Paytm's profit jumps tenfold to about $27 million in three months

Paytm, the Indian payments app, earned a profit of Rs 225 crore in the three months to September. A year earlier it earned Rs 21 crore. That is the sixth profitable quarter in a row. Revenue rose 28% to Rs 2,648 crore. A crore is an Indian unit equal to 10 million, and a lakh is 100,000. The company reported the results on Oct 26.

What changed

The company also reported a record operating profit figure, called EBITDA, of Rs 270 crore, up 90%. It is a rough measure of profit from running the business itself. Its margin hit 10%, the first time in double digits. For the first half of the fiscal year, profit more than tripled to Rs 445 crore from Rs 144 crore.

One caveat matters. Last year's numbers included a government incentive from the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund, which Paytm received until December 2025. Without it, the company says revenue grew 33% and EBITDA nearly quadrupled. The margin rose from 3% to 10%.

Users and payments

Monthly transacting users rose by 1 crore to 8.5 crore, the biggest gain in nearly three years. Paytm's UPI payment value grew 42%, while the industry grew 19%. UPI is India's real-time payment system. Payment services revenue rose 25% to Rs 1,434 crore. Merchants on subscription plans grew by 27 lakh to 1.64 crore.

Loans and fees

Revenue from distributing financial products grew 49% to Rs 912 crore. That includes merchant loans, personal loans and Paytm Postpaid, plus Margin Trade Funding and Paytm Gold. Repeat borrowers made up more than half of merchant loan disbursements. Key financial services customers grew 35% to 8.8 lakh. Paytm says steady merchant retention, payments and loans together lift revenue per merchant.

The AI angle

Paytm says it now uses AI models and agents in risk management, collections, fraud prevention and personalisation, among other areas. It says indirect costs fell to 46% of revenue from 52% a year ago. The company has also started offering its AI platform to enterprise merchants. Its cash balance stood at Rs 13,617 crore as of September 2026.

What it means

For shop owners and small fintech firms, the pattern is plain. Payments bring in the customer, loans and other products add income, and software tools hold down costs. The figures come from Paytm's own earnings release. It does not say how much of the cost drop comes from AI alone.