Byju’s FY20 profit grows over twofolds to ₹50.76 crore
Byju’s, India’s most valuable education tech startup, has seen profit more than double to Rs 50.76 crore in FY20 with the sale of tablets, SD cards and books getting it the bulk of its revenues. Byju’s standalone income from operations of Rs 2,110 crore came from three major businesses - tuition fee (Rs 144 crore), sale of education tablets and SD cards (Rs 1,675 crore) and sale of reference books (Rs 560 crore). The company is yet to submit documents to the Registrar of Companies (ROC) for its financial numbers for FY21. Byju’s (Think & Learn Pvt Ltd) had logged net profit (standalone basis) of Rs 20.16 crore and Rs 1,281 crore in operational revenue in FY19, according to documents accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler. On a consolidated basis, revenue grew over 82 per cent to Rs 2,380.7 crore in FY20 over Rs 1,306 crore in 2018-19. Byju’s saw losses widening to about Rs 250 crore in FY20 from about Rs 9 crore as total expenditure more than doubled to Rs 3,021 crore in 2019-20 from Rs 1,376 crore in FY19. “On a standalone basis - which is our core business - we are profitable. On a consolidated basis (which includes acquisitions), there is a loss given that some of these
businesses need investment to scale,” Byju’s Chief Strategy Officer Anita Kishore told PTI.
She added that the company which has been on an acquisition spree with the buyout of companies like Aakash Educational Services, Epic and Greal Learning - aims to clock Rs 10,000 crore in revenue in FY22.
As per the documents, educational tablets and SD cards accounted for 63.24 per cent of the company’s turnover in FY20, while sale of reference books contributed 26.51 per cent. Educational tablets and SD cards contributed Rs 1,334.48 crore to the company’s revenue from operations in 2019-20 accounting for the largest chunk of Byju’s revenues, followed by sale of reference books (Rs 559.4 crore) and sale of services (Rs 71.96 crore).
Tuition fee contributed under
7 per cent of the revenue at Rs 144.17 crore during FY20.
Byju’s saw its employee benefit expense also increasing to Rs 322.81 crore in FY20 from Rs 255.39 crore in the previous fiscal. The company, in the document, said it is confident of “achieving higher revenue and profits in the coming years in this global world as the opportunities are huge and your company is capable of exploring the same productively”.
It added that the management of the company has effectively responded and managed the operations through the pandemic. The edtech space has seen strong growth globally, including in India, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as an inflection point. Many offline classes went online to ensure continuity of education while adhering to social distancing norms. Byju’s, which is backed by marquee investors, including General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, the Chan-zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers, Silver Lake and Tiger Global, is estimated to have raised about USD 1.5 billion since April last year in multiple tranches.
The company has also been aggressively acquiring companies to bolster its presence across categories. In the past, Byju’s had acquired Tutorvista and Edurite (from Pearson in 2017) and Osmo in 2019. Last year, the company had bought the coding training platform Whitehat Jr for USD 300 million and in April this year, it acquired Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL) to bolster its presence in the test preparation segment in the country.
In July this year, Byju’s had announced the acquisition of Singapore-headquartered Great Learning in a transaction valued at USD 600 million (about Rs 4,466 crore), and said it will invest an additional USD 400 million to strengthen its position in the professional and higher education segment.
It had also announced the acquisition of Us-based digital reading platform Epic for USD 500 million (around Rs 3,729.8 crore), and an additional USD 1 billion (about Rs 7,459.7 crore) investment in the North American market in the same month.