WinZo’s scale crosses Rs 230 Cr in FY22; losses spike 2.4X

Vernacular interactive entertainment platform WinZO has emerged as one of fastest growing companies in the space, evident from an over eight fold growth in scale during the last two fiscal years (FY22 and FY21). 

WinZO’s revenue from operations grew 2.3X to Rs 234 crore during the fiscal year ending March 2022, according to its annual financial statements with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

WinZO makes money from providing gaming platforms to its users and levies a service charge on total money involved in play in real money games, contests, tournaments, loyalty points program et al. It also earns commission on sale of vouchers to customers.

Besides its income from operations, it also cornered Rs 8.82 crore from interest and gains on investments during FY22.

WinZO claims to have over 100 games on its platform across categories including strategy, sports, casual, card, arcade, racing, action, board games. It claims 100 million registered users who make more than 3.5 billion microtransactions on a monthly basis. 

With the top notch competition, companies in the space have been spending aggressively on marketing and WinZO is no different. The five-year-old company spent 54.7% of its total expenses on marketing only and this cost shot up 6.5X to Rs 198.6 crore in FY22.

Its gaming related direct and IT infrastructure costs stood at Rs 82.4 crore and Rs 32.54 crore respectively during the last fiscal year. Spends on employee benefits spiked 2.2X to Rs 29.55 crore in FY22 which also included ESOP expenses of Rs 2.35 crore.

WinZO paid Rs 11.9 crore commission to selling agents in FY22, 5.8X more than previous fiscal which catalyzed its total expenses 2.3X to Rs 363 crore in FY22 as compared to Rs 156 crore in FY21.

These rising expenses took WinZO’s losses up 2.4X to Rs 120.6 crore in FY22. Its cash outflows from operations surged 2.2X to Rs 105 crore during the same period.

As per Fintrackr’s analysis, WinZO’s EBITDA margin weakened by 87 BPS to -49.46% which could be ascribed to a big explosion in customer acquisition cost during FY22. On a unit level, WinZO spent Rs 1.55 to earn a rupee of operating income.

WinZO has raised around $100 million to date and was valued at around $375 million following its latest fundraise of $65 million in July 2021. During June 2022, WinZO acquired a majority stake in Gurugram-based casual game development studio Upskillz Games.

Data compiled by Fintrackr shows Dream11 is the top revenue generator during FY22 with Rs 3,841 crore followed by Gameskraft, Games24x7, A23, MPL and Gameberry. Significantly, Gameskraft is leading the list in terms of profitability with Rs 937 crore profits.

In what has clearly been a hectic period, WinZO has followed the script post fundraising, ramping up marketing spends aggressively. The firm can probably afford another year at these frenetic activity levels before we get a clear picture of just where it stands. So perhaps even FY23 will be a repeat of the previous year, although failure to improve on net margins will be a huge surprise, considering the performance of peers in the sector.