Citi has maintained its target price on Paytm at Rs 1,061 apiece, a potential rally of 83 per cent from current levels. The brokerage firm cited that based on RBI’s payment statistics (Jan ’23), it estimated the share of UPI in Merchant Digital Payments at 59% in Jan’23 (vs. 49% in Jan ’22). “Among other instruments, credit cards continue to see healthy growth (40%+ YoY across online and offline), although market share continues to shift towards UPI overall,” it said in a report.

Paytm’s market shares in total UPI payments and digital merchant payments remained largely steady. Citi noted that in overall UPI, including Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments, Paytm’s market share stood at 11% in Feb’23 whereas Paytm’s market share in overall digital payments to merchants (including other instruments like credit cards etc.) stood at 24%.

Paytm continues to strengthen its leadership in offline payments, with 6.4 million merchants now paying subscriptions for payment devices, an increase of 0.3 million in the month of February 2023. The fintech pioneer disbursed 7.9 million loans in the January and February of this year. After pioneering QR code and Soundbox in India, Paytm brought UPI LITE which enables lightning-fast payments that never fail.

In its recently announced October-December quarter (Q3FY23) results, Paytm achieved the milestone of operating profitability, nine months ahead of its September 2023 guidance. The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) before employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) cost stood at ₹31 crore with EBITDA before ESOP margin at 2% of revenues as compared to (27%) a year ago. The fintech pioneer’s revenue from operations increased 42% year-on-year to ₹2,062 crore, driven by growth in its core payments business and sustained growth momentum in the credit business and commerce business.Ends