New Delhi, Mar 26 (PTI) Softbank-backed Meesho has reported a significant narrowing of losses to ₹53 crore while its revenue increased 33 per cent to ₹7,615 crore in FY24, the company said in its annual report on Wednesday.
The e-commerce firm had posted a loss of ₹1,569 crore, excluding ESOP cost, and revenue of the company was at ₹5,735 crore in FY23.
Meesho, however, claimed to be the first horizontal Indian e-commerce company to achieve profitability in FY24 and the first to generate positive free cash flow of ₹197 crore for the full year.
“Our revenue from operations grew 33 per cent to ₹7,615 crore driven by an increase in our unique annual transacting users as well as higher order frequency of our existing loyal customers. This success stems from driving efficiencies across multiple areas like logistics, as well as leveraging Generative AI and Machine Learning for better discovery, improved in-app experience and round-the-clock customer support,” the report said.
Meesho Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey said metrics such as EBITDA or PAT does provide some indicative reference to cash flows, it ignores two of the most important components of free cashflow like capital expenditure and working capital.
“Shareholders, especially in retail businesses be it offline retail or inventory-based e-commerce, have seen dilution in value from both the components over years. Having witnessed this, we focus on Long Term Free Cash Flow (FCF) per share as the north-star metric of our business.
“We believe that it truly and accurately depicts the health of a business, without the added complexity of ignoring different components of shareholder dilution or value creation,” he said.
Meesho recorded a 31 per cent increase in order growth to 134.2 crore in FY24.
According to the data shared by the company, it has recorded 133.3 crore orders in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, which is almost close to the orders it received during the previous financial year.
The company said the growth trend in the order was driven by demand across categories like home and kitchen, beauty and personal care, and baby essentials.
Aatrey said in the report that about 18.7 crore consumers transacted on the company’s platform in the previous 12 months, which is highest amongst e-commerce platforms in India.