Pocket FM's India arm revenue jumps to Rs 131 crore in FY23; loss reduces by 56%

In December 2023r, Pocket FM pledged to invest Rs 250 crore to nurture the writers community.

Audio series platform Pocket FM saw a surge in the revenues of its Indian subsidiary for the financial year 2023, driven by significant growth in microtransactions and advertising business. On January 4, the company said that it posted revenues of Rs 131 crore for FY23, registering a 647 percent increase year-on-year (YoY).

This was led by a 417 percent YoY increase in microtransaction revenue to Rs 82.8 crore and 1,120 percent YoY growth in advertising revenues to Rs 12.17 crore. Pocket FM noted that its brand and ad solutions are in a pilot stage at present.

The Bengaluru-based startup also saw its losses before tax reduce by 56 percent YoY to Rs 75.7 crore. The total expenses grew by 9.3 percent YoY to Rs 206.8 crore for the year. Advertising and marketing expenses reduced by 45 percent YoY to Rs 70.57 crores for the financial year.

Key hires

Content expenses however doubled to Rs Rs 21.29 crore in FY23, as the company expanded its content library to attract more users. Employee expenses also surged to Rs 73.3 crore in FY23 from Rs 30.7 crore in FY22, which the firm said was aligned with its growth strategy.

Over the past year, Pocket FM has strengthened its top and senior management with several key hires including former Netflix executive Pannagadatta K. Shivaswamy to lead the company's artificial intelligence efforts, former PhonePe executive Subeer Bakshi as its Head of People and Culture, Vedantu's Vivek Bhutyani as VP-Content Marketing, and former Meta executive Niteesh Yadav as director of design.

"As Pocket FM charts its path in FY2023, our focus is clear: strategic growth, global expansion, and financial resilience. Our commitment to staying financially healthy ensures a strong foundation for scaling up not just in India but also globally" said Pocket FM chief financial officer Anurag Sharma in a statement.

Founded in 2018 by Rohan Nayak, Prateek Dixit, and Nishanth Srinivas, Pocket FM claims to provide more than 100,000 hours of long-format audio content across various genres such as romance, horror, thriller, sci-fi, fiction, and mythology in English and several Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, and Marathi.

The company claims to have over 130 million listeners globally who are spending an average of over 115 minutes on a daily basis. Last month, the platform said it clocked over 20 million transactions in 2023, closing the year with 2.5 million monthly transactions. The audio content was streamed for over 75 billion minutes during the year, with an average monthly streaming of over 6 billion minutes, it said.

The firm also added that its writers community has doubled to over 150,000 in 2023, with the top 10 writers cumulatively earning over Rs 2 crore. In December, it pledged Rs 250 crore to nurture the writers community.

"With continuous investments into content and the writers' community, we look forward to elevating entertainment not just limited to listening experiences but replicating the experience across other formats through IP strongholds," Sharma said.

Pocket FM counts Lightspeed, Tencent, Tanglin Venture Partners, Goodwater Capital, Times Group, and South Korean internet giant Naver among its investors. It has raised $109.5 million to date, which includes a $16 million debt financing in May 2023 and a $65 million funding round in March 2022.