Amazon Pay India FY26 Loss Widens 33% to Rs 1,149 Cr
Amazon Pay India's FY26 loss widened 33% to Rs 1,148.5 crore even as revenue rose 18.5%. Its UPI share fell to 0.39% as Navi and BHIM raced ahead.
By Avinash Mishra, Business Correspondent
4 min read
Quick Take
- Amazon Pay India’s net loss widened 33% to Rs 1,148.5 crore in FY26.
- Revenue rose 18.5% to Rs 2,484.4 crore, but expenses grew faster at 22%.
- Its UPI share fell to 0.39% in August 2026, behind Navi and BHIM.
In this story4 sections
Amazon Pay India’s net loss widened 33% to Rs 1,148.5 crore in FY26, the year ended March 2026. Revenue grew, but costs grew faster.
Operating revenue rose 18.5% to Rs 2,484.4 crore, according to regulatory filings sourced by the business intelligence platform Tofler. That reversed a fall the year before.
The loss is the real story. It had shrunk for three straight years. In FY25 it narrowed to Rs 865.7 crore. This year it jumped by nearly Rs 283 crore.
Why did the loss widen?
Costs outran income. Total expenses rose 22% to Rs 3,741.1 crore in FY26. Revenue could not keep pace.
Two line items did most of the damage. Payment-processor fees jumped 35% to Rs 1,140.6 crore. These are the fees Amazon Pay India pays banks and networks to move each rupee.
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Advertising and sales-promotion spending rose 11% to Rs 1,767.6 crore. Together these two costs made up nearly four-fifths of total expenses.
Amazon Pay India spent Rs 1.53 to earn every rupee of operating revenue during the year, Entrackr reported. Its return on capital employed stood at minus 53.7%.
How does this compare to last year?
The FY26 numbers break a three-year trend. Amazon Pay India had cut its losses each year since FY23. That run has now ended.
The table below shows the swing. Revenue is up. The loss is up too.
| Metric | FY25 | FY26 |
|---|---|---|
| Operating revenue | Rs 2,096.6 Cr | Rs 2,484.4 Cr |
| Total expenses | Rs 3,060.8 Cr | Rs 3,741.1 Cr |
| Net loss | Rs 865.7 Cr | Rs 1,148.5 Cr |
| Employee cost | Rs 213.4 Cr | Rs 224.9 Cr |
| EBITDA loss | Rs 911.2 Cr | Rs 1,227.4 Cr |
Payroll barely moved. Staff cost rose to Rs 224.9 crore from Rs 213.4 crore. So the extra spending went on processing and marketing, not people.
Where does Amazon Pay stand in UPI?
Amazon Pay India has fallen down the UPI table. It processed 95.93 million UPI transactions in August 2026. That was just 0.39% of all UPI volume, according to National Payments Corporation of India data.
Newer rivals have passed it. Navi, owned by Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal, overtook Amazon Pay in UPI volumes. So did BHIM, the app run by the National Payments Corporation of India itself.
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PhonePe and Google Pay still lead by a wide margin. The two hold well over four-fifths of the market between them. Amazon Pay India sits far behind, despite a decade in the market and about $1 Bn in funding from its parent.
The gap is telling. Amazon Pay has scale inside Amazon’s shopping app. It has not turned that into UPI share.
What is Amazon Pay doing next?
Amazon Pay India is shifting toward credit. The company is pushing lending, Pay Later and insurance to lift margins. Payments alone do not pay.
It won a payment aggregator licence from the Reserve Bank of India in February 2024. That lets it process and settle payments for merchants directly.
Amazon Pay India also runs a prepaid wallet and Unified Payments Interface. It handles bill payments, recharges, ticketing, insurance and lending across partners. The credit push is where it now hopes to make money.
What this means for you
If you are a fintech founder, watch Amazon Pay’s pivot to credit, not its UPI count, because lending is where a low-share wallet can still build a profitable business.
StartupFeed Insight
The Rs 1,148.5 crore loss is not the headline. The headline is that Navi and BHIM both passed Amazon Pay in a year, dropping it to 0.39% UPI share. A decade in, with $1 Bn spent, Amazon Pay India spends Rs 1.53 to earn each rupee. That math does not scale. The pivot to lending and insurance is the only sensible read of these numbers. Expect Amazon Pay to stop chasing UPI volume and report credit metrics, not transaction counts, in its FY27 filing due late 2027. Watch the Pay Later book, not the leaderboard.
— Avinash Mishra, Business Correspondent
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Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment advice. StartupFeed and its authors are not SEBI-registered investment advisors. Please speak to a SEBI-registered advisor before investing.