PayPal India FY19 loss up to Rs 8.13 crore as revenue doubles

Mumbai: Global payments giant PayPal’s Indian business is rapidly gaining share of the country’s highly-competitive digital payments market even as it faces the same business challenges that the payment players backed by several of its international peers such as Google, Amazon, Alibaba and Walmart have faced over the past few years.

While the company more than doubled its revenue growth to Rs 654.67crore in FY19 as against Rs 261.03 crore the company made in FY18 on the back of partnerships with leading online retailers, losses expanded to Rs 8.13 crore in FY19 from Rs 2.28 crore last year, regulatory filings sourced by ET from Corporate Affairs Ministry showed.

The gross expenditure for the fiscal year came at Rs 660.26 crore up from Rs 260.80 crore in the year ago period, the company’s annual profit and loss statement showed. PayPal refused to comment on the matter.


A source with knowledge of the matter told ET that the losses were mostly on the back of high costs of merchant onboarding, infrastructure expansion and new talent acquisitions as the firm looks to scale-up their presence in the country over the upcoming fiscal years.

"Over the year, PayPal has scaled its presence in sector such as travel, foodtech, fashion and we launched our products with merchants like Myntra, HappyEasyGo, Book-MyShow and MakeMyTrip,” said the source with knowledge of the matter, requesting not to be named. “The loss is almost negligible when you look at the revenue growth. It’s a reflection of the investments that they’re making in the market."