buoyantintelligence
  • 01Overview
  • 02Portfolio
  • 03Company Atlas
    • Buoyant book
    • All listed companies
  • 04Screener & valuation
  • 05House view
  • 06Markets
  • 07India top-down
  • 08Investors
  • 09Library & data
Release
August 2026 · rev 1
Opportunities PMS · Published
As at 31 Aug 2026 · IST₹ · ₹ cr · BSE 500 TRI
Present
Internal working platform. Published figures are extracted from the August 2026 source package and reviewed; reference prices and fundamentals are unlicensed working data, not for redistribution. Past performance is not indicative of future returns.
Company Atlas/Info Tech/One 97 Communications
NSE: PAYTM· Info TechTurnaround · Aug 26Mid cap

One 97 Communications

Turnaround: profitable payments platform

Last close
₹1,683.00
29 Sept 2026 · reference
1D · 1M
+2.9% · +1.9%
price-only
Weight
2.2%
31 Jul 2026 · Aug rank 15
Thesis review
8 Sep 2026
Why We Own, p47
Coverage owner: Research (per book); latest results Q Jun-26Buoyant AIF I Top 30 Holdings - Aug 2026.pdf · p1Buoyant_Why_We_Own_What_We_Own_Sep2026.pdf (portfolio as of 31 July 2026) · p47Screener ↗Tijori ↗NSE ↗
OverviewBusiness & segmentsChartsFinancialsValuationThesisRisks & catalystsCompetitorsResearch & documents
What the company does

One 97 Communications · Software - Infrastructure

One 97 Communications (Paytm) is in the business of providing a) payment and financial services which primarily includes payment facilitator services, facilitation of consumer and merchant lending to consumers and merchants, wealth management etc. b) marketing services which primarily consists of aggregator for digital products, ticketing business, providing voice and messaging platforms to the telecom operators and enterprise customers and other businesses, etc.

Full profile (Yahoo)

One97 Communications Limited engages in the provision of payment, commerce and cloud, and financial services to consumers and merchants in India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. The company offers payment and financial services, including payment facilitator services, facilitation of consumer and merchant lending to consumers and merchants, wealth management, etc. It also provides marketing services consist of aggregators for digital products, the ticketing business, the provision of voice and messaging platforms to telecom operators, enterprise customers and other businesses, etc. In addition, the company offers mobile recharge; bill payments, such as utility bills, education and money transfers on the app, online payment gateways, as well as offline payment solutions to merchants through QR codes, soundbox, and card machines. Further, it provides digital distribution of credit, insurance, mutual funds and equity broking services; other services, including ticketing, deals and gift vouchers and advertising services for merchants; and distributes credit cards. One97 Communications Limited was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Noida, India.

Sector (Yahoo)
Technology
Industry (Yahoo)
Software - Infrastructure
Employees
47,826
Website
paytm.com

Key people: Mr. Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Founder, CEO, MD & Chairman) · Mr. Madhur Deora (President & Group CFO) · Mr. Anuj Mittal (Senior Vice President of Investor Relations) · Mr. Sunil Kumar Bansal (Company Secretary & Compliance Officer) · Mr. Jessjeet Bhandari (Vice President of Sales) · Mr. Sidharth Shakdher (Chief Marketing Officer & Business Head of Business Unit)

Who are the competitors of One97 Communications?

One97 Communications major competitors are PB Fintech, One Mobikwik Systems, AvenuesAI, Algoquant Fintech. Market Cap of One97 Communications is ₹1,16,388 Crs. While the median market cap of its peers are ₹3,923 Crs.

Is One97 Communications financially stable compared to its competitors?

One97 Communications seems to be financially stable compared to its competitors.The probability of it going bankrupt or facing a financial crunch seem to be lower than its immediate competitors.

Snapshot and what to watch · Tijori · 22 Sep 2026
  • Paytm is a consumer payments and financial-services distribution company with roughly 55% of revenue from payments, 30% from financial-services distribution, and the rest from marketing and cloud services.
  • It serves merchants through its Soundbox device and subscription ecosystem and consumers through UPI payments. It runs as a single operating segment with a distribution-led model and no material credit book.
  • After the FY24 payments-bank disruption, it sold its movie and events business to Zomato and moved offline merchant payments into PPSL, its licensed payments unit.
  • The merchant franchise is the profitable core, with merchant volumes up 31%. Consumer UPI volumes grew 45% against 20% for the industry.
  • Subsidiary PPSL holds all three Reserve Bank of India payment-aggregator licences: online, offline and cross-border. Per management, the merchant market is where it is winning.
  • It is building new revenue lines: Postpaid, a credit line on UPI payments, wealth services through Paytm Money, and AI and cloud services.
  • Q1FY27 showed the margin inflection accelerating: revenue rose 28% and EBITDA rose 182% to ₹203 Cr, an 8.3% margin against 6% at the FY26 exit.
  • It holds ₹13,500 Cr cash with no debt, about 1.6x FY26 revenue. Management calls cash its strategic asset and has declined any capital-return commitment.
  • Earnings hinge on holding consumer UPI share gains and on Postpaid converting early traction into FY28 revenue. Management guides 15–20% EBITDA margin in 2.5–3 years.
  • Regulatory action has repeatedly hit the business, including the payments-bank licence cancellation. A foreign-exchange enforcement matter is mostly closed, with a small unquantified residual.

