Baby products unicorn FirstCry’s revenue jumps 66% in FY20 even as losses shrink whopping 82%

SoftBank-backed omnichannel unicorn retailer for baby products FirstCry has reported a 65.8 per cent jump in its FY20 revenue to Rs 887.5 crore from Rs 535 crore during FY19. Its net loss also decreased a whopping 82.5 per cent to Rs 162.7 crore from Rs 932.7 crore during the said period, according to its annual financials sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler. Launched in 2010, FirstCry’s total expenses also decreased 28 per cent from Rs 1,469 crore in FY19 to Rs 1,050 crore in FY20 of which share of Purchases of Stock or goods in Trade was Rs 752.2 crore. FirstCry competes with HopScotch and horizontal marketplaces including Flipkart and Amazon in its segment.

The business growth reflected the overall improvement in the e-commerce segment post the unlock period as consumers thronged the online shopping portals amid the pandemic and the following lockdown that resulted in the pent-up demand. Amid the Covid scare and safety concerns, online shopping was the preferred channel for customers to discover, browse and shop products across categories including apparel, grocery, medicines, etc., and services such as doctor consultation, education, and more. Replacing wardrobe for infants and toddlers who outgrew their garments during the lockdown phase was also the reason for e-commerce platforms to witness a jump in online purchases by parents.

FirstCry has raised $428.4 million so far across eight funding rounds including the $148.12 million secured from SoftBank in February this year and counts Mahindra Rise, Temasek, Kris Gopalakrishnan, others among its 14 investors, according to Crunchbase. According to the company portal, it has over 2 lakh unique products across 6,000 brands and more than 400 stores in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Delhi. The company claimed to engage with 13 million ‘unique parents’ every month.

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FirstCry had acquired BabyOye retail brand from Mahindra in 2016 followed by launching FirstCry Parenting service in 2017. It forayed into the UAE market in 2019. The online childcare market grew to around $500 million in FY19 out of the overall around $22 billion childcare product market that is likely to grow at a CAGR of around 13 per cent to around $39 billion till FY23, according to RedSeer.