Paytm CEO chases for $1 billion sales goal, says will hit the mark this fiscal

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chairman of One97 Communications Ltd., operator of PayTM, at PayTM office, in Noida, India Paytm`s Vijay Shekhar Sharma in a message to shareholders confident business enterprise's dedication to construct a large, worthwhile business enterprise and create long-time period shareholder value

Digital-payments provider Paytm is set to become India’s first internet company to hit $1 billion in annual revenue by the end of this fiscal year in March, its founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Vijay Shekhar Sharma told Bloomberg in an interview. 

We’re earnestly chasing the $1 billion goal," he said in the interview this week, adding that Paytm shares' public listing for him was a sort of graduation, and has been working on taking Paytm to break-even and to profits. 

One 97 Communications Ltd, Paytm’s parent company, raised $2.5 billion in its IPO, but a 27% plunge in its November 18, 2021 debut made it one of the worst initial showings by a major technology firm since the dot-com bubble era of the late 1990s. Paytm's share price has more than halved against the issue price on repeated concerns over valuation from analysts.

Meanwhile, in a message to shareholders in its annual report for 2022, Paytm's said that the company has remained committed to building a large, profitable company and creating long-term shareholder value.

“Our team is focused on expanding the payments offerings available to our consumers - on Paytm app, in-store, online, using FASTag affixed on cars, among many other everyday habits. Our focus is also on showing how creditors can leverage this mobile payments relationship for lending. BNPL, which allows our partner financial institutions to issue credit to consumers at the point of sale, has become a consumer favourite," Sharma said in Paytm's annual report.

He said that the company is seeing momentum in its businesses and is on track to achieve operating profitability (EBITDA before ESOP cost) by the quarter ending September 2023.

The mobile payments and financial services firm touched a new lending milestone by recording 8.5 million loans in the first quarter of FY23 (Q1FY23). Whereas, the total merchant GMV processed at Paytm platform aggregated to approximately ₹2.96 lakh crore ($37 billion), marking a y-o-y growth of 101%.