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NEW DELHI – India’s largest online business-to-business marketplace IndiaMart InterMesh Ltd plans to double its revenue in the next 4-5 years, leveraging both customer additions and growth in average revenue per user.
“Looking at 25% growth per annum, I think we should be targeting doubling our revenue in the next 4-5 years,” Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Dinesh Agarwal told Informist.
The Noida-based company’s marketplace connects buyers and sellers of a wide range of products and services across various industries ranging from raw materials to machinery, components and finished goods.
In 2021-22 (Apr-Mar), IndiaMart clocked 7.5 bln rupees in revenue from operations, up 13% on a year-on-year basis.
The company largely generates revenue from subscription charges paid by suppliers.
As of June-end, IndiaMart had 7.2 mln suppliers registered on its platform, of which 179,000 were subscription-paying suppliers.
Subscription contributes to over 95% of the company’s revenue from operations. In the year ended March, the company’s revenue per paying subscriber rose 2% on the year to 44,300 rupees.
Meanwhile, IndiaMart is witnessing robust growth in customer additions.
“Typically, customer growth is 15-17% CAGR (compound annual growth rate), but currently the growth is at 23% CAGR. So this year, a large quantum of growth is coming from new customer addition,” Agarwal said.
As the adoption of digital platforms increases for conducting business, online marketplaces like IndiaMart will be able to create more supplies, add more product varieties and categories on the platforms.
Going forward, Agarwal said the growth will be led by a mix of both customer additions and an increase in average revenue per user.
Most of the customer additions happen on IndiaMart’s platform at the entry level of its subscription package. Over a period of time, the company targets converting such subscriptions to higher pricing plans.
IndiaMart offers subscriptions to suppliers under Silver, Gold and Platinum categories on a monthly, semi-annual, annual and multi-year basis. The top 10% of the premium subscriptions account for over 5% of the company’s revenue.
Given the current purchasing parity, Agarwal believes a subscription fee of 2,500 rupees per month is a sweet spot for small and medium enterprises in India at an entry level.
MARGIN GUIDANCE
IndiaMart’s operating performance has been under pressure in recent quarters due to its focus on investments for growth.
In the June quarter, IndiaMart’s margin — calculated on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation — contracted 20.2 percentage points to 28.58% from the year-ago period.
Going forward, the company is optimistic about improvement in its margins as it expects to leverage growth opportunities from the investments.
Agarwal has guided for expansion in the company’s EBITDA margin to around 30% in the current financial year.
“We have guided for a 30% margin for the year. Over time, it will improve, probably will settle down at around 35% in next 2-3 years,” Agarwal said.
IndiaMart’s margins were around 26% in the pre-pandemic period. In the past two financial years, the company’s profitability was high due to low business volumes and related cost savings that were temporary in nature.
Today, shares of IndiaMart ended nearly flat at 4,766.60 rupees on the National Stock Exchange.