IndiaMART
Bajaj Consumer Care Joins hand with IndiaMART, to enhance their digital presence in B2B market segment
New Delhi, 16th September 2020: IndiaMART InterMesh Ltd., today announced that Bajaj Consumer Care has engaged the services of IndiaMART platform to target potential customers of FMCG products range in the B2B category.
On this development, Mr Jaideep Nandi, MD, Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd. said, “Looking at the current trend of increasing consumer traction on the e-commerce platforms due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is the right time to expand our footprints into online B2B consumer market segment. Today, IndiaMART is the go-to marketplace for all types of businesses with a pan India coverage. We are hopeful to strengthen the online reach and visibility of Bajaj Consumer Care FMCG products with the increased digital presence.”
IndiaMART, is the largest B2B online marketplace in the country with over 100 million registered users. IndiaMART exploits the latest in technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to leverage the robust behavioural matchmaking that connects suppliers with relevant buyers and vice versa, helping businesses to scale up with increased exposure on India’s largest online marketplace.
The e-commerce sector in India has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years, and the pandemic has brought in a new wave of consumers looking for contactless buying. The rising internet and mobile penetration in India have resulted in the rapid adoption of the e-commerce model of business and it is estimated to become a $230 billion industry by 2028 accounting for almost 10% of the retail market.
Speaking on this development, Mr. Dinesh Gulati, COO, IndiaMART InterMESH Ltd., said, “Enterprises all over the world are looking to explore digital channels to expand their reach and visibility, to target new customers not being serviced directly through existing sales and distribution networks. Online has become the new norm especially post the Coronavirus outbreak, wherein the businesses are trying to explore the digital way of doing business. IndiaMART provides an enabling marketplace and a large ecosystem to buyers and sellers to expand their reach and penetration.”
He further stated, “In the last six months we’ve witnessed above 40% growth in buyer traffic for consumer care products such as hair oil, face creams and sunscreen, and over 100% for hand sanitizer. This association will enable Bajaj Consumer Care with an alternate sales channel to reach high intent buyers easily.”
Today, more and more businesses are utilizing digital mediums for generating leads backed with insights into the consumer mindscape. Digital platforms like IndiaMART provide a significant understanding of the way people are engaging online for enquiries, purchase decision making and sales. Several enterprises are already generating leads from potential buyers through IndiaMART’s Enterprise Solutions initiative, thus unlocking the digital way of doing business. Today, more than 350+ leading brands across major industries like Healthcare, Construction Equipment, Oil & Lubricants, Generators, Commercial ACs, Farm Equipment, Hand and Power tools, Commercial Vehicles are executing plans to generate incremental business growth through their association with IndiaMART.
About IndiaMART
IndiaMART is India’s largest online B2B marketplace for business products and services. IndiaMART makes it easier to do business by connecting buyers and sellers across product categories and geographies in India through business enablement solutions. IndiaMART provides ease and convenience to the buyers by offering a wide assortment of products and a responsive seller base while offering lead generation, lead management and payment solutions to its sellers.
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Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, IndiaMART InterMESH Ltd | Indiainfoline
Today, organically we have been able to get 107 million registered buyers, Dinesh Agarwal said
Dinesh Agarwal is the founder and CEO of IndiaMART.com, India’s largest online B2B marketplace for small and medium enterprises. Dinesh founded the company in 1996 and since then has steered it to become the world’s second-largest B2B marketplace today.
Prior to taking a plunge into entrepreneurship, he is Computer Engineer from HBTI, Kanpur worked with industry leaders such as HCL Technologies (America), Center for Development of Telematics (C-Dot) and CMC Limited before returning to India. His rich experience spans over 20 years in the field of Internet, Networking & Systems Development and Consulting.
In an interaction with Mamta Maity, indiainfoline.com, Dinesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of IndiaMART.com said, “our beta is 73 crores for the quarter as compared to 37 crores last year, same quarter. This shows 100% yoy growth but it is primarily because the current quarter was under severe lockdown, so we had a lot of cost savings, one-time temporary cost savings.”
Tell us about the company’s performance in Q1FY21 and share some insights with regard of your financial performance
We posted a total revenue from operations about Rs153cr in this quarter and it is about 4% yoy growth despite the fact that there has been a clear impact on the economy and MSMEs in general during the quarter due to the pandemic and lockdown. Our beta is 73 crores for the quarter as compared to 37 crores last year, same quarter. This shows 100% yoy growth but it is primarily because the current quarter was under severe lockdown, so we had a lot of cost savings, one-time temporary cost savings.
So, two kinds of cost savings are possible one which is permanent automation and lead cost-saving and another, which were temporary like some rental waiver we received some salary waivers we received from employees. So that is why the data has jumped almost double.
