Billionbrains Garage Ventures, the parent of Indian online stockbroker Groww, reported a 12% rise in second-quarter profit on Friday, boosted by a jump in active users.
Groww, which was founded almost a decade ago and made its stock market debut earlier this month, posted a consolidated net profit of 4.71 billion rupees ($53.14 million), up from 4.20 billion rupees last year.
Shares climbed as much as 7.7% in early trade and were up 5.1% after the results on Friday.
The company said its active users grew 20% to 14.8 million in the reported quarter.
Groww, however, reported a 9.5% drop in revenue from operations to 10.19 billion rupees, after curbs on equity-derivatives trading last year led to lower volumes across most brokerages.
Last year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India raised the minimum contract value and limited weekly index options to one per exchange, making it more costly to trade in the asset class.
Groww, which competes with Angel One, Motilal Oswal Financial Services and Zerodha in India, is the country’s largest online investment platform by active users and offers trading in equities, mutual funds, and fixed-income products.
A surge in retail investor participation, driven by rising financial literacy in India, has enabled Indian exchanges to onboard approximately 10 million new registered investors every six to seven months since March 2021.
Groww made its debut on the National Stock Exchange on November 12 in a blockbuster listing, with shares surging 47% since then and lifting the company’s valuation to $11.47 billion.
Backed by Indian venture capital firm Peak XV Partners and U.S.-based Tiger Global, Groww’s stellar debut has also made co-founder and CEO Lalit Keshre as a billionaire and positioned the company among the most valuable listed fintech players in the country.
($1 = 88.6370 Indian rupees)
Reuters
