PayU India’s revenue nearly doubled in fiscal 2018 to Rs 588 crore from Rs 306 crore the year before. It has been reported earlier this month that the Indian subsidiary of the Naspers-backed PayU accounted for more than half the overall business of the financial technology firm, based on Naspers’ half-yearly report for fiscal 2019.
PayU India is valued at more than $2.5 billion, based on a September Citi report which had pegged Naspers’ payments business at around $5.2 billion.
PayU India chief executive Amrish Rau said along with revenue for Citrus Payments, which PayU acquired in 2016 but is still a separate entity, the total revenue was about Rs 670 crore, meeting the $100-million revenue target that the company had set for fiscal 2018.
“Last year was about scaling the payments business and launching LazyPay. We have more than a 50% market share in e-commerce payments and are now getting close to 1 lakh pay-later transactions per day with LazyPay,” Rau said.
Naspers said in its recently-released report that revenue from the payments business grew 36% to $171 million. The number of transactions processed expanded 35% to more than 400 million, generating a total payment transaction value of more than $14 billion, “with India accounting for more than half”.
PayU has over the past two years seen rapid growth in the payments business and also pushed its credit business through LazyPay.
According to the Citi report, PayU provides a payment platform to more than 3,00,000 merchants in India, with its main verticals being airlines and e-commerce.
Naspers said in the report that LazyPay had reached over 4,50,000 consumers and recorded more than $4 million in loans per month.
PayU’s competitor in the Indian payment gateway space, Billdesk, posted a profit of Rs 148 crore on revenue of Rs 929 crore in fiscal year 2017-18. Billdesk crossed the $1-billion valuation mark after global payments processor Visa recently took a minority stake at a valuation estimated to be as high as $1.8 billion.