Mamaearth parent clocks first-ever profit as revenue jumps fourfold

By Nikhil Patwardhan

  • 11 Jan 2022

Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd, parent of Mamaearth and The Derma Co, which recently joined the unicorn club, has turned profitable in 2020-21 (FY21) after the D2C (direct-to-consumer) company’s revenue surged more than four times during the period. 

Honasa Consumer reported a net profit of Rs 24.6 crore for FY21 against a net loss of Rs 5.9 crore in 2019-20 (FY20), the company’s filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) show. During the period, the company’s revenue from operations jumped to nearly Rs 461 crore against Rs 109.7 crore a year earlier, which helped the company’s bottomline, even as the company’s total expenses jumped nearly fourfold to Rs 430 crore. The numbers reported by Honasa Consumer were on a standalone basis. 

The company’s exports, albeit on a low-base, saw exponential growth in FY21. The company clocked exports worth Rs 8.2 crore in FY21 against Rs 86 lakh in FY20. Share of exports in the company’s total operating revenues grew to 1.8%, from 0.9% a year earlier.

Honasa Consumer becomes one of the very few unicorns such as Nykaa and OfBusiness to turn profitable in India. While Honasa Consumer had not managed to clock a profit even at EBITDA (earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation)-level until FY20, a strong growth in its financials for FY21 suggests that demand for D2C products has surged since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

Bombay Shaving Company, another D2C brand, is eyeing profitability by next financial year, the company’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer had told VCCircle last week. 

Honasa Consumer had turned unicorn (a private company with over $1 billion valuation) after raising $52 million from Sequoia Capital affiliate, making it the 44th unicorn since January last year. The company had said that it would be using the funds for inorganic growth and to launch new brands and expand its portfolio.

The company, which currently has a portfolio of 140 products under Mamaearth and 40 products under The Derma Co, is eyeing to become a ‘house of brands,’ a strategy that is gaining popularity as many new-age brands are acquiring companies to expand product offerings. 

Recently, Honasa Consumer had acquired content platform Momspresso and Momspresso’s influencer engagement platform MyMoney in a bid to bet on the content-to-commerce community.