his 'areas of emerging technologies and ease of doing business.' Urvashi Sahai has been appointed as an additional director for a five-year term. Eternal crosses Rs 3 lakh crore in market cap, beats Wipro, Tata Motors Driving the rally: Blinkit's Q1 numbers stood out, with gross order value rising 140% year-on-year. Contribution margins improved by 50 basis points quarter-over-quarter, fueling optimism. Jefferies upgraded the stock to 'Buy', setting a Street-high target of Rs 400 JM Financial and Emkay also revised their targets upwards, citing solid execution and a more confident tone from the leadership. What's changing: Also Read: Yes, but: Why it matters: Also Read: Quick commerce promised scale to electronics firms—then broke their supply chains What happened: Initially, platforms like Blinkit and Zepto delivered sharp spikes in small electronics sales. But brands struggled to keep pace. Hyperlocal inventory, real-time replenishment and demand forecasting at city-pin levels exposed deep cracks in their supply chain. As Boult's Varun Gupta put it: 'Q-commerce doesn't break your sales funnel—it breaks your backend' The format challenge: Big picture: Why it matters: Also Read: OpenAI, SoftBank scale back Stargate AI megaproject Driving the news: What changed: Tensions flared between OpenAI and SoftBank over location and governance. Shifting US energy priorities under President Trump have disrupted the infrastructure roadmap. The original vision promised a sweeping AI superstructure with 100,000 new jobs and national-scale compute power. However: In a blog post, the company stated that this partnership was in addition to the 5 GW+ Stargate AI data centre capacity under development, which will operate over 2 million chips. Tier-II cities emerge as India's next data centre hotspots What's happening: CtrlS, Sify, RackBank, and ESDS are moving beyond Mumbai and Chennai Chhattisgarh is offering subsidies of up to Rs 300 crore and salary reimbursements Rajasthan wants to attract Rs 20,000 crore via its data centre policy Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are throwing in capital support and tax breaks What's new: IDC insight: Paytm recorded its first quarterly profit in the June quarter. This and more in today's ETtech Top 5.■ Qcomm fails to deliver■ Stargate's teething problems■ Small towns, big computePaytm founder Vijay Shekhar SharmaPaytm has turned in its first-ever quarterly profit , marking a milestone for its parent, One97 Communications. The company posted a net profit of Rs 122 crore in Q1 FY26, a sharp turnaround from a loss of Rs 839 crore a year ago , and Rs 540 crore in Q4 FY25. This shift followed strong revenue growth and tighter control over was driven by a surge in merchant subscriptions, better payment margins, and a doubling of revenue from financial CEO Deepinder GoyalEternal, the parent company of Zomato and Blinkit, reached a record high of Rs 311.60 on Tuesday, briefly surpassing its market capitalisation of Rs 3 lakh crore. That surge places it ahead of blue-chip firms like Wipro, Tata Motors, JSW Steel, and Nestlé India on the Nifty 50. Eternal is shifting Blinkit towards an inventory-led model. Analysts believe this could improve margins by 100 basis points, though it will require more working capital and tighter supply chain remains cautious. It flagged Eternal's valuation, arguing that the current price implies a $15 billion valuation for Blinkit—without a proven path to sustainable profitability. The brokerage maintained its 'Underperform' call with a target price of Rs surge indicates increasing investor confidence in quick commerce, supported by better economics and a more explicit strategic brands like Boult Audio and Havells embraced quick commerce, they expected a surge in sales . What they got instead were headaches in forecasting, inventory management and stores prioritise fast-moving essentials over bulky items. That's not exactly great news for appliances like air conditioners or microwaves, where variety, installation and fulfilment are non-negotiable. Havells' Lloyd, for instance, couldn't crack AC sales on Blinkit due to limited options and poor logistical opportunity, however, is real. Quick commerce is now a high-growth channel for sub-Rs 3,000 gadgets—think wearables, hair dryers and trimmers. To tap into it meaningfully, brands are learning to operate like FMCG firms, with daily stock refreshes, geo-level forecasting, and deep integration with dark stores.Q-commerce is emerging as the fastest-growing channel for small electronics. However, without operational vigilance and technical accuracy, brands risk overloading their backends in pursuit of short-term Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi SonSix months ago, SoftBank's Masayoshi Son and OpenAI's Sam Altman unveiled Project Stargate at a White House event with all the trappings of a moonshot. The pitch? A $500 billion artificial intelligence data centre network , backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, marking the Trump administration's grand AI the scale tells a different story. Stargate is being sharply downsized . The first phase is set to deliver a much smaller facility—likely in Ohio—by the end of the year, according to the Wall Street Journal. As the fanfare ends, the slog announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with Oracle to develop 4.5 gigawatts (GWs) of additional Stargate data centre capacity in the also confirmed the development on X, stating that it was 'easy to throw around numbers' and that this 'is a gigantic infrastructure project.'India's AI surge is redrawing the data centre map . As metros run out of space and costs spike, cities like Nagpur, Lucknow, Kochi, and Jaipur are stepping into the spotlight with cheaper land and generous state and edge data centres emerging as the next frontier. These compact setups bring AI computing closer to users in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, surveillance, and in edge public cloud models across APAC (excluding Japan) are projected to grow at a 17% CAGR from $15 billion in 2024. India's curve is rising fast.
