India’s leading mobile internet company, One97 Communications Ltd. that owns Paytm carries on to make some profits through its inherited mobile non-core services business. According to the detailed financial statement filed with Registrar of Companies (RoC), the profit is considered to be 45% of the total revenue of One97 in the Financial Year 2017.
One97, founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma delivers commerce services and mobile content to millions of mobile consumers through India’s most widely deployed telecom applications cloud platform. The company also invests in early-stage mobile companies through the One97 Mobility Fund (OMF). However, the legacy business of the mobile internet company is the value added services like caller tunes, mobile marketing, talk time recharges etc.
The company claims that even though its revenue dropped to a great extent between 2016-2017, it managed to earn a profit of Rs. 49 crore in FY17 against 22 crores, a push of around 122%. The legacy business accounted for 55% of the total revenue of the company but still, currently, the New Delhi-based company faced a net loss of Rs. 879 crore against Rs 1,510 crore a year earlier, drowning by 41%. The reasons behind the losses were reported to be higher revenues and separation of its e-commerce business into a separate entity.
The company in its ministry filing stated, “During the year, the company has transferred its physical goods online marketplace business to Paytm E-commerce…as a result, loss of Rs 228.9 crore has been shown separately as loss from discontinued business.”
Talking about One97’s flagship brand, Paytm showed a loss of Rs 1,466.8 crore against Rs 1,334.8 crore in the previous year, increasing by about 10%. Although the company had been incurring so many losses, the total revenue reached Rs. 828 crore in 2017 against Rs. 597 crore in 2016, a jump of almost 38.6%.