We have about fixed 6 million suppliers who are listed on our platform with the 68 million products and services spreading across 100,000 product categories and we have a paying customer base of 1,33,000 now on an average revenue per customer of about 45,000 rupees. We get about over 60 million visits on our platform every month by the buyers by traffic and 82% of them are coming on our mobile website and mobile apps. And a hundred percent of this traffic is organic traffic. We do not spend any money on advertising or anything else. Today, organically we have been able to get 107 million registered buyers. Every month we do more than 40 million barrels’ supplier matchmaking. From last many years our growth rates have been in the range of 25 to 30%.
What would you say is your key challenge for business currently? What kind of challenges does the business face right now?
So, I think current challenges from last one year if you see the economy was already growing through pain of first there was a demand slowdown because of the last two-three years of an economic slowdown. For example, last year in September, October, they have reduced the corporate tax from 33% to now 25%. And for the new manufacturing companies, the taxes reduced to even 20% or lower. So, I think the government is trying it’s big with the GST now nationwide shipment of goods has become easier.
So, I think the current challenge remains that economies under lockdown. And most of the company’s sales and service used to happen. Now two-thirds of our sales and service used to happen through by way of Field Sales operations and since our customers are under lockdown as well as we cannot send our people because of the fear of the corona and we do not want them to spread out into the market. So, I think that is what is the current challenge.
The benefits side, we are sitting on a strong balance sheet. We are still a profitable company. We do not have debt and we have a very good brand advantage that we have gained over the last many years and it has only strengthened in the last couple of months. So, I think there are challenges and opportunities that are there which will help us grow the business and help the nation in a better manner.
Who are the major clients and what is the company’s presence in India as well as globally?
So, I think most of our businesses in India are not India 80% of our customers and 80% of our buyers are in India. So, in terms of the named customers, you can name some of them. Like for example, we have as I told you, Tata Steel is our customer Tata Motors is our customer, Airtel, customer Bosch has been around estimated canon has been our customer. curcuminoids have been our customer. ABB is our customer. Siemens is our customer; Philips healthcare is our customer. So, we have customers in different industries.
So, what would be your expected turnover in next quarter and any initiatives to help your employees and partners during COVID-19?
We believe that the worst is behind us and I think we will start to at least stabilize our business operations this quarter. Ever since the last one has happened from June. The business has started to do better. Yes, of course, the uncertainties continue as the coven. No fear looms. But we believe that you know, Delhi, Mumbai kind of cities, maybe the worst is behind us. So, I think next quarter should be better than the previous quarter for sure.
In terms of initiatives for the employees, I think we have taken multiple employees for multiple initiative first, we as a company never had a work from home systems and operations set up. So, I think in one, we did not lay off any person in different tires. We have about 5000 people 4700 people; we did not know lay off any single person.
And for the partners, which are basically mostly our customer partners. I think we have been able to operate, first of all, work from home to be able to answer their queries to be able to serve them properly. Number two, anybody who came back to us and said that our business is under lockdown, and we cannot pay you renewal. We have given them an extension so that when their business opens up again, they can start to pay. So, we have given the moratorium to our customers and partners. So I think many of our low level low, low salary staff which used to work in our offices, like, no sanitation staff or canteen staff or security staff, we have continued to give them you know, as part of our CSR initiative, we have continued to help them from there.
So I think multiple areas that we have worked upon to help our employees not only help our employees help our company brand also, secondly, during the last three, four months, I think IndiaMart has played a very important role in making sure that the health and sanitization and safety and food products are available to Indians at large because nobody knew where could you get a PP kit from, or nobody knew where could you get a face mask from or nobody knew. Where could you get a face shield or a ventilator or oxygen cylinder. India might be the probably all leap source which had access to these suppliers, and we worked innovatively, we call each and every supplier to say can you make for facemask Can you make news clipper Can you make elastic for facemask Can you provide us you know if you are a helmet maker Can you provide make face shield So, we have and we have quickly turned prime minister also said that from almost zero p peak manufacturing in India now we are a surplus PP gate manufacturer in India suddenly you know we are becoming an exporter of that similarly many medicines and food supplies we were the only supplier if you needed disinfectant.
You must have seen disinfectant sprays happening by multiple governments and multiple municipalities, corporations, these disinfectant chemicals were made available on India Mart site I think we have done a great service. Great help in making sure that our health workers our medical needing people and our food needing people do not at least get to in the lockdown a time at least get to know who is supplying what. So that has that is that has been our key agenda over the last two, three months.
