The second edition of our AGM post listing on stock exchanges kick-started with management giving interesting insights on our growth journey and future aspirations, which was followed by an overwhelming response from shareholders. The virtual session began with our MD & CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma congratulating Indian citizens on the successful G20 Summit 2023 held in India. He highlighted that we are the biggest champions of India’s digital infrastructure, as seen in the G20 Summit given we understand the needs of small merchants.
“We are the champions for small merchants in the country. We believe a small merchant once given access to the correct technology and financial services creates the true growth engine of India. It is where jobs are to be created and we create inclusive growth in our country,” said Vijay during the AGM held on Tuesday morning.
He shared that our next contribution will be to make small credit available instantly through the mobile phone. Besides, we are focused on our mission to serve half a billion Indians and bring them to the mainstream economy with the help of technology.
Being the leader in mobile payments and QR technology, the company has achieved many milestones including doubling the number of devices like Paytm Card Machine and Paytm Soundbox deployed across the country with 87 lakh devices deployed as of now. Vijay threw some light on another valuable achievement of FY23 which is said to be a landmark year for us as we achieved our operating profitability goal during this period. Not to forget we hit the goal nine months ahead of our set target.
Talking about future goals, Vijay said, “Our next milestone is to make Paytm free cash flow positive in the near future, even as we make investments in innovative products and expand our distribution.” Further, our investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is to build the next technology revolution that will eventually make us a global superpower in advanced technologies.
Madhur Deora, Executive Director, President, and Group Chief Financial Officer of Paytm shared insights on the robust growth trajectory wherein he mentioned our devices are growing rapidly. For small merchants, we have Paytm QR and Soundbox, for mid merchants, we have Soundbox, Card Machine, and above that, we have an online payment gateway. Our merchants are also asking for omnichannel products, which we are helping them with.
“We are proud to continue our revenue momentum. We promised we would be EBITDA before ESOP profitable and we achieved that three quarters ahead of time. We have also improved our contribution profit, along with an improvement in profitability,” said Madhur.
He pointed out that our growth has come from payments, financial services as well as our commerce and cloud business. We now process ₹13 lakh crore of annual GMV while we also receive government incentives for UPI. We are proud that we are aligned with the government and regulator’s objective to increase digital payments in India.
On the recent revolutionary launch of UPI ATMs in India, Bhavesh Gupta, President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) said, “ What is clearly demonstrated with greatest innovation in the ecosystem and Paytm has been at the forefront of saying that, we believe any form of plastic be it credit card or debit card will eventually fade away and mobile payments will rule ahead. Even now NPCI says you can withdraw money using an app like Paytm even without a debit card. Scan a QR Code on the ATM and withdraw cash through UPI. Cash is reducing day by day even the need for it has now reduced a lot.”
The AGM ended with our Founder thanking the shareholders for their positive response to the company’s growth journey and rooting for our bright future. He stated Paytm’s QR code discovery has become a national asset now, however, we are not don’t yet our ambition is to serve half a billion Indians and take the technology to every small merchant.
