Bizz Buzz explainer: 10 things to know about Paytm IPO

Paytm IPO: Paytm, a leading digital ecosystem for consumers and merchants, is headed for a public market debut as the country's largest IPO. On October 22, 2021, the company received the approval from SEBI for its IPO, and it has now filed the Red Herring Prospectus (RHP).

The following are the ten things that stand out in the company's RHP:

1. Issue size increased

Paytm is headed for a Rs18,300 crore IPO, the largest market debut in India yet. It had hiked its IPO issue size from the earlier Rs16,600 crore as it received increased investor demand.

2. Paytm adoption goes up

Paytm, which has the country's largest internet ecosystem, has seen its user base grow in the first three months of FY22. As per the company's RHP, its total user base has increased to 337 million registered consumers and over 21.8 million registered merchants, as of June 30, 2021. This is reflected in transacting users too, with the monthly transacting users going up to 57.4 million, as of September 30, 2021 (a 33 per cent YoY increase).

3. Big jump in revenue

For the three months ended June 2021, the company has seen a huge uptick in its revenues driven by its payments and financial services offerings. The company's revenue is up by 46 per cent to Rs9,480 million in Q1 FY22, from Rs6,494 million in Q1 FY21. Paytm's losses stood at Rs3,819 million for three months ended in June 2021.

4. Payment and Financial services contribute to almost 80% of the revenue

Paytm's bet in the financial services space has taken off as the payments and financial services vertical contributes to almost 80 per cent of the company's revenue. As per the company's RHP, for Q1 FY22, the company's payments and financial services revenue alone stood at Rs6,894 million.

5. Contribution margin goes up

Paytm's contribution margin also rose significantly to 27.4 per cent in Q1 FY22, up from 14.9 per cent in Q1 FY21.

6. Bullish on GMV

Paytm GMV has increased from Rs 697 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2020 to Rs1,469 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2021. The take rate, defined as ratio of the total revenue from operations to GMV, for the first quarter of FY22 was 0.61 per cent, marginally lower compared to the previous quarter as Covid-19 affected the category mix of the company's offline merchants (particularly with respect to offline devices subscriptions and MDR revenues) and commerce merchants.

7. Lending goes big

Paytm has been betting big on its lending vertical. And as per its RHP, it has taken off and how. The company in its RHP stated that in Q2 FY22 it disbursed 2.84 million loans.

8. Merchants drive big numbers

Paytm merchant transactions have increased from 3.8 billion in FY19 to 5.2 billion in FY20, and to 5.9 billion in FY21, and from 1.0 billion in three months ended June 30, 2020 to 2.3 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2021. Revenue from payment services to merchants went up Rs1979 million in Q1 FY21 to Rs3340 million in Q1 FY22.

9. On a hiring spree

Paytm has grown its employee base as at the end of June 30, 2021 the company's total on roll employee count stood at 10,266.

10. Expansion into international markets

While Paytm continues to innovate and provide better products and services to its consumers and merchants in India, the company believes there is a large opportunity to leverage its technology infrastructure and expand to international markets. In 2017, it piloted the bill payment services in Canada and in 2018, it partnered with Softbank Corp and Yahoo Japan Corporation to launch PayPay, a leading digital payments and financial services company in Japan. The company continues to explore international opportunities, especially in the developed markets, where it can either launch its merchant services or collaborate with partners to launch consumer facing platforms.