One 97 Communications Ltd., the India-listed parent of fintech giant Paytm, posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 539.8 crore ($64 million) in the March quarter of FY 2025 (Q4 FY25). This is marginally lower than the Rs 549.6 crore recorded in the same period of the previous fiscal year, despite one-time exceptional expenses.
Sequentially, the fintech company’s loss widened from Rs 208.3 crore in the December quarter (Q3 FY 2025).
Losses were elevated on account of exceptional expenses, totalling Rs 522 crore, borne by the company in Jan-March 2025.
The exceptional expenses included employee stock options forgone by Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The founder and CEO gave up 210 million in ESOPs during the quarter, triggering a one-time expense of Rs 492 crore ($58.4 million). The company added that this will lower ESOP expenses in future quarters.
India’s markets watchdog—the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)—had determined in August 2024 that the grant of the ESOPs to Sharma violated its rules governing share-based employee benefits. Under the rules, large shareholders with the ability to influence company decisions cannot hold ESOPs.
The company also incurred an impairment of Rs 30 crore due to its investment in a certain subsidiary in the March quarter.
Excluding the above two exceptional items in its balance sheet, the startup’s net loss stood at Rs 23 crore in Jan-March 2025, suggesting it is close to breakeven. Excluding the ESOP costs, the company also recorded positive EBITDA of Rs 81 crore in the quarter.
Consolidated revenue from operations for Q4 FY 2025 declined 15.7% year-on-year to Rs 1,911.5 crore, down from Rs 2,267.1 crore a year ago. Sequentially, revenue from operations grew marginally by 4.6% from Rs 1,827.8 crore in Q3FY25.
The Noida-based company trimmed its expenses by 20% to Rs 2,154.9 crore in Q4FY25, from Rs 2,691.4 crore in Q4FY24.
Paytm’s key financial metrics
Going forward, One 97 Communications anticipates a sharp reduction in ESOP costs starting from the first quarter of FY26 (April-June 2025). The company projects ESOP expenses in the range of Rs 75-100 crore for Q1 FY26.
In January 2024, India’s financial regulator ordered the closure of Paytm’s banking arm due to ongoing compliance lapses, triggering concerns over its digital payments operations and causing the stock to plunge nearly 60% in just two weeks.
However, the company gained regulatory approval in October last year to onboard new users to its UPI platform, which supported a partial recovery in its share price.
The temporary closure of banking services led to a steep fall in the number of average monthly transacting users on the company’s platform. Average MTU in the March 2025 quarter stood at 7.2 crore, sharply lower than the 9.6 crore a year ago.
The company’s merchant subscriptions, including the number of payment acceptance devices, rose nearly 16% to 12.4 million in Q4 FY25, from 10.7 million in Q4FY24.
One 97 Communications had reported a profit after tax of Rs 930 crore ($110 million) in the September quarter (Q2 FY2025), buoyed by gains from the sale of its ticketing business to food delivery giant Zomato, before slipping back into the red in the next quarter.
The company’s losses for the full year FY25 were significantly down at Rs 658.7 crore, compared with Rs 1,417 crore in FY24. Its revenue from operations for FY25 stood at Rs 6,900.4 crore, a 30.8% fall from Rs 9,977.8 crore in FY24.
It reduced expenses by 22% in FY25 to Rs 9,095.9 crore from Rs 11,644.6 crore in the previous financial year.
The company’s cash balance at the end of FY25 stood at Rs 12,809 crore, up from Rs 8,650 crore at the end of FY24. The cash balance growth was on account of the sale of the entertainment ticketing business to Zomato and monetisation of its stock acquisition rights in Japan-based PayPay.
Profitability in Q1 FY 2026
One 97 Communications said it expects to become profitable from the first quarter of the current fiscal year (June-August 2025).
“We are at the verge of PAT profitability… I’m sure that in the next quarter onwards (Q1 FY 2026), if everything goes as we are seeing, it could very well be a profitable quarter,” Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said in a post-earnings call.
The company was one of India’s first fintech firms to go public in November 2021. The shares fell over 5% on Tuesday ahead of the earnings announcement.