IndiaMart continues to soar, hits new high; stock zooms 63% in 2 months | Business Standard
Shares of IndiaMart InterMesh hit a fresh record high of Rs 3,883 apiece on the BSE on Tuesday, up over 10 per cent against Monday’s close of Rs 3,519.50. With today’s gain, the stock of the company has rallied 62.6 per cent in the past two months as compared to over 11 per cent gain in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, ACE Equity data show.
At 10:24 AM, the stock was trading nearly 8 per cent higher at Rs 3,800 on the BSE as compared to a 0.25 per cent rise in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.
Last week, the domestic brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL) had initiated the coverage on IndiaMart InterMesh with a “BUY” rating.
“In the past three years, the scalability of paid suppliers and request for quotation (RFQ) relevancy have led to a 26 per cent revenue compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Negligible spends on advertising over FY18–20 have led to turnaround in margins to 23 per cent in FY20 from -19 per cent in FY17. IndiaMART has shown tremendous resilience on the margin front. Despite a 50 per cent drop in collections for 1QFY21, the company has been able to increase margins on significant rationalisation in the operating cost,” MOFSL said in its report.
Shares of IndiaMart InterMesh were listed on the bourses in July 2019. The initial public offering (IPO) of the company had received a strong response with bids for 97 million shares. The IPO was subscribed 36 times. The qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) category was subscribed 31 times. The non-institutional investor’s category was subscribed 62 times. The retail individual investors (RIIs) category was subscribed 14 times.
For the quarter ended June 2020, IndiaMart had posted a 128.7 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 74.1 crore against Rs 32.4 crore in the year-ago period. Total income came in at Rs 186.8 crore, up 15.59 per cent against Rs 161.6 crore in June 2019 quarter. Revenue from operations was Rs 153.1 crore, up 4 per cent year-on-year (YoY).
IndiaMart rallies as Motilal initiates coverage | ET Now
The company boasts of a strong network effect, resilience to supplier ROI, diversified exposure, and a robust Search Engine Optimization strength – which, according to Motilal, are its key differentiators.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- The brokerage bets on the resilience shown by the company on the margins front
- IndiaMart reported an expansion in margins on significant rationalization in operating costs
- IndiaMart is the country’s largest B2B online classifieds marketplace
Mumbai: Shares of IndiaMart continued the winning streak for the fourth consecutive session, with a 5% gain so far this week. The company was in the limelight today as Motilal Oswal initiated its coverage on the stock, calling it a “play on digitizing MSMEs”.
IndiaMart is the country’s largest B2B online classifieds marketplace, with more than 70% market share. The platform has more than six million supplier listings for 68 million products across one lac plus categories from 1000 plus cities.
The company boasts of a strong network effect, resilience to supplier ROI, diversified exposure, and a robust Search Engine Optimization strength – which, according to Motilal, are its key differentiators.
According to the brokerage, IndiaMart operates in a sweet spot, wherein high-growth SMEs fuel the top line and a subscription-based model limits the risk of default.
Analysts believe the margins of IndiaMart mirror the positive operating leverage from revenue growth in the business. The brokerage bets on the resilience shown by the company on the margins front.
Despite a 50% decline in collections for Q1FY21, IndiaMart reported an expansion in margins on significant rationalization in operating costs. Motilal forecasts a sharp turnaround in FY22 operations on account pent-up demand, a stable base of suppliers, the need for out-of-the circle buyers, and increased internet penetration. The company too is banking on increased digital adoption among SMEs.
According to Motilal, the underlying market is expected to grow at a 25% CAGR over the next five years, thereby, opening up an immense opportunity for growth.
The analysts at Motilal bet on the strong moats shield from disruption, high FCF yield and the strong balance sheet of the B2B classifieds player.
They forecast an 8 percentage points margin expansion over FY20–23 on account of the better management of cost structure and operative leverage in the business, as they initiate their coverage on the counter with a ‘Buy’ rating and a target of Rs. 3,550 apiece.
IndiaMART InterMESH up 4% after MOFSL initiates coverage with “BUY” rating | Business Standard
Shares of IndiaMart InterMesh were listed on the bourses in July 2019. The initial public offering (IPO) of the company had received a strong response with bids for 97 million shares.
Shares of IndiaMART InterMESH, India’s largest B2B online classifieds marketplace, gained as much as 4 per cent to Rs 3,107 apiece on the BSE after the domestic brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL) initiated the coverage on the stock with a “BUY” rating. The target price has been set at Rs 3,550 – up 19 per cent from Thursday’s close.
IndiaMART operates in a sweet spot, wherein high-growth SMEs fuel the top line and a subscription-based model limits the risk of default. Margins mirror the positive operating leverage from revenue growth in the business, the brokerage said in its report.
