Amazon Pay–the payments arm of the e-commerce giant has reported a net loss of Rs 177.8 crore on total revenues of Rs 7.4 crore in FY17. The loss made by the company is due to heavy expenditure on advertising and promotions where it invested Rs 123 crore in the last fiscal year.
However, the company’s overall expenses for FY17 jumped from Rs 8.2 crore in FY16 to Rs 185.3 crore in FY17.
Amazon Pay, which was launched in December 2016, witnessed a revenue of Rs 4 crore from operations and interest income of Rs 3.4 crore in FY17. The figure for the same in FY16 was Rs 30 lakh(only Q4 of FY16).
Earlier, this year, the payment arm had claimed that more than 60 per cent of its transaction was driven by digital payment modes including net banking and Amazon Pay balance in 2017. This was almost 10-15 percent jump from 2016 as its digital transactions were below 50 per cent in that year.
Meanwhile, Amazon Pay has on-boarded major brands such as BookMyShow, FreshMenu, redBus, Housejoy, Yatra, and Haptik, among several others for enabling payment.
In March, Amazon infused Rs 195 crore into its payments arm from Singapore-based Amazon Corporate Holdings Pvt Ltd and Amazon.com.incs Ltd.
In the same month, Amazon Pay had appointed Mahendra Nerurkar to lead its digital payment service. Sriraman Jagannathan who had been heading the functions stepped down but continues as a director on the Board of the company.
Besides, Amazon India had also integrated UPI as a payment option for customers who can use it for transactions valuing Rs 10,000 or less via mobile app and website.
The development was first reported by Mint.