Yahoo profile 23 Sept 2026 · Tijori 23 Sept 2026

Segments

Revenue mix and market share

Product Wise Break-Up
  • Payment & Financial Services89.8%
  • Marketing Services9.8%
  • Others0.4%
Loan Break-Up
  • Merchant Loans80.0%
  • Personal Loans37.4%
Location Wise Break-Up
  • India100.0%

Latest reported mix as compiled by Tijori from company disclosures; percentages of revenue.

Operating metrics

Company-reported KPIs (Tijori) · latest quarter

As the company reports them. They can differ from the ratio table on the Financials tab, which uses Tijori's own definitions (for example NIM on average total assets rather than on interest-earning assets); the Cross-check panel there lines both up.

Net Payments Margin8.46 bps 2026-06
Merchant Subscriptions - Closing1,57,00,000 No 2026-06
Total Payment Volume - Quarterly7,10,000 Rs Crs 2026-06
Average Monthly Loans Through Paytm4,400 Ths 2023-08
Ticket Size - Loans12,170.45 Rs 2023-08
Average Monthly Value of Loans Disbursed1,912.67 Crs 2025-03
Payment Processing Charges as a % of GMV0.11 % 2026-06
Monthly GMV/MTU24,583.33 Rs 2026-06
Advertisement Spend as a % of Total Sales6.9 % 2026-06
Business model

How the company earns

India's largest merchant-payments platform (1.57 cr subscription devices/Soundboxes, GMV Rs 7.1 lakh cr in Q1FY27, 8.0 cr monthly transacting users) that monetises payments via device subscriptions and net payment margin, and distributes merchant and personal loans plus insurance/wealth for lenders (financial services revenue Rs 814 cr, +45% YoY). After the RBI shut Paytm Payments Bank (Jan-2024 action; licence cancelled 24-Apr-2026), Paytm rebuilt on partner banks with a TPAP licence (Mar-2024) and a payment-aggregator licence for subsidiary Paytm Payments Services (2026). Consumer UPI GTV grew 45% YoY vs ~20% industry in Q1FY27.

Economics and valuation note (book)

TTM P/E 130x is not comparable to history (loss-making until FY26); stock at Rs 1,642 is ~4x the Mar-2024 post-RBI trough and near its 52-wk high of Rs 1,732. Computed EV/EBITDA on EV Rs 91,823 cr (mcap less Rs 13,529 cr cash) / TTM EBITDA Rs 630 cr - a growth multiple, not a value one. EV/EBITDA 145.8x; dividend yield 0.0%.

Competitive position · why this and not peers
PB Fintech (Policybazaar)PB Fintech trades at 110x TTM P/E and 11.3x book with 40% revenue growth but 7% EBITDA margin; Paytm has a comparable multiple with faster EBITDA scaling (record Rs 203 cr/qtr), Rs 13.5k cr net cash, and MDR/UPI policy optionality PB lacks.
Eternal (Zomato/Blinkit)Eternal is at 715x TTM P/E and 0.4% ROE with Blinkit burning cash to defend 1,955 dark stores in a price war; Paytm is already at positive EBITDA and PAT with no capex-heavy logistics network.
PhonePe / Google Pay (unlisted)Not investable; Paytm is the only listed Indian pure-play on merchant payments + lending distribution with a 1.57 cr device base.
Segment economics

Reported revenue mix

Product Wise Break-Up

share of revenue, %
  • Payment & Financial Services
    89.8%
  • Marketing Services
    9.8%
  • Others
    0.4%

Share of revenue as disclosed in filings (Tijori normalisation). Segment profit measure: not disclosed in this source — segment EBIT/EBITDA/PBT are not shown rather than estimated. Eliminations and unallocated costs not available here.

Loan Break-Up

share of revenue, %
  • Merchant Loans
    80.0%
  • Personal Loans
    37.4%
  • Postpaid Loans
    0.0%

Share of revenue as disclosed in filings (Tijori normalisation). Segment profit measure: not disclosed in this source — segment EBIT/EBITDA/PBT are not shown rather than estimated. Eliminations and unallocated costs not available here.

