PayU India Records 92% Jump In Revenues For FY18

The Indian subsidiary of Netherlands-based PayU, the payments arm of tech investor Naspers, PayU India, recorded a jump of 92% in revenue for the period ending March 2018, reaching $84.8 Mn (INR 588 Cr) from $44.35 Mn (INR 311 Cr) the year before, according to the company’s filings accessed via business intelligence platform Tofler.

The development comes soon after Naspers said that PayU India accounted for more than half the overall business of Netherlands-based PayU. The financial report for H1 FY19 reported a 35% increase in the number of transactions processed, to over 400 Mn, generating a total payment transaction value exceeding $14 Bn (INR 99,071 Cr) on the PayU platform.

Overall, the business delivered revenue growth of 36% to $171 Mn (INR 1,210 Cr). Also, its flagship product LazyPay gained significant traction, reaching over 450K consumers and issuing more than $4 Mn (INR 28.3 Cr) in loans per month.

LazyPay was the consumer brand of Indian fintech company Citrus Pay, which Naspers acquired in September 2016 for $130 Mn (INR 919.9 Cr).

With the last quarter lined up for FY19, here’s what PayU India did for the year:

• PayU India received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate its own non-bank financial company (NBFC), which is subject to certain pending RBI compliance
• In India, PayU claims to cover nearly 60% of the airline business and 80% of the entire ecommerce business
• PayU claims that records over $1.06 Bn (INR 7,500 Cr) worth digital payments per month in India on its platform
• PayU India’s PayUMoney, a secure payment solution that can be used by anyone who wants to collect payments in India, caters to over 350K plus merchants all across India

Major competitors of PayU India include BillDesk, MobiKwik, CCAvenue among others. Recently, global payments technology company Visa invested in BillDesk, which processes payments worth almost $50 Bn (INR 3.5 Lakh Cr) every year and leads the charts for online bill payments.

The company had reported a 15% increase in its revenue for FY18 while controlling expenses by 77%.

A report by Credit Suisse predicted that India’s digital payments industry, which is currently worth around $200 Bn (INR 14.02 Lakh Cr), is expected to grow five-fold to reach $1 Tn (INR 70 Lakh Cr) by 2023.

Update: The story earlier mentioned the revenue increase as 63%, which ha snow been corrected to 92%.