“In the past three years, the scalability of paid suppliers and request for quotation (RFQ) relevancy have led to a 26 per cent revenue compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Negligible spends on advertising over FY18–20 have led to turnaround in margins to 23 per cent in FY20 from -19 per cent in FY17. IndiaMART has shown tremendous resilience on the margin front. Despite a 50 per cent drop in collections for 1QFY21, the company has been able to increase margins on significant rationalisation in the operating cost,” MOFSL said.
The brokerage expects that customers with multi-year subscription packages will continue on the platform at lower annual fees. Further growth in new suppliers in certain categories would partially offset a decline in its stressed counterparts. It forecasts 25 per cent decline in collections for FY21, weighed by nearly 50 per cent decline in 1QFY21 collections. In turn, we expect a 7 per cent decline in FY21 revenues, coupled with V-shaped recovery in FY22.
“We are confident of strong fundamental growth in operations hereon, driven by high growth in digitisation among SMEs (~25%), the need for out-of-the-circle buyers, a strong network effect, greater than 70 per cent market share in the underlying industry, the ability to increase ARPU on account of low price sensitivity, and high operating leverage,” MOFSL said further.
Shares of IndiaMart InterMesh were listed on the bourses in July 2019. The initial public offering (IPO) of the company had received a strong response with bids for 97 million shares. The IPO was subscribed 36 times. The qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) category was subscribed 31 times. The non-institutional investor’s category was subscribed 62 times. The retail individual investors (RIIs) category was subscribed 14 times.
IndiaMART InterMESH sees opportunity in Covid crisis & Dalal Street is cheering it on | Economic Times
Mumbai: The Covid-19 pandemic has not derailed the momentum for this internet-based business, as the stock continues to scale new highs. Some analysts feel the stock has the ingredients to be a potential multibagger.
Amid a dearth of internet-based listed stocks in India, existing ones are in high demand and IndiaMART NSE 0.86 % InterMESH is no exception.
IndiaMART is India’s largest online B2B marketplace with a market share of around 60 per cent in online B2B classifieds. The company operates a product and price discovery platform, facilitating interactions between suppliers and buyers, and has benefitted as more and more businesses move online in the wake of the pandemic.
To be sure, the company has been impacted by the disruptions caused to the small and medium enterprises, which form the bulk of its customer base.
“The entire Covid-19 situation has helped them get more business. The anti-Chinese sentiment has also worked in their favour,” said Abhimanyu Sofat, head of research at IIFL Securities.
“Post their listing, they have consistently delivered strong earnings, and profitability has improved considerably. This trend might continue, and the stock should continue to do well,” he said.
Sumeet Nagar, MD of Malabar Investments, says people are willing to pay a price for IndiaMART’s business process that provides the ability to businesses to generate demand. “I think the importance of IndiaMART in the mind of its customers has only gone up,” he said.
“While there would be some impact in the current quarter or current financial year, but in the medium term the opportunity should only grow bigger and that is essentially what we are looking at,” he said in an interaction with ETNow.
The stock with the offer price of Rs 973 was listed on July 4, 2019. It witnessed strong listing gains of 33.87 per cent. The stock hit a record high of Rs 3,146.80 on August 7, and is up more than three times from its issue price, with recent gains coming in from robust June quarter earnings.
On Tuesday, the stock traded at Rs 2,949.
On July 21, IndiaMART InterMESH reported a more than two-fold jump in consolidated profit for June quarter at Rs 74.1 crore, backed by strong operating performance.
“The ongoing adverse market conditions had an anticipated impact on our customers, revenue, deferred revenue and cash flow from operations,” CEO Dinesh Agarwal said in the earnings release.
“Given the overall uncertainty of how long this continues, our strong balance sheet and a resilient business model will help us navigate the ongoing crisis. As businesses realise the need to migrate online, our strong value proposition will help us get back to growth soon,” he said.
The stellar performance and potential has attracted long-term investors. On July 23, the Government Pension Fund Global or Norway’s Oil fund bought a stake in the company.
At last count, the stock had 2 ‘strong buy’, 1 ‘buy’, 1 ‘hold’ and 1 ‘strong sell’ ratings on the publicly available Reuters Eikon database.
On July 23, JM Financial raised its rating on the stock to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’.
“While we have always liked IndiaMART’s asset light, negative working capital cycle and strong network effects business model, we were till-now a bit cautious due to the strong macro headwinds,” JM Financial analysts said in a note.
The brokerage said after back-to-back positive surprises that demonstrate the management’s ability to smoothly march through tough periods and very strong beat on the brokerage’s numbers, it revised its EPS estimates upwards over FY21-23 by 84 per cent, 42 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
On July 22, Edelweiss Financial Services NSE -0.34 % said the all-time high business enquiries would be a key driver of revenue growth and subscriber addition for IndiaMART.