Location Wise Break-Up

share of revenue, %
  • India
    100.0%

Share of revenue as disclosed in filings (Tijori normalisation). Segment profit measure: not disclosed in this source — segment EBIT/EBITDA/PBT are not shown rather than estimated. Eliminations and unallocated costs not available here.

Industry cycle

Info Tech chapter

Info Tech — 6.5%: mostly not IT services

The internal "Info Tech" bucket holds four very different businesses and only one of them — Infosys, at 0.7% — is the tactical IT-services trade the house describes in its notes. That trade is deliberately small. Price a mature services company at zero terminal growth with 100% of profits paid out and an 8% required yield and the floor is about 12x earnings; the sector fell from roughly 30x toward that floor, which made a small dip worth buying. We see neither a case above 20x nor a collapse below 12x: a corridor of uncertainty held at 2–3% across the strategy, a position we expect to eventually exit. The reason the upside is capped is AI: the work does not go away (the back end of US banking still runs on 1970s books that must reconcile with new front ends) but far fewer people will be needed to do it. Infosys guides 1.5–3% constant-currency growth for FY27 with AI already 8% of revenue. The other three names are owned for entirely different reasons. Kaynes is electronics manufacturing — India's EMS market went from $10–12 bn in FY20 to $40–45 bn in FY25 and could exceed $150 bn by FY30 on the back of PLI, the ₹40,000 crore component scheme and import substitution. Paytm is a payments and lending platform in the world's largest real-time payment system (UPI: 24 bn transactions a month, +22%) whose regulator-inflicted crisis has passed. Indegene is a life-sciences commercialisation outsourcer riding the same $350 bn patent cliff as our pharma names — and its AI exposure is a tailwind, not a threat.

Datapoints the team can quote
  • Infosys FY27 guidance 1.5–3.0% CC growth (trimmed), margin 20–22%; Q1FY27 revenue $5,082 mn (+2.4% CC), large-deal TCV $3.6 bn, AI 8.2% of revenue — Company, Jul-2026
  • TCS AI revenue run-rate $2.6 bn with $9.5 bn AI order book; HCL annualised AI revenue $684 mn; Wipro guides −1.5% to +0.5% QoQ — Company releases, Q1FY27
  • India EMS market $40–45 bn (FY25) → >$150 bn by FY30; Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme outlay raised to ₹40,000 cr in Budget FY27 — KPMG, Jun-2026; PIB
  • UPI: 24.51 bn transactions worth ₹29.82 lakh cr in Aug-2026 (+22%/+20% YoY); MDR on large merchants proposed in the 2026 tax amendment bill — NPCI; Business Standard
  • Pharma commercialisation services market $138 bn (2023) → $212 bn (2029); $350 bn of branded revenue faces patent expiry 2025–29 — IDBI Capital, Jul-2026
What we deliberately do not own

We do not own TCS, HCL Tech or Wipro because if we are going to hold a small tactical position in a sector with a capped upside we want the cheapest large franchise with the cleanest AI narrative — Infosys. Dixon (2.6–3% margins, PLI 1.0 expired, ROCE falling) is volume without value; Syrma and Amber are priced higher than Kaynes on trailing earnings with lower margins. PB Fintech is priced at 90x+ for an insurance-distribution model; Eternal is a quick-commerce cash-burn story we hold only in the AIFs. Persistent and Sagility lack Indegene's domain moat.

Market position

Market share (where tracked)

Number of Accounts - Broking - Market Share1.72 %as of Aug 26
Payments Bank - Market Share17.10 %as of Mar 21
Payments for FASTags - Market Share28 %as of Mar 21
UPI Transactions - Market Share6.87 %as of Aug 26
Wallet Payment Transactions - Market Share70 %as of Mar 21
Sector datapoints

From the one-pager

  • UPI did >24,000 cr transactions worth Rs 314 lakh cr in FY26 (+30% volume, +21% value); August 2026 was a record 24.51 bn transactions worth Rs 29.82 lakh cr (+22%/+20% YoY), 791 mn/day (NPCI via Business Standard, 1-Sep-2026).
  • MDR: Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 (Aug-2026) keeps UPI free for consumers/P2P but permits MDR on large merchants above a turnover threshold (not finalised…
  • Government disbursed Rs 8,730 cr of UPI/RuPay merchant incentives from FY22 to FY25; Cabinet approved Rs 1,500 cr for low-value UPI incentives for FY25 - FY26/FY27 incentive amounts not verified.
  • Paytm discontinued PIDF device subsidy in Dec-2025; comparable (ex-PIDF) revenue grew 31% in Q1FY27.