Indonesian marketplace Bukalapak on Tuesday reported revenue of 864 billion rupiah ($60.6 million) for the first half of 2021, up 35% year-on-year (YoY), on the back of strong growth in its online to offline (O2O) business.
The IDX-listed company, which raised $1.5 billion in Indonesia’s biggest-ever IPO, also pared its losses during the period. Its net loss for the first half stood at 763 billion rupiah ($53.5 million), down 25.7% YoY.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the first six months of 2021 stood at negative 694 billion rupiah ($48.7 million), an improvement of 26.5% over the same period last year.
Revenue from Mitra Bukalapak, its O2O arm, surged over 350% YoY to 290 billion rupiah in H1 2021. At the end of June 2021, the number of registered Mitra, or agents on its platform, stood at 8.7 million, up from 6.9 million at the end of Dec 2020.
Mitra are primarily warungs, or street kiosks, and mom-and-pop shops that act as offline sellers of products offered by Bukalapak on its online marketplace. The Indonesian firm also connects these agents to FMCG distributors, helping them procure goods faster at competitive prices.
In line with the revenue growth, sales and marketing expenses for the Mitra segment rose nearly 65% YoY to 314 billion rupiah ($22 million) in the first half of 2021. Total marketing and sales expenses for Bukalapak during the period increased 14.6% from a year ago to 882 billion rupiah ($61.7 million).
Many analysts believe that Mitra Bukalapak will be the next growth engine for the company.
“The company enables warungs (Mitra) on several fronts and expands the range of products that they can offer, which makes its customers increasingly sticky,” wrote Angus Mackintosh, founder of CrossASEAN research, in a report.
The marketplace business, which is Bukalapak’s largest revenue contributor, booked revenue of $37.1 million in H1 2021, up 4% from $35.54 million a year ago. Its B2B procurement business Buka Pengadaan Indonesia (BPO) saw a revenue drop of 35.7% year-on-year to $4.91 million.
Bukalapak registered a 54% year-on-year increase in total processing value (TPV) in H1 2021 to 56.7 trillion rupiah (nearly $4 billion). The number of transactions and the average transaction value went up 15% and 34%, respectively, during the period.
Q2 earnings, Itemku acquisition
Bukalapak’s Q2 2021 revenue grew by 37% YoY to 440 billion rupiah ($30.8 million).
Mitra Bukalapak’s Q2 revenue surged over 290% YoY to 145 billion rupiah ($10.2 million), while the marketplace revenue grew 7% to 275 billion rupiah ($19.3 million).
Its EBITDA loss for the second quarter of 2021 stood at 407 billion rupiah ($28.5 million), a 31% improvement over Q2 2020.
Net loss for Q2 2021 also improved 31% YoY to 443 billion rupiah ($31 million).
In its earnings presentation, the company also said it had fully acquired Five Jack Pte Ltd, the company behind digital games marketplace Itemku. Bukalapak said it sees significant opportunities to cross-sell Itemku’s wide range of products to its user base.
Bukalapak said it had 2.7 trillion rupiah ($189.4 million) in cash and cash equivalents at the end of June 2021, before accounting for its net IPO proceeds of 21.3 trillion rupiah ($1.49 billion).
The company became the first Indonesian e-commerce unicorn to list on the local bourse in August this year. After the IPO, Emtek group is its largest shareholder with a 28.57% stake. China’s Ant Group holds a 13.05% stake in Bukalapak, while Singapore’s GIC owns 9.45%.
Bukalapak shares closed the trading day on Tuesday up 5.59% at 945 rupiah ahead of the announcement.