Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Salmia, moderator for the conference call. Welcome to 5paisa Capital Limited Q4 FY 2024 Earnings Conference Call. We have with us today Mr. Narayan Gangadhar, MD and CEO of 5paisa Capital Limited, and Mr. Gourav Munjal, Whole-time Director and CFO of 5paisa Capital Limited. As a reminder, all participants will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touch-tone telephone. Please note this conference is recorded. I would now like to hand over the floor to the management. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi everyone. Good afternoon and welcome to our Q4 2024 earnings call. On the call, I have with me Mr. Gourav Munjal, our CFO. In this quarter, quarter four of FY 2024, we acquired 2.66 lakh customers, reflecting a 15% quarter-on-quarter growth and a 96% growth year-on-year. Our total customer base reached 42.3 lakhs. During the past year, past quarter, our total average daily turnover grew to INR 3.82 trillion, 58% year-on-year growth. Our average client funding book stood at INR 358 crore, a growth of 13% quarter-on-quarter. Our mutual fund AUM reached INR 941 crore, a 18% quarter-on-quarter growth. We are happy to report that we have achieved our lifetime highest revenue in Q4 2024 of INR 112.9 crores, a 13% growth quarter-on-quarter and 24% growth year-on-year. Our Q4 profitability is down mainly due to RSU and ESOP costs for talent.
The costs associated with the RSUs and ESOPs are amortized over the first two years per Indian accounting standards, resulting in high upfront costs for talent acquisition. To capitalize on tailwinds from positive sentiments in the markets, we scaled our digital acquisition engine, resulting in 1.75x quarter-on-quarter growth in accounts. We scaled our digital engagement activities, implemented analytical models for cohort-level product targeting, and initiated various omnichannel engagement efforts. We were able to increase the count of active trader accounts in quarter four by 19% and by 38% over Q3 of FY 2024, and Q4 and FY 2023, respectively. Our NSE active customer base increased 9% quarter-on-quarter at the end of Q4 FY 2024. Our costs associated with the client acquisitions have been scaling very well with the launch of our digital engine.
We are able to recover the customer acquisition cost in the first year itself, and thereby we can attain better revenue multiples in the future, resulting in very strong lifetime value. Looking back at FY 2024, we have ended FY 2024 with our highest revenue of INR 395 crores and highest-ever PAT of INR 54 crores. Our employee costs have gone up by 51%, mainly due to onboarding of talent, and the finance costs have gone up by 39% year-on-year, mainly due to changes in exchange-related loss.
We continue to make significant advances in our technology and product. In our core mobile app, we have introduced new features such as the advanced order forms. For the first time, now users can view charts, orders, positions, and market depth on one single screen in our seamless mobile app. This innovative feature actually empowers traders to make faster decisions. We launched Trade Station 2.0.
This is our revamped web trading platform, which offers an enhanced user interface and a smoother experience for high-end traders. We have also partnered with TradingView to introduce tradingview.5paisa.com or tv.5paisa.com, a new platform offering advanced charting capabilities and seamless trading functionality. Users can enjoy various features such as direct order placement from charts, real-time P&L tracking, placing orders directly from market depth, etc. With comprehensive charting, tv.5paisa becomes the go-to platform for chart-based traders, providing cutting-edge trading experience. Finally, we continue to make great progress in developing and building our API ecosystem. We launched our Xstream API, which is our revamped API platform that offers a dedicated landing platform along with integrated documentation, collaborative capabilities, and much better support for key and credential management. We are still a technology-first. We are still in the growth phase.
As we pivot the company to a technology-first company, we are going to be in this space for some time. Demat Account penetrations continue to remain under 5%, and the market is growing very rapidly. So it's extremely important that we continue to scale our presence to establish a leadership position. Over the next year, we are going to be scaling our acquisitions and invest in building new products. We will be reinvesting our profits to scale our growth. While this will impact profitability in the short term, it will help us build a pipeline of sustainable revenue for the coming years. With this, I would like to open the meeting to any questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your turn to ask the question. If you would like to withdraw your request, you may do so by pressing star and one again. Our first question is from the line of Rishikesh Oza from Robo Capital. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is with respect to our orders. If you see, our orders have grown 39% year-on-year. But if you are to see the revenue growth, it has been lower at around 16%-17%. So can you please touch upon this, why there's a difference between the order growth and the revenue growth? Hello?
