Bengaluru: E-commerce startup Meesho on Wednesday reported higher revenue and lower loss in FY2024 as it benefited from a rise in users making annual transactions and an increase in order frequency from existing customers.
In FY24, the company reported operating revenues of 7,615 crore, an increase of 33% from a year ago. Its adjusted loss narrowed by 97% Rs 53 crore, excluding employee share-based compensation expense, Meesho said in a statement.
The company attributed this growth to improved efficiency in several areas such as logistics, as well as leveraging generative AI and machine learning for better search and better in-app experiences.
Meesho recorded users making 145 million unique annual transactions in FY2014, representing about 10% of India's purchases through its platform, it claimed. “Consumers are not only purchasing multiple items in the same category, but are also turning to Meesho for a diverse range of their daily needs. As a result, home & kitchen, beauty & personal care, and baby essentials emerged as the fastest growing categories,” the company said, adding that it crossed the 500 million install mark overall in the last financial year. Have taken.
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The Bengaluru-based startup has also seen healthy growth in order frequency per user, including an influx of new-to-e-commerce users from India's underserved markets. In the past year, Meesho deployed AI models to analyze category preferences, demographics and time spent on the platform, which contributed to better user interactions.
It also optimized logistics costs through Valmo, its logistics-focused platform launched in February. Since then, Valmo has expanded its network to include smaller and regional logistics partners, significantly reducing shipping costs. This has resulted in some loss of market share for major players like Delhivery, which previously served customers like Meesho.
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As of February, Meesho has on-boarded around 3,000 regional micro-entrepreneurs on its network and achieves around one million shipments every day. It also reduced its costs by 5% and plans to increase them by 5-10% in the medium to long term.
“We have significantly reduced shipping expenses and improved delivery efficiency, allowing us to pass the savings on to our users,” Meesho said in a statement on Wednesday. In-house processes have contributed to reducing return-to-origin (RTO) rates and costs associated with cash-on-delivery (COD) orders.
In March, Meesho launched its fourth and largest-ever Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) buyback program ₹200 crore or $25 million, enabling wealth-creation opportunities for approximately 1,700 current and former employees. It became the first horizontal Indian e-commerce company to become profitable in July 2023. While it did not disclose the profit it made in July-September, it said it has remained profitable and cash-flow-positive since then.
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Founded in 2015 by Vidit Athreya and Sanjeev Baranwal, the online shopping platform, backed by SoftBank, Westbridge Capital and Fidelity Investments, provides small businesses and individual entrepreneurs access to millions of customers, pan-India logistics, payment services and customer-facing services. Support Capabilities.
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