“Although SMEs are under stress due to lockdown, they will have to incrementally depend on a platform like IndiaMART as business moves online,” Edelweiss analysts said while maintaining buy rating on the stock.
Deven Choksey, group managing director, KR Choksey Investment Managers is upbeat on the prospects of the stock. “For IndiaMart — the B2B activity is gaining traction. The entire segment under proper supply chain logistics arrangement is on the threshold of further growth, and that’s where this company is favourably placed,” he said. “I would think the momentum in the stock is going to grow from here,” he said.
Atlas Copco leverages IndiaMART platform to Generate Leads from Underserviced Markets
- Atlas Copco to utilize IndiaMART platform for strengthening their visibility, reach and in generating digital leads from tier 1, tier 2, and smaller towns
- IndiaMART to help Atlas Copco to target high intent buyer across the industry segments
- Over 100 million registered users on IndiaMART, 60% market share in the B2B e-commerce
New Delhi, 13th August 2020: Atlas Copco has engaged services of IndiaMART marketplace to target potential customers by leveraging the platform which is a one-stop-shop for all business needs. Speaking on the significant development, Mr Chandrashekhar Pathak, Business Line Manager, General Industry Division, Atlas Copco Tools & Assembly Systems, said “We are focused to increase our presence in the remotest parts of the country. Partnering with IndiaMART would help us in increasing our visibility, reach and in generating business inquiries from tier 1, tier 2 towns in addition to metros.”
As brands started realising the power of a digital channel as a pertinent enabler to scale their business, more and more brands were encouraged to explore the domain. IndiaMART, an easy-to-use platform with an audience from various industry segments coupled with its AI and ML-driven behavioural matchmaking and tech-enabled simplified solutions, helps enterprises in garnering high-quality leads.
“IndiaMART is a marketplace for all types of businesses with an unmatchable scale. Hence post joining hands with IndiaMART we are looking forward to targeting high intent audience hailing from various industry segments like aerospace, automotive, general assembly, energy, oil and gas etc. It would also help us in understanding the customer requirements, behaviour and in suggesting an optimized solution that would increase the value for our customers”, Mr Pathak added.
In today’s world enterprises are increasingly looking to explore B2B digital channels to expand their reach and visibility in order to target new customers bases, which are unserviced directly through existing sales and distribution networks. IndiaMART a pioneer in B2B digital e-commerce with over 60% market share in the segment, provides an enabling marketplace to businesses to expand their reach. With this, the platform has evolved into a one-stop destination for all businesses.
Commenting on the growing trend towards digitization among established corporate brands, Dinesh Gulati, COO, IndiaMART, said “Leading brands started realizing the power of a digital platform, especially in the COVID times when leveraging online channels have become a basic prerequisite for all businesses. We’ve always aimed at being instrumental in not only opening a new channel for business promotions, lead generation and a platform to widen reach but also in hand-holding businesses to smoothen the transition from offline to the online medium. We will continue to work and employ new-age technologies to ensure that enterprises garner exponential growth, by deploying IndiaMART’s digital channel which will help them not only in penetrating better into existing markets and in opening new markets for growth, but also in tapping the online medium with ease during this crisis in which we all are in.”
Today, businesses are utilizing digital mediums for generating leads backed with insights into the consumer mindscape. Digital platforms like IndiaMART provide a significant understanding of the way people are engaging online for enquiries, purchase decision making and sales.
Several enterprises have already expanded their business through IndiaMART’s Enterprise Solutions initiative, thus unlocking the digital way of doing business. Today, more than 350 leading brands across major industries like Building & Construction, Commercial Vehicles, Agriculture & Farming, Material Handling Machines & Systems, Hand & Machine Tools, Healthcare Equipments & Supplies, and Oil & Lubricants have partnered with IndiaMART and are witnessing business growth.
About IndiaMART:
IndiaMART is India’s largest online B2B marketplace for business products and services. It is a platform that connects buyers and sellers across borders and time-zones through business solutions. IndiaMART provides ease, and convenience to the buyers by offering a wide assortment of products and a responsive seller base while offering lead generation, lead management and payment solutions to its sellers.
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Wildcraft partners with IndiaMART platform to expand the footprint for its new line of SupermaskTM and PPE kits
New Delhi, 4th August 2020: IndiaMART InterMesh Ltd., today announced its partnership with the Bengaluru based outdoor gear brand Wildcraft India Pvt Ltd. to engage the services of its platform to target potential customers for its new line of SupermaskTM and PPE kits. The firm, in April, forayed into the Personal Protective Gear (PPG) segment by launching the re-usable respirators and PPE Kits amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.
