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Informist, Thursday, May 7, 2026

 

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--One 97 Comm: Expect mkt expansion, mkt share growth in core business ahead 
--CONTEXT: One 97 Comm mgmt's comments in post-earnings call with analysts 
--One 97 Comm: Any new investment to only be in AI 
--One 97 Comm: See upside to payment processing margins ahead 
--One 97 Comm: Expect significant EBITDA margin expansion in year ahead 
--One 97 Comm: Don't have capex plan on AI 
--One 97 Comm: See wealth, personal loan as big growth contributors next year 
--One 97 Comm: Not super-excited about going for NBFC license 

 

By Shubham Rana and Durgesh Nandan

 

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI – One 97 Communications Ltd., the parent company of Paytm, expects market expansion and growth in market share in its core business segments moving ahead, the company's management said Thursday. The company sees good traction from the online and offline merchant business, personal loans, and wealth business, management said in an conference call with analysts. 

 

"Last year, online had a headwind that we did not have permission to onboard new customers for about half the year. That's lifted. We are seeing good traction there," said Madhur Deora, group chief financial officer. "Offline, obviously, there is huge market opportunity still ahead. We are seeing market expansion and we are seeing market share growth. So, that's going really well."

  

The company expects wealth and personal loans to be "a much bigger contributor next year than before". "So what we're excited about in this financial services line is that there are multiple drivers of growth next year which are quite visible," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the managing director and chief executive officer.

 

One 97 Communications Wednesday reported a consolidated net profit of INR 1.84 billion for the March quarter, down 18% on quarter. In the year-ago quarter the company had reported a loss of INR 5.40 billion. At 1022 IST, shares of the company were up 5.6% at INR 1,171.80 on the National Stock Exchange.

 

Margins are also expected to improve going ahead, the management said. The company's payment processing margin rose to over 4 basis points in the March quarter from over 3 bps a year ago. The company also expects significant expansion in operating leverage and 'earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation' margin expansion in the year ahead. The EBITDA margin was 6% in the March quarter against (-)5% a year ago. 

 

"It is the case that payment processing margin is growing faster, and partly because payment processing margin is growing faster, but combined with the fact that our lending penetration is going up, we are okay to make a little bit less money on device subscription per merchant," the management said. 

 

One 97 Communications is also big on artificial intelligence, with any new investment to only be in AI, Sharma said. But the company will not invest capital on AI and instead focus on using AI agents for customers and renting data centres, Sharma added.

 

The company is "not super-excited" about going for a licence to set up a non-banking financial company, the management said. "We really like our model where we stick to what we are uniquely good at, which is distribution, building great technology so that merchants can convert better, insights on these merchants, as well as collection abilities," Deora said. 

 

The Paytm parent also sees massive opportunity in the payments business. " That market is growing. Our market share is growing. And that combined with low penetration means that the opportunity in the short to medium term already is very, very large," Deora said.  End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Vandana Hingorani

 

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