Zerodha, the online stock broking platform, announced a substantial increase in its net profit for the financial year 2022-23, recording a 39 percent growth to reach Rs 2,907 crore compared to the previous fiscal year’s figure of Rs 2,094.3 crore. The company also reported a noteworthy 38.5 percent surge in its revenue, totaling Rs 6,875 crore for the same period, compared to Rs 4,964 crore in the preceding year. Zerodha, often described as a “bootstrapped unicorn,” also achieved a profit of Rs 2,094 crore in the previous fiscal year.
Founder and CEO of Zerodha, Nithin Kamath, acknowledged the remarkable growth in FY 22/23 but noted that the business has somewhat plateaued in terms of revenue and profitability for the current fiscal year.
Despite increased trading activity in futures and options (F&O), Kamath pointed out that the total number of people engaging in F&O trading remains relatively small. Zerodha, India’s largest retail broking firm, maintains an active client base of approximately 64 lakh as of August this year, a figure that has remained unchanged for the past 18 months.
Kamath emphasized that around 45 lakh Indians traded in F&O once a year in the previous year, which represents a small subset of the broader demographic of investors and traders in India. Approximately 3 percent of individuals with a Demat account and 15 percent of those who traded in the market engaged in F&O trading last year. Despite competition from emerging discount broking firms like Groww and Upstox, Zerodha intends to continue charging onboarding and maintenance fees.
Zerodha’s commitment to charging these fees is based on the belief that trading in financial markets carries significant risks, and collecting fees at the outset helps set the expectation that trading and investing are serious endeavors, filtering out less committed customers.