Please go ahead.
Okay. So Rishikesh, I was explaining that usually there is no one-to-one correlation between the number of orders and revenue because orders are of various types. And often an order unit is lumped into higher-level units like lots and such, which are used by high-end traders. Now, there's also other platforms through which we actually accept orders in our system. One of them is our API system, right? And orders which come from the API system have very different cost curves and very different modalities than orders that are coming from a mobile app. So that is really the explanation on why there is no one-to-one correlation between the orders and the revenue part.
Okay. Just one more question. Do we have an internal goal for achieving around 20% ROE? And by which year, if you could indicate that also, please?
See, actually, first, let's step back, right? I mean, we need to understand that over the last two years, as a company, we really actively were not focused on large-scale acquisition, as a result of which we have fallen behind the market in terms of new accounts which have been coming on board. So because of this, what happens is that our overall unit economics and numbers, they are not as strong as they would have been had we continued on that trajectory of growth. So the very first priority for the company is not getting an ROE. It is actually only growth. We have to continue scaling the growth. We have extremely strong unit economics. As I told you, we are breaking even well within the first nine months or eight months itself, right?
I only expect that number to get better. So my goal is, let's scale the business. Let's get more customers onto our platforms. We have an excellent range of products. And of course, as the business builds up, to answer your question, over a longer time, I expect our ROE to be very much in line with what you see at other tech companies. So that's the best I can answer. Clearly, the number that you see today is not where it will be.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from the line of Deepak Poddar from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, hi. Thank you very much, sir, for this opportunity. I just wanted to understand, what's the quantum of the ESOPs and RSU that you mentioned about that we have factored this quarter?
Yeah. So we have actually filed. There was a filing which was made. And if you refer to the exchange filing, this was made about a month ago.
In the month of?
In the month of February, we made this filing. So it's about 5.27%, right? Again, remember that this is a one-time hit. Now, because it is 5.27%, the amortization of that is going to hit the P&L for this coming financial year. And also, some of it will spill over into next year. But again, these are one-time costs. And as we get deeper, I don't expect this to happen again.
5.27%, I mean, what is in rupees crores?
No, no. 5.27% of our overall outstanding shares.
Shares. Basically, that ESOP pool is 5.27% related to this. This is Gourav Munjal speaking.
Yes. I mean, 5.27% of your outstanding shares. That's what?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Okay. I just wanted to know, what was the rupees crores impact that you took in this fourth quarter?
I think I mentioned in our investor presentation that is a INR 9.86 crore. If you read our investor presentation, it's INR 0.86 crores.
9.86 crores. INR 9.86 crores. Fair enough. We expect this similar run rate to continue for each quarter for FY 2025, right?
Yes. Yes. This is largely due to the way the Indian accounting laws and GAAP laws are structured. This is not, yeah. So that's that.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know that. I mean, so INR 10 crore is the impact that will be there because of this ESOP per quarter. And this will get extinguished in FY 2025 itself, or it will flow into FY 2026 as well?
Approximately 55% of the cost will be amortized in FY 2025. Remaining 30% cost will be amortized in next year. Then very small cost will come in third year, yeah?
Okay, okay. So some bit of cost will also come in FY 2026 as well. I mean.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Okay, okay. Understood, understood. And I mean, anything in terms of growth? I mean, what is the growth that we might be looking at over the next two, three years? I mean, you did mention that you are building new products, and even you would reinvest your profit into investment, right?
Yes. Yes.
How do we relate this with growth?
Yeah. So first of all, I think the impact on the costing is actually just an accounting entry. Just to be clear, there's no actual financial real net outflow, if you will. So now with that, let's go to the next point. See, if you look at the history of the company, right, and I said this in the earlier quarter as well, see, we have been historically growing only at between 14%-15%, or even lesser than that in the last year and the year before. And that's largely because our focus was to really temper down on acquisitions and kind of mute that rate of growth. But from here on out, I expect that as a company, we are aiming to hit between 35%-40% growth. At least we want to set the trajectory for that within the next two years.
Now, we can't do that kind of growth overnight because in our business, the cost of acquisitions have to scale in it has to scale within reason of the revenue. So this is one of the main reasons why our goal next year is to show definitely more growth than what we have seen this year and eventually get to that 30%-35% point very quickly.
