by Suhani Adilabadkar

IndiaMART stock zoomed 14% after its results announcement, as its PAT doubled with revenue and operating profit rising by double digits in Q3FY20. IndiaMART was founded in 1999 with a mission ‘to make doing business easy’. India’s largest online B2B marketplace, IndiaMART connects buyers with suppliers.

The company focuses mainly on providing a platform to small & medium enterprises (SMEs), large enterprises and individuals, and has a 60% share of the online B2B classified space in India. The company provides ease and convenience to buyers by offering a wide product-range and seller base, while providing lead generation, lead management and payment solutions. Headquartered in Delhi/NCR, the company has 83 branches in 39 cities across India along with 3,917 sales and service representatives.

Quick Takes:

• IndiaMart stock zoomed 14% as it’s PAT doubled with revenue and operating profit moving  in double digits in Q3FY20.

• Revenues stood at Rs. 165 crore against Rs. 135 crore rising 23% YoY and PAT growing 126% YoY in Q3FY20.

• Traffic for the quarter grew to 188 million from 173 million in Q3FY19, an increase of 9% YoY.

• IndiaMART generated cash flow from operations of Rs. 71 crore in Q3FY20 leading to cash and investments of Rs. 859 crore as on December 31, 2019.

• IndiaMART boasts strong traffic growth, but churn rates have increased. Over the past three quarters, for annual subscribers churn rate has increased from 16-18% to 20% and for monthly subscribers, from 3-4% to 5% in Q3 FY20.

December Quarter FY20 saw revenues rise, and growing supplier base

IndiaMART hit its 52-week high after announcing its third quarter earnings. Consolidated revenues stood at Rs. 165 crore against Rs. 134 crore, rising 23% YoY, driven by an increase in the number of paying subscribers and higher realizations from existing customers. Consolidated deferred revenue grew by 26% from Rs. 517 crore in Q3FY19 to Rs. 649 crore in Q3FY20 indicating strong future revenue visibility. 

Operating profit stood at Rs. 43.6 crore in Q3FY20 against Rs. 27.5 crore same period, previous year, rising 58% YoY with margin coming out at 26.4% compared to 20.6% corresponding quarter previous year. Net Profit or PAT stood at Rs. 62.7 crore, rising 126% YoY. Traffic for the quarter grew to 188 million from 173 million in Q3FY19, growing 9% YoY with total business enquiries delivered witnessing a marginal decline of 6% to 112 million.

Supplier storefronts grew to 5.9 million in Q3FY20 an increase of 8% YoY while paying subscription suppliers grew to 1,41,600, rising 15%. IndiaMART generated cash flow from operations of Rs. 71 crore in Q3FY20 leading to cash and investments of Rs. 859 crore as on December 31, 2019 against Rs. 574 crore as on December 31, 2018, rising 50% YoY.

Growth but higher subscriber churn

IndiaMART is an aggregated marketplace, providing two-way discovery model connecting almost 98 million registered buyers with 5.9 million registered suppliers on its platform. The website displays more than 60 million products and services categorized into 138,000 categories across 54 different industries. On a monthly basis, IndiaMart delivers 37 million enquiries with suppliers listed on its platform. There are around 15 matchmakings every second on the platform.

While the platform is free for buyers, the company earns its revenue through sales of advertising and listing subscription packages to suppliers, offering a wide range of benefits that include priority listing to the supplier’s storefront, access to RFQs (request for quotes) depending upon the subscription packages tier, premium number services and access to advanced lead management system. IndiaMart has a multi-tier, multi-year model with four tiers of subscription - monthly, silver annual, gold and platinum over various time periods. 40% of IndiaMART’s revenue comes from its top 10% customers. 

Speaking on growth having plateaued for IndiaMart over the past few quarters, Dinesh Aggarwal, MD, IndiaMART, clarified that in 2015-16 the company migrated from being a classified listing website to a product catalogue website and started to use algorithm behavioural matchmaking between buyers and suppliers. 

Mobile adoption, high speed and compulsory adoption of the internet led to a network effect, resulting in exponential growth for IndiaMART. He further added that the slowdown is a reality and while IndiaMART still boasts strong traffic growth, churn rates have increased. Over the past three quarters, for annual subscribers’ churn rate has increased from 16-18% to 20% and for monthly subscribers, from 3-4% to 5% in Q3FY20. 

As per the management, though payee additions have increased from 3,000 in September quarter FY20 to 4,500 in Q3FY20, there is pain in the economy as SMEs are not able to maintain their cash flows with slowing demand that has impacted their ability and willingness to continue their memberships. To battle the slowdown and fight of competition, the company is constantly innovating new features such as introduction of seven regional languages with voice command, product videos for customers in Tier II and III cities targeting uneducated sections of buyers and suppliers, lead management system and also the facility of verbal interaction and messaging between buyers and sellers. 

With respect to competition from online biggies Flipkart and Amazon, Mr Agarwal said that IndiaMart operates on a different platform, catering to a different set of customized products and further elaborated, “We have a lot of supplier and buyer behaviour data. We have achieved a portion of the flywheel that is moving faster and growing bigger and so network effect is there. Thus, it is not easy for anyone to come into a network effect business”. Being a transaction-based model, discounting led innovation would not work against IndiaMart and with 60 lakh suppliers and 6 crore products across 1,38,000 categories, it is difficult to beat IndiaMart at its own game.