IndiaMART, the largest B2B online marketplace in the country with over 100 million registered users would significantly strengthen the reach and visibility of Wildcraft’s reusable SupermaskTM and PPE Kits. In the last six months, IndiaMART has witnessed a substantial traffic growth in the personal protective gear category due to the pandemic and has become the go-to place for selling PPG products for major brands like Wildcraft India Pvt. Ltd.
Speaking on this partnership, Mr. Gaurav Dublish Co-Founder, Wildcraft India said, “Over the last few months, Wildcraft has had an opportunity to serve the nation and its citizens with its world-class PPG products meant to keep civilians, and frontline fighters protected in the long run. The partnership with IndiaMART allows us to leverage their platform to further expand our footprint in some of the remotest regions of the country. Through this B2B platform, we look forward to providing opportunities for employment to retailers and distributors in difficult times like these.”
IndiaMART exploits the latest technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to leverage the robust behavioural matchmaking that connects suppliers with relevant buyers and vice versa, this helps businesses to scale up and offers increased exposure on India’s largest online marketplace.
Speaking on this development, Mr. Dinesh Gulati, COO, IndiaMART InterMESH Ltd., said, “During this pandemic, we’ve tried to serve not only the businesses but also the nation at large by ensuring that all COVID related products are available on our platform. Besides having businesses providing products like surgical masks, PPE kits and ventilators/BiPAP/cPAP machines, we’ve also brought in unique COVID products like nano mist sprayer, coronavirus stickers and posters, foot door opener, car partition, coronavirus incubation box, sneeze guard, mobile sanitizer and others. IndiaMART has witnessed an incremental surge in inquiries for these products, like inquiries for nano mint sprayer and mobile sanitizer shot up by 31 and 11 times respectively in the month of June 2020 if compared with the inquiries they generated in April 2020. This shows there was a demand for these products and IndiaMART as a platform ensured their easy availability.”
He further added, “Online channels have surfaced as an easy and a cost-effective medium for businesses during the present times, and with this increasing digitisation, enterprises have also started realizing the power of a digital platform as a demand generation channel and as a chief enabler for their businesses. IndiaMART not only aims at digitally enabling the brands but also strives to increase their visibility and reach even in the remotest parts of the country through a tech-enabled easy platform. Today, many leading brands across industries are leveraging IndiaMART and are exploring the digital way of doing business.”
IndiaMART is a pioneer in the B2B digital e-commerce with over 60% market share in the segment and provides an enabling marketplace to buyers and sellers to expand their reach and penetration. Today, IndiaMART has a registered user base of over 100 million, the largest in the B2B e-commerce market segment in India. Presently, 35% of the traffic on IndiaMART comes from the metro cities and the remaining 65% from tier 1, tier 2 and smaller towns.
Enterprises are utilizing the digital mediums for generating leads backed with insights into the consumer mindscape. IndiaMART provides a significant understanding of the way people are engaging online for enquiries, purchase decision making and sales. More than 350 leading brands across major industries like Healthcare, Construction Equipment, Farm Equipment, Hand and Power tools, Commercial Vehicles, etc, are executing plans to generate incremental business growth through IndiaMART.
About IndiaMART
IndiaMART is India’s largest online B2B marketplace for business products and services. IndiaMART makes it easier to do business by connecting buyers and sellers across product categories and geographies in India through business enablement solutions. IndiaMART provides ease and convenience to the buyers by offering a wide assortment of products and a responsive seller base while offering lead generation, lead management and payment solutions to its sellers.
About Wildcraft India:
Wildcraft is a brand born for open air. Whether it’s a hill or a mountain, the forest or the countryside, the great outdoors can invigorate you like no other, and Wildcraft – India’s leading head–to–toe outfitter – equips you with the means to experience it.
With deep investments in building manufacturing expertise across Karnataka & Himachal Pradesh, Wildcraft commands a leading position in the outdoor & tactical gear space on the back of R&D led product-innovations, distribution and an exceptionally credible brand positioning.
Wildcraft India, headquartered in Bangalore with manufacturing plants in Bangalore (Karnataka) & Solan (Himachal Pradesh), is an Indian-born outdoor and tactical gear firm incorporated in the year 1998. Since its inception 22 years back, the company has transitioned from a hobbyist ‘garage’ brand to an Rs. 1000cr revenue firm committed to enabling and enhancing India’s pursuit of the great outdoors. Wildcraft India’s product portfolio includes winter jackets & rain-cheaters, Bermudas & convertibles, outdoor tees & shorts, all-terrain shoes & sandals, versatile backpacks & duffels, tactical rucksacks & combat kits, trekking & camping accessories, & today hazmats & respirators for pursuits like travelling, backpacking & trekking. The company caters to the diverse needs of the country with a portfolio of three brand –
- Wildcraft, for the backpacker in each of us,
- Wiki, for the artist in each of us
- Torque, or the migrant in each of us.
