Amazon Pay’s loss increases by 88 pc to Rs 334 Cr

Amazon’s Indian digital payments arm Amazon Pay (India) Private Ltd incurred a loss of Rs 334.2 crore in the financial year 2018, an increase of 88 percent compared to Rs 178 crore it incurred in the previous financial year 2017, documents filed with Registrar of Companies (RoC) revealed.

The increase in loss incurred by the fintech company is despite a whopping increase in its operational revenue to Rs 389 crore in FY18, from a meagre revenue of Rs 4.1 crore in FY17.

The loss comes on the back of increase in company’s burns to Rs 727 crore in FY18, from the total expenses of Rs 185 crore in FY17. The advertising and sales promotion expenses has also more than doubled to Rs 264 crore in FY18, compared to Rs 124 crore in FY17.

Earlier this month, the ecommerce major pumped in an additional Rs 590 crore into Amazon Pay. This was the third fund infusion by Amazon into its Indian digital arm this year. The company had pumped in Rs 195 crore and Rs 230 crore in March and July this year, respectively.

Amazon Pay India had in August, acquired Bengaluru-based app aggregator Tapzo to ramp up its online payments business. The development comes in the backdrop of increased competition between rival ecommerce players’ payments arms – Amazon Pay and Phonepe.

Flipkart-owned digital payments platform PhonePe incurred a loss of Rs 791 crore for the financial year 2018, compared to a loss of Rs 129 crore in the fiscal 2017. Also One 97 Communications Ltd, which houses the main payments business, reported a loss of Rs 1,490 crore in FY18, compared to Rs 879 crore loss in fiscal 2017.