Dear Shareholders
I am pleased to share with you our journey of FY 2023 - a year that
witnessed IndiaMART sustain its growth by leveraging emerging opportunities in India's B2B
segment. Amid the sustained Indian economic growth and market positivity, we delivered a
positive performance across our KPIs as well as expanded the ambit of our services to
cater even more effectively to the growing customer base and demand for our services which
further strengthened our value proposition.
Delivering robust performance
During the year, IndiaMART recorded the highest-ever net addition of
paid subscribers and 25% collection growth to ' 1 1,666 million during this fiscal year at
the back of our concerted efforts to harness the growth opportunity. Deferred revenue also
grew by 25% year-on-year to ' 11,344 million. We continued to maintain a positive cash
flow from operations and healthy margins during the year, on account of our negative
working capital business model. This has enabled us to declare the dividend of ' 20 for FY
2023 and the 1:1 bonus issue subject to shareholders' approval.
Investing in our key assets & resources
The growing business opportunity in the B2B space, backed by
improvement in the macro environment as well as increasing customer demand for our
services, motivated us to invest even more actively than before in our key resources,
including people, technology, sales, and services. We added 911 people to our workforce as
well as expanded our channel partners network to acquire our customers across Bharat and
cater to their needs enabling growth for businesses present in smaller towns and cities.
Investing strategically in growing opportunities
Driven by our deep insights into the transforming market needs, we made
the right strategic choices for driving future growth. In order to leverage the potential
in the Accounting Software space, we acquired Busy Accounting Software and Livekeeping - a
Tally on Mobile application during this year. These acquisitions, coupled with our
investments in Vyapar and Realbooks, have helped us build a presence across all customer
segments requiring Accounting software. In the first year itself, Busy Accounting Software
reported ' 433 million in revenue which reflects that the Accounting Software vertical is
emerging as a diversified revenue stream for the Company, from here on.
Surging ahead toward a brighter future
With the opportunity matrix expanding continuously, we shall continue
to strengthen our resources to meet future business needs. We shall also remain focussed
on augmenting our capacities to broaden our reach and enhance our value proposition. We
shall continue to invest in product innovation to serve evolving needs and improve
matchmaking and its relevancy on the platform. Our focus is on developing solutions that
are uniquely aligned with the specific needs of IndiaMART users.
As a technology-led organisation, we realise the importance of staying
ahead of the technology curve to remain competitive in the business. We further invested
in enhancing our technologies to provide better services to our customers. We leveraged
the seller behaviour data to drive buyer search and relevant matchmaking. We are also
continually improving our taxonomy, classification techniques, and category attributes to
ensure that our platform is easy to navigate and that buyers can find what they are
looking for quickly and easily. Additionally, we are leveraging artificial intelligence to
handle mixed languages and misspelled product names and buyer searches, ensuring that our
platform is accessible to users from across the nation. These initiatives do not just help
us in sustaining our business momentum but also prioritise customer satisfaction and
catalyse growth as we capture new possibilities.
Ensuring sustained and inclusive value creation
At IndiaMART, it is our constant endeavour to ensure inclusive and
holistic value creation for all our stakeholders, including our users, shareholders and
investors, employees, and the communities around which we operate. Even as we continue to
drive business growth, we remain focussed on nurturing our social crux as we continue to
provide free online visibility to 7.3 million small and medium businesses on the platform
and offer 100% free services to our buyers, especially in terms of transparency of prices,
whether they are based in metro cities or deep rural areas. We have in place robust
policies for strengthening our environmental protection, corporate social responsibility
(CSR), and governance frameworks, in line with our commitment to creating comprehensive,
long-term stakeholder value. The primary goal of our CSR initiatives is to build a more
resilient and inclusive society by strengthening education and skill development
facilities for uplifting the weaker and underserved sections of society. IndiaMART's
efforts have been directed towards strengthening infrastructure, improving foundational
learning and skill development leading to better learning and growing opportunities for
students along with the enablement of teachers as well as parents. I am delighted to
report that through these initiatives over 1.1 million lives have been favourably impacted
by the Company's CSR initiatives over the last year.
Concluding note
In conclusion, I would like to thank each one of you for your
unwavering trust in IndiaMART. I would also like to extend my gratitude to our
stakeholders for their continued support in taking forward the Company's goal of fostering
digital inclusion of businesses to steer India's growth story. It is a matter of
satisfaction for us that India's prospects, especially the B2B sector continue to remain
robust despite the global headwinds that are impacting businesses across sectors. I am
confident that our partnership approach, supported by our collective efforts, will help us
push the bar of inclusive and sustainable long-term growth for all of us.
Regards,
Dinesh Agarwal
Managing Director and CEO