BENGALURU : Kavin Bharti Mittal-promoted messaging app Hike Messenger has reported a 33% year-on-year fall in revenue for 2018-19, even as it cut expenses by almost half, according to documents sourced from the registrar of companies (RoC).
In FY19, Hike generated revenue of ₹26.5 crore, compared to around ₹39.5 crore reported in FY18. It only made around ₹3.5 lakh in revenue directly from operations, while the remaining ₹26.5 crore came from the ‘other income’ category.
The Delhi-based company was also able to trim its losses to around ₹205.6 crore in FY19, compared to ₹423 crore in the previous financial year.
To make ₹26.5 crore in revenue, Hike Messenger spent a mammoth ₹232 crore in total expenses during FY19. The company’s expenses, however, reduced by around 50% year-on-year from ₹462.5 crore expenses reported in the previous financial year.
In FY19, Hike Messenger spent most of its money on employee-related expenses, which also reduced by around 36% year-on-year to ₹109.9 crore, compared to ₹172.5 crore in FY18. In FY19, the company spent another ₹115.3 crore, which was classified in the ‘other expenses’ category. The rest of its expenses in FY19 came from other categories such as finance costs and depreciation costs.
In May 2018, Hike had let go around 25% of its workforce across functions, including human resources, accounting and finance, according to a report by The Economic Times. The job cuts came just a year after Hike had acquired two startups—Bengaluru-based startup Creo, which manufactured dual-SIM smartphones, and social networking platform InstaLively.
Hike had last raised around $175 million led by Tencent in a Series D round in 2016, when it was valued at around $1.4 billion
In July 2019, it claimed to have around 160 million active users on its platform, while Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp said that it had more than 400 million active users in India alone.
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