Home services startup Urban Company, which has been in the thick of protests among its gig workers, recorded a narrower loss for the year ending March 31, 2023, as the company’s expenses remained flat despite a 45 percent jump in revenue from operations.
Urban Company’s consolidated loss shrank 39 percent to Rs 312.5 crore in FY23 from Rs 514 crore in FY22, as per its regulatory filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs sourced through Tofler. The company’s operating revenue rose to Rs 637 crore during the period, while is expenses stayed remained little changed at Rs 1,039 crore.
Of the company’s revenues, Rs 495.3 crore came from the services (on-demand services at home) it provides, up 43.5 percent from FY22’s Rs 345 crore.
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During the year, its revenues from the sale of products was up 53 percent, with the company earning Rs 140.35 crore during the year from it. In FY22, it stood at Rs 91.7 crore. The sale of products, in this case, is what is used by the workers on the platform as part of the services. However, it also includes the products it sells to end-consumers, which are smart locks and water purifiers.
Employee benefit expenses came in at Rs 377 crore, of which salaries, wages and bonuses stood at Rs 255 crore.
Advertising promotional expenses for the year went up to Rs 258.82 crore from Rs 228 crore in FY22. Of the Rs 258 crore, marketing expenses accounted for Rs 252 crore.
In its Annual Business Summary for FY23 that the company put out, it said that it made “meaningful progress towards improving profitability driven by operational leverage in fixed costs and driving efficiency across other costs”.
The company claimed that its India business, which forms 90 percent of its revenues, broke even on an Adjusted EBITDA basis in Q1FY24.
“We remain focused on improving profitability for India and UC as a whole. Our strong unit economics with focused cost control will help us drive EBITDA improvement as the business scales,” the post said.
As per the blogpost, 77 percent of business comes from repeat customers, and has 53 lakh transacting users. The company said it has an average customer ratings of 4.82 in FY23.
The requirement of maintaining a high rating has been one of the points of contention of Urban Company partners with the company, as they allegedly are barred by the platform for not meeting that threshold. The company claims to have invested more than Rs 250 crore since its inception in training and upskilling workers on the platform.
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