Mohalla Tech, the parent company of the vernacular social networking platform ShareChat and the short video entertainment app Moj, reported 33% year-on-year growth in the fiscal year ended March 2024. Its adjusted EBITDA loss also fell by 67% during the same time. According to the company's press release, Mohalla Tech's operating revenue climbed to Rs 718 crore in FY24 from Rs 540 crore in FY23.
Revenue from live streaming accounted for 56% of the company's overall operating income, which increased by 41.4% to Rs 403 crore in FY24. Advertising accounted for the remaining part, which increased 23.5% year on year to Rs 315 crore in FY24.
ShareChat also added a non-operating income of Rs 29 crore, primarily from interest and gains on financial assets, bringing the total revenue to Rs 747 crore in the previous fiscal year. Server costs were the social media company's major cost area in FY24. According to Sharechat's chief financial officer, Manohar Charan, the company managed to cut this expense by 50% in FY24.
Sharechat was able to lower their employee benefits costs by 17% to Rs 580 crore in FY24. This includes Rs 126 crore in ESOPs (non-cash). Its advertising, legal, travel, and other overheads increased overall operating expenses to Rs 1540 crore in FY24 from Rs 3119 crore in FY23.
All non-cash components are omitted from the overall cost calculation for FY24 and FY23, including interest, provisions, foreign exchange (FX) losses, depreciation, and ESOP charges.
Mohalla Tech's 33% growth and managed server costs enabled them to minimize adjusted EBITDA losses by 67% to Rs 793 crore in FY24 from Rs 2400 crore in FY23. Notably, the firm's net consolidated losses were Rs 1,898 crore in FY24, down from Rs 5,143 crore in FY23.
ShareChat, which is backed by Temasek Holdings, Google, Twitter, The Times Group, Tiger Global, Snap, Lightspeed, and Elevation Capital, claims to have more than 325 million monthly active users (MAUs) across all platforms. Its short video app, Moj, has approximately 160 million monthly active users.
The company recently raised $65 million in debt, including $16 million from Singapore-based EDBI. According to startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, ShareChat raised approximately $1.3 billion. However, its valuation fell significantly from $5 billion to less than $2 billion during its most recent financing in June 2022.
As part of its mid-year performance cycle, the corporation also let off 5% of its personnel in August this year. In 2023, ShareChat implemented a number of cost-cutting measures and fired off 700 staff in two parts.