Okay. What you're trying to say, FY 2025 growth will be higher than FY 2024. Whatever activities we are doing, we want to go to a trajectory of 30%-35% kind of a growth or 35%-40% kind of a growth in two years because of whatever is going to happen.
Yeah. We want to get to that.
We want to get to that kind of trajectory. Understood. And.
Yeah. That is our aspiration. But that broking is totally dependent upon that market situation. So we are assuming that market will be in our favor, to be honest.
Fair enough. And just one last thing. You also did mention that our profitability might be impacted because of this investment and whatever building new products. And ESOP cost will also kind of keep coming for the next four to eight quarters. So now, 18%, I think, is your reported EBITDA margin. And I'm trying to understand on the reported basis only. Adjusted, we can calculate. So this 18% is what or you can expect because of this investment, this 18% EBITDA margin can further reduce, basically.
See, there's two things, right? One is it depends on how fast we want to grow the business. So as I told you, right, in the last quarter, we mentioned an update that we are really very systematically building our new product pipeline. Now, as the product pipeline gradually comes to life, we are going to continue scaling our investment. So if you look, every quarter, we have systematically increased the number of accounts we have acquired. So we now want to get to that point where we can scale that further. And based on that, I think we can assume that we will always operate within that same EBITDA margin, of course, but this time including those costs. That is it. There's no silver lining here for that.
Okay. So maybe, I mean, considering the investment and this other one-off cost, the current margin that we have seen in fourth quarter, that is the range we might be looking at in coming quarter.
Yes. Yes.
Fair enough. That's very clear, sir. I think that's it from my side, sir. All the very best to you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Deepak.
Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Abhishek Saraf, an individual investor. Please go ahead, sir.
Am I audible?
Yeah. Yes, you're audible, Mr. Saraf.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question, sir. So I have just a few follow-on questions. So first, like you said, that you would want to reach the ROE level of some of your industry peers. So given that we will be in growth trajectory, growth mode of 30%+ in the next two years, and which will, I presume, come more on the back of higher acquisition rather than getting deeper into existing customers. So do you think that we would be able to hit that kind of ROE if I say we're the only listed pure-play broker? They have 30%+ kind of ROE. So is it fair to say that that kind of ROE would be reachable after two, three years? That is one question.
And secondly, if you can also give us some understanding on how you are trying to invest in technology, what kind of investments you are looking so that the bogey of the past few years is behind us, and we are able to be in front of customers with the products that we have.
Right. Excellent question. So, Mr. Saraf, see, actually, first, let me answer by speaking.
Let me answer by speaking, but.
Hello?
Hello.
Yeah. Can you hear me, Mr. Saraf?
Yes, I can hear you, sir. Yes.
Yeah. So see, let's actually look at the total number of clients we have, okay? So we have only about a base of 42 lakhs, okay? So even if we were to take the most conservative approach, trying to squeeze and trying to get a sustainable business out of 42 lakhs is really not a winning proposition at all. So the real problem is that our latent customer base is extremely, extremely low. Now, compare this relative to many of the brokers that you have just mentioned on this call, right? Almost all of them, many of them are even acquiring these kind of numbers within one quarter itself. So that tells you that over the years, the real issue is that we have really we have not accelerated acquisitions as fast as we should have. And this is the main reason the base of the ROE is low.
Honestly, the base of ROE is likely to be low even if we don't spend because at the end of the day, there isn't enough cash coming into the company in terms of recurring revenue to support that rate of growth. So we have to now, coming to your question, for the next year and the next two years, we have to slowly scale our acquisition pipeline. So when I joined the company, we were hardly acquiring 20,000-25,000 accounts a month. And I think you guys know that. It was documented, right? I mean, we were talking about it. I think it was only 13,000 or 14,000 when I joined. Today, we are clocking on an average of about 70,000-80,000. I want to get that to about 1.5-2 lakhs.
Now, but that has to be done systematically because we are not, as you know, our strategy is not rapid-fire acquisition like many other brokers. Because if you look at results from other brokers, you will clearly see that the RPC is on a decline. The RPO is on a decline. So we have to do it in a way that makes sense. So this is why we will not be able to, we will not actually be growing our customer base irresponsibly. So with that context, just coming back, what I see is over the next two years, in fact, just one year, I would say, right, as we start building some of the baseline efforts, I think the ROE metric by default will start improving.
