Exotel, a cloud phone platform based in Bengaluru, reported flat growth for the fiscal year that ended in March 2024. The business greatly strengthened its financial position, reducing losses by more than 60%, even as revenue remained flat. Strategic cost-cutting initiatives, especially in the areas of advertising and employee perks, were the main driver of this improvement. Exotel's consolidated annual financial accounts, which were obtained from the Registrar of Companies, demonstrate that its operating revenue rose 5.7% to Rs 444 crore in FY24 from Rs 420 crore in FY23.
Exotel offers cloud-based SMS and voice contact center solutions that let companies effectively handle client interaction. Providing internet-enabled cloud communication services is its main source of income. Additionally, Exotel generates revenue from chatbot services, software licensing, and the sale of its products, which include mobile applications, browser extensions, software development kits, and APIs.
The income division of the aforementioned services has not been offered by Exotel. Nonetheless, in FY24, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa accounted for 14% of its total revenue. In addition, the business generated Rs 16 crore, mostly from interest on investments and deposits, bringing its total revenue in FY24 to Rs 460 crore as opposed to Rs 447 crore in FY23.
Telephone and postal expenses accounted for 39% of the cloud-based voice and SMS contact center company's total expenses, which rose 10.2% to Rs 195 crore in FY23. Exotel was able to control its employee perks, which decreased by 24% to Rs 186 crore in FY24 from Rs 245 crore in FY23.
It's important to remember that Exotel laid off 15% of its employees in FY24. The total expenditure dropped from Rs 555 crore in FY23 to Rs 499 crore in FY24 due to a reduction in advertising, legal, payment gateway, travel, information technology, and other overheads as well.
Notwithstanding the little expansion in scope, the business was able to keep costs under control, which caused its losses to drop from Rs 109 crore in FY23 to Rs 43 crore in FY24, a 60.6% decrease. Fintrackr reports that Exotel's FY24 EBITDA losses were Rs 16 crore.
Exotel's ROCE and EBITDA margins were -8.9% and -3.48%, respectively, while its expense-to-revenue ratio was Rs 1.12. The yearly records show that as of March 2024, its cash and bank balances were Rs 206 crore, while its total current assets were listed at 379 crore.
Knowlarity, which is owned by Gupshup, MyOperator, Ozonotel, Tata Communications, and a few others are direct rivals of Exotel.
