Hike Messenger reports loss of Rs 205.6 Cr in FY19, total revenue falls to Rs 26.5 Cr
In yet another dismal show after ShareChat, another social platform, Hike Messenger posted a loss of Rs 205.6 crore in FY19.
Delhi-based messaging app Hike Messenger's loss narrowed to Rs 205.6 crore in the financial year ended March 2019, a drop of 106 percent, as compared to a loss of Rs 423 crore it incurred in FY18.
For the same period, the messaging app reported its revenue to be at Rs 26.5 crore, a decline of 33 percent from Rs 39.5 crore in the FY18, even as the company trimmed its expenses by almost half, documents filed with Registrar of Companies (RoC) stated.
Of the total revenue generated in FY19, Rs 3.5 lakh was from the operating income, while the balance of Rs 26.4 crore was from the ‘other income’ category.
Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger
The company's total expenses also decreased to Rs 231.9 crore in FY19, compared to Rs 462.5 crore it spent during the previous financial year.
The messaging platform trimmed its employee benefits expense which was reported to be at Rs 109 crore in FY19 as compared to Rs 172 crore in FY18.
According to reports, last year the company had let go about 25 percent of its workforce across human resources, accounting, finance department, among others.
Hike had raised around $175 million led by Tencent in a Series D round in 2016 when it was valued at around $1.4 billion.
Recent media reports also said that Hike has become one of the top three patent filers in the field of IT. With 66 patents filed in the year 2017-18, Hike joined the likes of Wipro and TCS in a list released by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Design & Trademarks.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