But you will start seeing industry standard or better than industry standard numbers in a few years because we are spending extremely responsibly. That's very clearly evident from our other costs. You should look at some of the other costs also in our P&L because if you look, everything else is scaling pretty, it's scaling at a lower rate compared to our rate of growth. That's something to keep in mind.
Sure, sir. Thanks for that. Just one other question related to this. So obviously, we all know that the pool is very large and the big untapped pool of, but given the kind of tightening that's been come through and across the board, regulators have been tightening norms for most of the financial services players, be it on the F&O derivatives side or even, and given that a lot of retail F&O is not earning money. And with the latest thing that happened, if you know, a US hedge fund which kind of had great profits from the Indian market. So probably the counterparty could be. Means it's a presumption, could be a lot of retail. And given that the algos are getting finer by the day, and it becomes really more difficult to bring in profit in P&L for retail.
So how do you think this will evolve? mean, obviously, we have to have a certain pool of retail investors who should always be interested. So what are your thoughts on these developments and how this can impact? Would it mean that the algos of the retail investors also have to become much more sharper now? And what all can be done from the brokers then to do that?
Thank you for asking this question. Actually, first, let me start by saying that what happened with Jane Street, I think that's what you're referring to. See, the whole Jane Street situation and the hedge fund breakout that happened, it clearly shows that it clearly shows only two things, that there is enough alpha in the market for people like that to create strategies and actually get liquidity out of it. Now, obviously, that is not our business, and it's not something that we can comment on. But it shows that there is volatility and depth. Now, coming back to our business, you are spot on that the retail market is going to grow, but perhaps the rate will be muted as we look at how the economy performs over the coming years.
See, our business, one of the main bets we are making is we are investing heavily, heavily in our digital acquisition businesses and also digital fulfilling businesses, which means the API business, the programming business, and so on. So these are new verticals that we are going to build and that we have already actually built. But we are going to scale and invest more time in building those. And they don't serve the retail clients. They actually serve only proper high-end traders. And this is really what 5paisa is known for. Our product is it's good for retail, but it's excellent, mainly only for the trading community. And that's where we are focused on. Of course, we'll always want to have a position in retail. We don't want to fall to the position we are in right now.
But our goal is always going to be to build for the traders.
Okay. Okay. So if I got it right, means it's more about more defined traders rather than the retail investors who could be new to the market, right?
Yeah. Because our brand is anyway actually, it's one of the top three brands for traders only. If you do most surveys, that's the only that's one profile where we clearly are winning. Now, of course, we haven't really delivered enough features in the last year, which is why the traders are not so happy. But as we pick up our pace of innovation, I think we can easily cement that position.
Okay. That's good to hear, sir. Just one last one, if you can help me understand your thoughts. How do you think that on the regulatory front, obviously, the regulatory tightness of scrutiny that so always hangs in financial industry? But now we are seeing that generally, across all the sectors, the regulatory scrutiny has increased. So how would you place your business in that light, let's say, versus last year and today? How would the regulatory dispensation have been? And where do you see it going forward?
So, I see the regulatory pressures only, I think, first of all, it's good for the whole industry. I think it's going to impact everybody. I mean, not just us, right? But it's going to impact in a positive way. Now, that said, a lot of the brokers we have been doing business, and a lot of them have not really invested that much in technology. So there are obviously gaps along the way, which we are discovering. So I expect that this is not just true for us. This is true for almost every broker. I expect penalties and all these things to go up while people get their act together and get systems in order and whatnot.
So I expect that there'll be some extra hit to profitability, but not very material, but there will be just because of the cost of business is going to go up. For example, our infrastructure cost went up this quarter because we had to build 2x redundancy. Now, this is a new change that came from the experience, right? So I expect that these kind of things will happen. But over time, it will get absorbed in the cost of business. And it's a good thing for the customer.
Okay. Thanks a lot for your kind answers, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, Abhishek. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. So firstly, when you mentioned about your customer acquisition strategy wherein you mentioned that you wouldn't go all out, but still, give us when you say that you will go from 70,000 to 1.5-2 lakhs kind of a run rate, what would your strategy be? What kind of cohorts you would be looking at, age cohorts, income cohorts? What is that you would be looking at? Is it a more slightly age group of 30+ or income profiling, something if you can what is your target base that you are looking at? That would be my first question.
Yeah. So see, we actually don't discuss those. Sorry, someone is on. There's a lot of background noise. Can you please mute? Yeah. So as I was saying, so there is okay. So basically, when they discuss, so there is a lot of background noise in your thing. Please redial and join the queue.
