Digital payments major PhonePe, which filed its draft prospectus in January, said that it spent Rs 455 crore in the first half of the current fiscal, compared to Rs 307 crore in the first six months of FY25.
The spends were primarily driven by increased expenses in the payments business followed by costs incurred in distributing the Indus app store, the company said in its filing documents.
PhonePe reported a net loss of Rs 1,444 crore in H1FY26 on an operating revenue of Rs 3,918 crore in the same period.
PhonePe’s competitor Paytm has been scaling its marketing spends gradually over the last three quarters of the current financial year. In the June quarter the company spent Rs 37 crore, which went up to Rs 50 crore in the September quarter and Rs 69 crore in the December quarter.
Asked about the steady increase in marcom spends during the analyst call after its December quarter results, the company’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said that this was aimed at garnering market share.
“We were bare minimum (in terms of ad spends) and we would do it (increase spends in a) calibrated (fashion),” Sharma added.
Paytm told the stock markets that the company would focus on its consumer payments business going forward and try to grow its UPI payments business. The Noida-headquartered firm closed the December quarter with a net profit of Rs 225 crore and an operating revenue of Rs 2,194 crore.
Another listed fintech major, PB Fintech, which runs the insurance marketplace Policybazaar and credit marketplace Paisabazaar, reported strong profits in the December quarter and pushed up its marketing expenses.
The company said that it spent Rs 308.5 crore in the December quarter up 6.5% from a year back. Over the previous quarters, the company was consistently spending around Rs 250 to 280 crore per quarter.
“We primarily promote four products: term and health insurance, child education, and pension products, all aimed at the social security of the middle class… (our) target is growth,” said Yashish Dahiya, group chairman, PB Fintech.
PB Fintech closed the December quarter with a total operating revenue of Rs 1,771 crore and a net profit of Rs 189 crore.
While promotions and marketing spends are driven by market opportunities and financial strength of the balance sheet, for fintechs these have always been key.
The sector primarily grew on the basis of incentives in its early years, be it P2P (person-to-person) UPI payments or merchant transactions. ET reported in April 2025 how the smaller UPI applications were focussing on cashbacks and incentives to gain market share on the network.
Industry insiders pointed out that with many of the large fintechs having reined in their employee expenses and factored in high Esop costs, they seem to be again focussing on new customer acquisition and core business growth. The stability in the country’s regulatory landscape is helping them in this, they added.