CRED REPORTS REVENUE SURGE, CUTS LOSSES

Fintech unicorn Cred on Monday reported a 66% year-on-year jump in its revenue to Rs 2,473 crore for the previous fiscal, compared with Rs 1,484.6 crore in FY23, while reducing its operating losses by 41% to Rs 609 crore, from Rs 1,024 crore.

Cred founder Kunal Shah attributed the improved performance to the growth in monetised members, a drop in user acquisition costs, deepening customer relationships and successful product launches.

The company’s monetised members count grew 38% during the fiscal. This translates to the company’s monetising one in every three of its users, indicating that some of the cross-selling efforts may be paying off.

“We are in year three of our monetisation and the company is not even six years old. We’re going to be six years old in November. I want to restate that  there’ no plan to go public in a hurry. We’re still growing up. There’s a lot of growing up to do,” he said.

The company saw its total payment value reach Rs 6.87 lakh crore in FY24, marking a 55% Y-o-Y increase. Monthly transacting users grew 34% to 11.5 million while the number of monthly active users stood at 13 million.

Cred reported a 40% reduction in customer acquisition costs and a 36% decrease in marketing expenses to Rs 504 crore, down from Rs 788 crore in the previous year, notable given its sponsorship of the Indian Premier League 2024.

“We believe we want to build an institution that outlasts every single person who is currently working. We are generally very slow to do things, but the intent is to build something that becomes solid over a period of time, Shah said.”

Launched initially as a credit card bill payment platform, the company has since expanded into multiple offerings targeting the affluent consumer. These have had varying degrees of success, at least in terms of monetisation. For instance, Cred Cash, its lending product, and Cred Max, which handles bill payments, contribute to around 90% of the company’s revenues. Another 5% comes from Cred Flash, a buy now, pay later offering.

The company’s hybrid products including Cred Store, an e-commerce platform monetised through product sales and adtech, Cred Win, a gamified rewards programme, Cred Mint, an invite-only P2P lending platform, and recently launched Cred Garage, a vehicle management service, collectively add up to the remaining 5%.

The company claims that while there will be an increased focus on revenue generation and profitability, it will continue to invest in new products which add value to users. For instance, Cred Garage, launched in September last year, is said to have received good initial traction. The platform recorded 4.5 million vehicle registrations at the end of FY24, with that number crossing 6 million currently.

The company is in talks with multiple automotive OEMs to design interoperable solutions. It is also exploring launch of co-branded Rupay credit cards.

2024-10-01T02:04:32Z dg43tfdfdgfd