The company’s net loss, however, widened 24% on year to Rs 147 crore during the period.
Hike’s operating revenue primarily includes earnings from platform fees it charges users playing real-money games on its Rush app. It also includes income from membership fees for joining the app’s loyalty programme.
Hike’s overall expenses surged to Rs 299 crore in FY23, up 114% on year from Rs 140.45 crore in the previous fiscal. This increase was mainly driven by higher employee salaries, server costs and marketing expenses, regulatory filings for its India entity sourced from Tofler showed. The company’s parent is based in Singapore.
The firm’s marketing expenditure increased fourfold, rising to Rs 142 crore in FY23 from Rs 36 crore a year ago. Its staff costs were up 46% on year to Rs 104 crore, while server costs jumped 62% on year to Rs 13 crore.
The company enables online gaming via its mobile app, featuring a range of games such as cricket, pool royale, archery, football and various board games.
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The gaming platform claims on its website to have more than 6.7 million monthly active users with an annualised gross revenue of $574 million. The company is backed by investors such as Tiger Global, SoftBank, Foxconn and Tencent. In August, Hike had let go of around 55 employees, comprising almost a fifth of its workforce. This action was taken to mitigate the effects of the goods and services tax (GST) hike on online gaming.
The government’s decision to increase GST to 28%, applied to the entire face value of betting amounts used in online gaming, has affected many real-money gaming companies. In August last year, Bengaluru-based Mobile Premier League (MPL) had laid off 350 of its employees.
Hike earlier operated as a messaging app and became a unicorn in 2016 after securing $175 million in funding. The company has raised a total funding of $261 million over eight rounds, according to data from market research firm Tracxn.