ShopBack’s earnings: 150% revenue growth + 5x advertising income

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Hi readers,

Here’s some news you didn’t sign up for: I finally bought my first stock yesterday!

While I own exchange-traded funds or ETFs, I’ve never purchased a company’s stocks. They just seem too risky, and I was scared to take the dive. That’s probably thanks to all the Hong Kong TV series I’ve watched that showed people going bankrupt because they bought the wrong stocks.

But when I recently read about a 14-year-old asking for stock advice on Reddit, I realized how behind the times I was. Many of my friends have also jumped into the investment game this year and well, peer pressure is real.

Financial management has become so important these days, and platforms that allow users to save and grow their money are poised to succeed. It’s no wonder then that cashback company ShopBack’s revenue grew over 150% in its last financial year.

Today we look at,

• ShopBack’s financial results and strategy shift
• The state of funding in Southeast Asia funding
• Other newsy highlights such as Singapore’s first car subscription platform and a top Indonesian bank’s $200m investment into its digital arm

PREMIUM SUMMARY

ShopBack on the up and up

If you enjoy money hacks, you might be familiar with ShopBack, one of Southeast Asia’s leading cashback platforms. Recently, the Singapore-based company released the results of its latest financial year, and the numbers are looking pretty good.

• Over 150% revenue growth: ShopBack’s revenue jumpedto US$75.8 million in the financial year ended March 2020 (FYE 2020) from US$28.4 million in FYE2019. A huge part of the revenue growth came from commission earned from customers who make a purchase with a merchant on ShopBack’s rewards platform.
• Losses doubled: On the flip side, the company’s operating loss hit US$38 million in FYE 2020 from US$19.7 million a year ago. The biggest expense came from the cost of services, which shot up over 2.5x year on year, followed by the cost of marketing as well as promotional and advertising activities.
• Friends: Pivot!: ShopBack has been changing gears to keep up with consumer demand. Case in point: The company launched a tool that allows users to search and compare millions of different products offered by merchants and also sold its personal finance community platform Seedly last year, earning a nearly 3x return from the sale.

Read more: ShopBack posts 150% revenue growth, earns 3x return on Seedly investment

PREMIUM SUMMARY

Southeast Asia raised a total of US$19.4 billion in the last year