Keeping the business’s philosophy of “rekindling the explorer, & embracing the unknown” at its heart, the company has forayed into various unchartered categories. Wildcraft India products are designed to work with, & not against, the elements and are available in over 200 exclusive stores and 1,00,000+ multi-branded stores in over 1000 cities in India & across the globe. Wildcraft’s astute R&D capabilities were recently put to test by the India Defence establishment. After 3 years of rigorous research, & multiple user-testing & samplings across extreme conditions, Wildcraft has designed & developed, for the Indian Armed Forces a technical rucksack after rigorous research & development efforts have been selected for supplies to the Indian Army.
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An app to turn the ‘khata’ digital for small businesses | LiveMint
- Vyapar’s aim is to help small businesses go digital in everything from accounts to inventory management
- In India, 80% to 85% of proprietors use paper to manage their business. It’s guesswork when they’re asked about inventory
Gaurav Agrawal runs a furniture-making business in Firozabad near Agra. The 37-year-old took over the family business a few years ago and has grown its annual turnover to ₹4-5 crore, supplying furniture to customers in Delhi, Jaipur and Lucknow. As his business grew, he started looking for an app that would help him manage his orders and payments better than the old ledger books.
“When I was on the road or away from office, and got a call from a customer asking about an order or outstanding amount, I had to tell them I would get back to them later. So I went to Google Playstore and searched for an app that would let me do accounting from my phone,” says Agrawal.
He downloaded a new app called Vyapar and found it served his purpose. That was in 2016 when the startup offering this mobile accounting solution was founded. Since then Vyapar has added several features and also become available on laptops and desktops. Now every shipment that goes out from Agrawal’s Jivik Furniture Art is entered digitally. “This also helps me do my GST return filing regularly,” he says.
Agrawal admits he was apprehensive at first at the thought of an app accessing his khata (account book). But the benefits are many: Customers are notified instantly when an order is shipped or a payment received. Bills carry details of outstanding payments as a reminder. “Earlier I had to meet a customer to reconcile our accounts. But now it’s easy to stay updated and send an account statement at any time.”
Insights for India
Vyapar’s founders Sumit Agarwal and Shubham Agrawal earlier worked at US software giant Intuit whose QuickBooks product was also meant to make life easier for small businesses. But they felt a mobile app would serve the needs of traders and small manufacturers in India better.
Bengaluru-based Tally is the dominant accounting software for SMBs in India. Traditionally it was been a desktop offering bought off the shelf and installed; remote access over the cloud is now being added.
Sumit says Vyapar’s value proposition comes from being designed from the outset as a mobile-first app for use by owners of small businesses, rather than accountants. “We removed the complexity of traditional accounting software and made it easy to use with minimal entries,” he says.
Sometimes the simpler you want a software product to be, the harder it is to design. The challenge for the Vyapar team was to fit time-tested accounting formats into simpler models, while at the same time making it compatible enough to transfer the data into Tally or any other higher level software used by accountants.
A lesson for Sumit from his Intuit days was that a fully online product would be hard to use in India, given the patchy internet in tier-2+ towns as well as security concerns. So Vyapar can be used offline once it is installed—downloads and uploads are limited to what’s needed.
It adopted a freemium model. The free app provides all the functionality, but Vyapar branding appears on invoices. The paid app removes the logo and enables syncing of data on multiple devices. But the main revenue for the startup comes when a user graduates to the desktop version. Most users start with billing but slowly dive deeper into the product.
The overarching aim is to help small businesses go digital in everything from accounts to inventory management. “In India, 80-85% of proprietors use paper to manage their business. It’s guesswork when you ask them about inventory, profit and so on,” says Sumit.
The initial tailwind for tools such as Vyapar came from small businesses requiring to comply with GST. Digitization is imperative as more data has to be tracked, right from the time of sending out an invoice. “The load of compliance is no longer just a chartered accountant’s headache. It is seeping into the daily workflow,” says Asutosh Upadhyay, who manages investments at Axilor, an early investor in Vyapar. “How many businesses can afford a full-time accountant?”
Shift to Digital
Another tailwind was a shift to digital payments. In the post-covid scenario of needing to manage the business from home, a third tailwind has started blowing.
Vyapar is out to catch these tailwinds. So far it has 350,000 active users across its mobile and desktop versions, out of whom 45,000 are paying customers, according to Sumit. “The market is evolving as small businesses change faster. Covid has changed the mindset to being able to control things from anywhere. We’re seeing 15-20% month-on-month growth in our customer base and revenue.”