You're asking me?
Yeah.
Just from your line, sir. Prayesh, sir, it's from your line.
All right. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Sumit Jankar, an individual investor. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you for providing me the opportunity. What is currently our cash and derivatives market share? What is mentioned previously, I think it is cash market share, right?
Sorry, can you repeat your question, sir? I could not understand your question.
My question is, what is our current cash and derivatives market share? How much percentage of revenue both of them contribute in broking?
So currently, our cash and derivative market share stands between 2%-3%. And this is largely reflective of the fact that our median acquisition over the last three years has been only under 3% of the market. So the reason you see the acquisition number usually tracks the market share number. Or the market share number usually tails the acquisition number. So it's whichever way you see it. And now your question about how we get the revenue split between the two. So we don't really talk about those details because those are very internal to our strategy. And it's important for us to maintain that competitive intelligence on how we slice our revenue pipe, right? But I can say that it's a pretty healthy mix as of this point. And the way it's not that different than what you see in the market.
Okay. So maximum must be in derivatives, right?
Yeah. I mean, usually, because the action is in derivatives. But also, we have a good business on cash. It's not like there's that that's not there.
Okay. One last question. I see a market share a little bit dropping quarter and quarter. And you said that you will be increasing your acquisition rate from INR 70,000 to around INR 150,000. So will it also reflect in market share? What number you think is good for acquisition that market share also keeps growing and it provides good business?
So generally, see, this is a function of how fast the market is growing and how fast we are growing. If we see that by acquiring, say, 100,000 customers, if we see that the quality of the customers is weak, then we are obviously not going to continue acquiring. Because our goal is not really to just go after acquiring customers. We want to acquire quality customers. Now, that said, I think you can generally assume that if your acquisition rate is, let's say, 4% or 5%, then it will take you about eight or nine months for your market share to catch up to that number. So you may start in the first quarter, let's say if in today's month, your market share was, say, 4%.
You went on increasing that to 5% in the next month and the month after and so on. You got to wait for about nine months for the whole cycle to complete, and you will then start seeing your overall market share reflect back. So it's how it generally goes in the industry, largely because customers take a quarter or two to settle down. By the time the peak trade starts, that usually only is in the second or third quarter. Because by then, the consumer has learned how to use your app and become more familiar and had time to define the strategy and things like that. So it's just a question of that, function of time.
Okay. Thank you for a very detailed answer. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir. We have a follow-up question from Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead, sir.
Is my audio clear now?
Now it is clear.
Okay. Perfect. So my question was on what is the kind of cohorts that you would be looking at to acquire customers when you say that you want to move from 75,000 kind of a run rate to more like 1.5-2 lakhs? What is the kind of cohorts that you would be looking at when you say quality customers? So what is it that you're looking at?
So this is the same as the cohort based in the rest of the industry. We see that, for example, almost 40% of the business sorry, almost 60% of the business comes from Tier 1. We say that almost 30%-40%, the rest of it comes from Tier 2 and 3. So our acquisition strategy also will reflect the same thing. As far as cohorts are concerned, see, in India, there is not much data available on cohorts because the system it's not a we don't have a fully integrated digital stack yet. There is no fully integrated digital identity stack. So while we report on cohorts and such, the reality is that there's no validation of that. So you can assume that the cohorts will always be similar to what I'm seeing right now. I don't see that as changing very dramatically.
But as I said, just please remember that our goal is we are a platform for traders. We are not in the business of acquiring numbers for the sake of numbers. I told the number largely because I feel like we can go to that scale. But if we discover that while acquiring at that scale, if the RPC is low, then we are not going to do what the other brokers are doing. We are going to stop the acquisition and scale it back.
Hello?
Yes.
Yeah. When you say RPC is low, what is the kind of threshold that you would be looking at?
See, again, those are decisions that we make that I make them very dynamically. And this is very because it's internal data, we really don't talk much about it. But just you can assume that if you just look at our revenue number and just divide it by the total number of customers, you can come up with some rough approximation of what kind of data we're looking at.
So generally, it is about the lifetime value of the customer rather than the first year revenue, right? So you have, in fact, given a chart. So how do you kind of judge the customer? You rightly mentioned that we don't have data stacks in India that can support your thesis on acquiring quality customers. How would you kind of gauge that a customer's lifetime value could be, say, the current that you've mentioned is 5x of FY 2020? The customer who's been in the system for five years is 5x of its customer acquisition cost, right? Whether that kind of lifetime value the customer can generate for you, how do you kind of judge that?
