Paytm is still struggling to convince investors after disastrous IPO
Hong Kong (CNN Business)Paytm is starting to stage a recovery from its disastrous stock market debut last week, but the digital payments firm faces an uphill battle winning over investors worried about its ability to turn a profit in the face of growing competition.
Shares of the Indian company — trading under the name of its parent, One97 Communications — plunged in the days since they began trading in Mumbai in the country's biggest IPO when measured in local currency.
The stock edged higher on Tuesday, but it's still down more than 30% from its issue price, a loss of $5.7 billion in market value.
Analysts expressed several concerns about Paytm in the run-up to its offering. The company lost hundreds of millions of dollars last year and seems far from ready to turn a profit.
It's also up against growing competition from some of the biggest tech firms in the world. Companies such as Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOGL) are using an Indian government-backed technology called the Unified Payments Interface.
"Dabbling in multiple business lines inhibits Paytm from being a category leader in any business except wallets, which are becoming inconsequential with the meteoric rise in UPI payments," analysts at Macquarie wrote in a research note last week.
"Most things that Paytm does, every other large ecosystem player like Amazon, Flipkart, Google, etc, are doing," the analysts added.
Big questions remain about how Paytm can effectively profit off its massive customer base, according to Prashant Gokhale, chief operating officer at Aletheia Capital.
Paytm said in its IPO filing that it had 337 million registered consumers and 22 million merchants. But Gokhale told CNN Business the problem is how the company can turn those consumers into revenue.
"They have a lot of subsidiaries. They have insurance, they have stock broking, they have financial services," Gokhale said, adding that the company wants to make money by selling those additional services to existing users of its payments app.
But he said those businesses are all rife with competition, making it difficult to see how there's a pathway to profitability for Paytm.
These kinds of IPOs "remind a new generation of investors that there are risks," Gokhale added.
Talking to CNN last week, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma acknowledged his company's poor IPO performance, and said that if it had waited to announce a few more quarterly results, "our execution plan would bring comfort to a lot more people."
Paytm "is a new business model for many public market investors," he told CNN's Julia Chatterley, adding that numbers in subsequent quarters "will explain this much better."
"I would say that it is very early days to say that we would not be profitable," Sharma added. "Our numbers and revenues will do the job of talking."
— Diksha Madhok contributed to this report.
在灾难性的首次公开募股后，Paytm 仍在努力说服投资者
香港（美国有线电视新闻网）Paytm 开始从上周灾难性的股市首次亮相中复苏，但这家数字支付公司面临着赢得投资者的艰苦战斗，他们担心在竞争日益激烈的情况下能否实现盈利。
这家印度公司的股票——以其母公司 One97 Communications 的名义交易——在孟买开始以当地货币衡量的该国最大的首次公开募股交易以来的几天内暴跌。
该股周二小幅走高，但仍较发行价下跌 30% 以上，市值损失 57 亿美元。
分析师在其发行前表达了对 Paytm 的一些担忧。该公司去年损失了数亿美元，似乎还远没有准备好盈利。
它还面临来自世界上一些最大科技公司日益激烈的竞争。 Facebook (FB) 和谷歌 (GOOGL) 等公司正在使用印度政府支持的称为统一支付接口的技术。
麦格理分析师上周在一份研究报告中写道：“涉足多个业务线使 Paytm 无法成为除钱包以外的任何业务的类别领导者，钱包随着 UPI 支付的迅速增长变得无关紧要。”
分析师补充说：“Paytm 所做的大多数事情，包括亚马逊、Flipkart、谷歌等其他所有大型生态系统参与者，都在做。”
Aletheia Capital 的首席运营官 Prashant Gokhale 表示，Paytm 如何有效地从其庞大的客户群中获利，仍然存在很大的问题。
Paytm 在其 IPO 文件中表示，它拥有 3.37 亿注册消费者和 2200 万商家。但 Gokhale 告诉 CNN Business，问题在于公司如何将这些消费者转化为收入。
“他们有很多子公司。他们有保险，他们有股票经纪，他们有金融服务，”Gokhale 说，并补充说该公司希望通过向其支付应用程序的现有用户出售这些附加服务来赚钱。
但他表示，这些业务都充斥着竞争，因此很难看出 Paytm 是如何盈利的。
Gokhale 补充说，这类 IPO“提醒新一代投资者存在风险”。
Paytm 首席执行官 Vijay Shekhar Sharma 上周在接受美国有线电视新闻网采访时承认其公司的 IPO 表现不佳，并表示，如果再等几个季度公布业绩，“我们的执行计划会给更多人带来安慰。”
Paytm“对许多公开市场投资者来说是一种新的商业模式，”他告诉 CNN 的 Julia Chatterley，并补充说随后几个季度的数字“将更好地解释这一点”。
“我会说现在说我们不会盈利还为时过早，”夏尔马补充道。 “我们的数字和收入将完成谈话。”
— Diksha Madhok 为本报告做出了贡献。