The startup targets businesses that have matured enough to come under the GST ambit, but not so big that they already have full-time accountants working with Tally. Sumit estimates that segment to comprise 20 million out of the 60-70 million SMBs in India. So that’s a large potential target market for the startup.
Its biggest challenge is competition from other startups as well as a variety of SaaS, fintech and supply chain players trying to enter the largely untapped SMB sector, especially in tier-2+ towns. Vyapar has established a product-market fit with a substantial paid customer base, unlike some that focus on scaling up before finding a revenue model.
“We were at ₹30-35 lakh monthly revenue around this time last year, and now we’re at ₹90 lakh,” he says. “We believe in solving a problem well and getting paid for it, because that builds a strong business for now as well as the future. If the customer is paying, we know the product is useful. When it’s free, you don’t know how strong the use case is.”
Sumit himself comes from a family of jewellery traders in Lucknow. The use case he was solving for was staring at him at home. But requirements differ from business to business. For example, inventory management for a manufacturer is different from that of a trader.
Though he has seen mindsets change at home as well as his growing roster of customers, there’s a long way to go. After all, even the dominant player in business accounting software has less than 2 million customers in India which is a fraction of the addressable market. This also leaves room for multiple players to hone their value propositions and business models.
Sumit remembers pitching Vyapar to a potential customer in Lucknow in its early days. “I started talking about our product and what it could do. Then the store owner said, ‘Yaar, hamare bap-dada yeh kehke gayen ki saare hisab kitab rakho, par tijori mein band kar do (our forefathers told us, note down all your accounts but lock it up in a safe)’.” Being secretive about accounts or maintaining two books, only one of which is disclosed, is so ingrained that it will take time to change. But Vyapar’s founders are happy to digitize one set of books for starters.
IndiaMART Carves Out INR 74.6 Cr Profits In Q1 Despite Pandemic Crippling Cash Flow | Inc42
B2B ecommerce platform IndiaMART has posted over 64% increase in its net profit at INR 74.6 Cr in the first quarter of the financial year 2021, versus INR 44 Cr in the previous quarters. In terms of year-on-year growth, the listed company has registered a two-fold increase from INR 32 Cr.
This comes even as the company was noting a sluggish growth in the first few months of April to June quarter. In an exclusive interaction with Inc42 in May, CEO and cofounder Dinesh Agarwal had noted that IndiaMART could lose between 10% and 20% of its 147K paying customer base every month under the lockdown. The company’s paying subscription suppliers did reduce to 133K in the first quarter.
But overall the company’s financial statement has come off as a relief to stakeholders, especially in such volatile times. Though business was restricted to essential products and cash flow had dried up to a large extent during the lockdown, the company managed to keep its total income intact at INR 187 Cr in both Q1 FY21 and Q4 of FY20 ending in March. The B2B company has noted a 16% increase in its total income compared to INR 162 Cr in the Q1 of the previous year.
IndiaMART Manages To Cushion Covid-19 Impact
IndiaMART’s revenue from operations declined by 10% from INR 170 Cr in Q4 FY20 to INR 153 Cr in this quarter. Its cash generation from operations also dropped by 94% to a meagre INR 3 Cr from INR 94 Cr in Q4 FY20. The company’s profit was saved by its other income totaling to INR 34 Cr versus INR 17 Cr the previous quarter. It’s deferred revenue also dropped by 8% to INR 628 Cr this quarter from INR 685 Cr from the previous quarter.
In terms of profit, the company is at INR 73 Cr EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) and INR 69 Cr EBIT (earnings before depreciation, interest and tax) for the Q1 FY21.
Commenting on IndiaMART’s financial performance, Dinesh Agarwal said, “I am pleased to report a modest financial performance this quarter as the ongoing adverse market conditions had an anticipated impact on our customers, revenue, deferred revenue and cash flow from operations. While we managed to improve profitability due to cost optimisation measures, our focus remained to stand by our employees and customers during these testing times.”
The company’s traffic grew to 191 Mn in Q1 FY21 from 180 Mn in Q4 FY20, though Agarwal had previously noted that IndiaMART’s traffic had reduced to almost 50% across all the geographies and categories combined in the month of April. Notably, IndiaMART InterMESH shares also surged 12% in morning trade on July 22 after the company reported its financial performance.
Incorporated in 1999 by Brijesh Agrawal and Dinesh Chandra Agarwal, Noida-based B2B marketplace IndiaMART went public in June 2019. The company had reached 100 Mn usermark in the last quarter of FY20. Dinesh Agarwal had also noted that it has a strong presence in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, and only 33 to 34% of its traffic comes from top eight metro cities.