Time of India
06-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Digital payment firms in a no-win game as margins hit rock bottom
The digital payments ecosystem has become intensely competitive with the Reserve Bank of India issuing payment aggregator (PA) licences to more than 50 entities, pushing core transaction processing margins to what industry executives see as unsustainable levels. These aggregators facilitate digital payments for online merchants in categories such as ecommerce, food delivery and travel. With a crowded field and large players like Razorpay, Cashfree , PayU and Paytm slashing rates, newly licensed firms are finding it increasingly difficult to scale sustainably. As of May 2025, 54 companies have secured online PA licences from the RBI. In addition to dominant online players, several offline-first firms including MSwipe , Innoviti Payments and Pine Labs have expanded into online payments. Startups like PayGlocal and DigiO, which focus on recurring payments , have also entered the fray. 'The market has become so competitive that prices for processing each payment transaction have dropped to anywhere between 15 and 60 basis points,' said the chief executive of one of India's largest payment processors. 'Ideally, pricing should have hovered around 1% per transaction to make the business viable,' he added. 100 basis points is equal to 1%. Further, big players enter into subvention deals with their banking partners in lieu of large deposits and heavy volumes, which enable them to give attractive rates to clients. Smaller players cannot play this game, the chief executive said. Pricing wars Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories In some cases, the race for merchant acquisition has driven prices to zero. A Bengaluru-based payments founder told ET that several well-funded aggregators were recently offering card-based payments to large merchants at no charge. 'They might display a 2% rate on the website, but actual negotiations lead to significantly lower fees — or nothing at all,' he said. Infibeam Avenues , which operates listed payment platform CCAvenue, disclosed in its March quarter results that its net take rate was only 11 basis points in FY25. The net take rate is arrived at after bank commissions are taken out from the gross margins. 'The domestic payments business is becoming a challenge. Merchants don't want to pay, especially when competitors are offering such low rates. We cannot match that pricing at our scale,' said a senior executive at a newly licensed PA. The regulatory mandate that UPI-based transactions remain free of charge has further eroded industry margins, with players unable to monetise a large chunk of digital payments. After Paytm released its March quarter results , chief financial officer Madhur Deora acknowledged pressure from larger merchants and alluded to limited headroom for charging the full MDR (merchant discount rate) on UPI transactions. Pivoting to survive PAs are looking beyond core processing to retain margins. Most are either targeting niche segments or embedding payments into broader financial services. 'We expect to generate 2% to 4% of our revenue this year from value-added services — and grow that to 7% to 10% in coming years,' said Vishal Mehta, managing director at Infibeam Avenues. Segments such as recurring payments, cross-border transactions and enterprise pay-outs are gaining traction. 'We focus only on recurring payments via UPI AutoPay and NACH (National Automated Clearing House), where banks need a reliable product and good tech support,' said Sanket Nayak, founder of DigiO. The startup, backed by Groww and Rainmatter, integrates payment processing into its broader authentication suite. Rajeev Agrawal, chief executive officer at Innoviti, pointed out that as the market matures, there will be more verticalisation among PAs with each focusing on niche areas. Cross-border players such as PayGlocal and BriskPe (a PayU-backed firm) are betting on higher margins in international commerce. 'Cross-border GMV (gross merchandise value) is smaller than domestic volumes, but the take rates and revenues are significantly higher,' said the founder of one such firm. Despite deep discounting, there are early signs that the market may rationalise. Investors are now pressing portfolio companies to prioritise profitability over market share. 'We've seen this before. Remember the cashback wars in consumer payments? Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay eventually scaled back,' said the founder of a mid-sized PA. 'Just last week, my sales team flagged a rival offering payments for free. I told them — stick to the basics. The burn won't last forever.' But industry insiders also agree that the market dynamics will eventually get the PA industry to settle for four to five major players, just like what was seen in the offline merchant payments space.
