Paytm committed to delivering profit in next quarter: Sharma | India News

Paytm aims to achieve profitability in the next quarter, with a focus on digital transactions. Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma assures that growth will come from the payment business and lending, despite past regulatory challenges. Upgraded processes and compliance are in place, with continued efforts to engage and retain a large customer base.

NEW DELHI: With a user base of 200-250 million, fintech platform Paytm is seeking to maintain its growth trajectory in digital transactions, with payments serving as the foundation of its operations and future profitability. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder & CEO One97 Communications said the company will try to deliver profit in the next quarter.
“We are committed to working on profitability. We have not made any profit in the last few years. I can tell you very happily that with the team and the effort in the business that we have done, we are clearly committed to delivering profit in the next quarter,” he said on Sunday.
“I believe that the best benchmark of the profit will be PAT and the free cash that the company generates. I am completely committed to delivering a PAT-growing company and I don’t see very far,” he added.
On the regulatory challenges, he said: “We were mixing up things that were incoherent on strategy. There were plenty of lessons for us from the 2024 experiences. Every pain has a message to deliver. The experience made me survive and learn… better this happened at this early stage.”
Sharma said that because of the regulatory issues, the company lost some market share but argued and was hopeful that the they are “conclusively concluded”. “We have made course corrections. We have upgraded processes, compliances within Paytm. Regulatory businesses are compliance-first, and that’s the first lesson.”
Elaborating on the company’s growth drivers, he said the payment business is the foundation, and is scalable and can generate profits on a standalone basis, benefiting from govt incentives and the upcoming National Digital Retail (NDR) initiative. While market share is important, the focus remains on acquiring and retaining a large, engaged customer base, he added.
On the second main business of lending, the company is re-calibrating credit activities, and it remains a core growth driver, Sharma said.
With India’s booming stock market and rising domestic investor participation, Sharma highlighted that the growth of demat accounts and mutual fund investments will be India’s next big achievement after the digital payments revolution.