See, first of all, we have backtested our data historically. When we backtest our data and when we look at the analysis, this number that we have reported in the earnings sheet not in the earnings sheet, in the investor deck, that's actually representative of actual numbers, okay? So that definitely tells you that our customer so the reason we put that slide there is because I want the market to know that 5paisa customers are of the exact same quality as any of the other top brokers. Because everybody else I'm especially talking about the top three. If you look at the cohort system, if you look at the lifetime value for the three brokers who are ahead of us, the India's largest three, and you compare their LTV to my LTV, it is exactly the same.
In fact, for some cohorts, my LTV goes up to 7x because we have some heavy because, as I said, we are a platform for traders. Now, to answer your question, how do I ensure it stays that way? See, that can be done that is done usually in two ways. One is that we monitor the early trading behavior of the customer. We see how that customer is performing. Usually, within the first 15 days, we have a very good idea of how the person is trading. And within the first month, a behavior is formed. So at least we know some sense. Now, the customer is going to take about, say, a quarter or two to settle down, understand the app and whatnot, and wait for the strategy or whatever he wants to buy and sell.
Now, that's not in our control, but the behaviors are understood early on. So that means based on that, we have a good sense of how the market performs. And usually, because the market is so underpenetrated, I think you can safely assume that this kind of trading behavior that you see is likely only going to continue because this has been this LTV number goes all the way back to 2016, 2017 as well. Although we have not put that data in here, there's a lot of historical backtesting which validates this theory. And the markets also stay the same. The trading behavior always is generally the same, even in up and down markets. So that also doesn't impact this too much.
But the key takeaway point, answer to your question, is our LTVs are bang on in line, and our customers are also bang on in line with the rest of the industry. And this is one of our greatest, greatest assets. Plus, we continue to acquire high-quality customers. And plus, as I have already told you, on a unit level, we are fully, fully profitable. So yeah, hopefully, that answers your question.
Got that. But if I look at your business growth, the number of orders has been in a very narrow range in the last three quarters. In that period, market has done really well, right? Which basically gives me the trading activity is on the lower side at your end as compared to what the industry so what would be the reasons you would ascribe to? At the rate of acquisition.
See, that's talking about the number of orders. I'm talking about.
No, no. That's what I'm saying. Correct. I know. But just hear me out.
Because if you look at the trade, the order, the number of orders doesn't just scale by the acquisition that we do in that quarter or that year. You need a basic latent pool of cohorts ready to go that are trading for you. 93% of every broker's new business the new business only comprises 10% of the orders. Please remember that, okay? So the total number of new business [Foreign language]. So 85% is coming from old guys. Now, if you look at my rate of acquisition last year, it was hardly 1%. We dropped to an incremental market share of 1.4% when I joined the company. So clearly, that drop is reflecting today.
That drop reflects in the number of orders. If you see the same data in another eight months, you will see a completely different story. So what I'm trying to say is that because the latent base was so low, there is no way even if I acquired 20 lakh customers a month, this is not going to go. This is not going to go up because as a percentage, it's a much smaller pie. So this is why we have in our business, it's very critical to keep that sustainable rate of growth going. And that was one of the strategic mistakes we made in the prior years, which we are fixing this year. Now, it takes a year to fix that kind of a mistake because we have to build the digital infrastructure. We have to scale it and whatnot. This is where we are at.
Got that. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. I repeat, ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. There are no further questions. Now, I hand over the floor to the management for closing comments.
Thank you very much for attending this quarter's earnings call. We are grateful for your participation. As we have discussed on this call, 5paisa's brand and 5paisa's penetration with the trading community continues to be good. We are planning to invest and scale in building new products for the trading community over the coming years. We are going to be reinvesting our profits to support growth. While this is likely to impact profitability in the short term, we are fully profitable, and we are fully at the right spot in terms of unit economics to support scale. We are extremely bullish on scaling our acquisition system on scaling our acquisition channels, launching newer products, and increasing our market penetration. We are looking forward to this growth over the coming years. With this, I would like to close the meeting. Thank you very much for your participation.
Thank you so much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using Door-Sabha's conference call service. You may all disconnect your lines now. Thank you and have a pleasant evening.