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Cult.fit’s income crosses Rs 1,000 Cr in FY24, losses remain flat

Entrackr · 1m

Fitness tech company Cult.fit underwent a key leadership change in FY24 after promoting co-founder Naresh Krishnaswamy to CEO. He succeeds co-founder Mukesh Bansal, who transitioned to the role of executive chairman. While the company achieved over 30% growth in scale under the new leadership, the losses remain unchanged in the last fiscal year. Cult.fit reported a 33.6% increase in its operating revenue of Rs 927 crore in FY24 compared to Rs 694 crore in FY23. Revenue from fitness subscriptions, including flagship services like Cultpass and Cult.fit centers and platform services, accounted for 72.3% of the total revenue which increased by 46.6% to 670 crore. The sportswear and fitness equipment segment, operated under Cultsport and other operating services, contributed Rs 257 crore. Cult.fit reported a 62% decline in other income to Rs 100.45 crore in FY24 from Rs 265.36 crore in FY23 due to a plunge in Miscellaneous income which the company has not disclosed. However, Cultfit's total income stood at Rs 1,027 crore in FY24. Cult.fit operates on a hybrid fitness model combining digital offerings through its app and physical fitness centers across 300 cities in India. It provides subscription-based fitness plans (Cultpass) that grant access to gyms, group classes, and virtual training. When it comes to expenditures, employee benefit expenses contributed Rs 324 crore, including Rs 236 crore in salaries, and Rs 57 crore in employee share-based payments. While the cost of materials for Cult.fit grew by 19.6% to Rs 396 crore in FY24. Its advertising cum promotional cost grew by 40.3% to Rs 188 crore in FY24 while legal costs saw a surge of 57% to Rs 124 crore. Information technology, traveling, and other overheads took the overall cost up by 4.7% to Rs 1,563 crore in FY24 from Rs 1,493 crore in FY23. In the end, Cult.fit reported a steady loss of Rs 535 crore in FY24, slightly up from Rs 534 crore in FY23, driven by a decent increase in scale coupled with a decline in other income. Its ROCE and EBITDA margins stood at -21.5% and -22.8% respectively. Cult.fit managed to improve its expense-to-earning ratio to Rs 1.69 in the previous fiscal. Its current assets stood at Rs 1,232 crore with a cash and bank balance of Rs 349 crore in FY24. In January, Cult.fit laid off around 150 employees, stating that the decision was part of its regular annual operating planning process. To date, Cult.fit has raised over $670 million from investors including Zomato, Tata Digital, Temasek, Kalaari Capital, and South Park Commons, among others. Cult.fit has eventually followed the playbook that many dread, spending till most of the competition has been wiped out, or can't keep up. Losses finally stabilising even as growth continues indicates that the firm is well set for the next stage of the process, namely, tweaking prices and offerings to improve margins further. The unbelievable legal costs are a mystery, and one hopes to get clarity on that at some stage, but we sincerely hope it's a one off. Bigger firms have been built on those sort of costs. The acquisition of Gold Gym's India business back in 2021, or even the RPM Fit and associated brands after that pretty much guaranteed losses well into 2025, but Cult.fit could flex its muscles as it had the money in the bank. Now, it will probably look at a solid year of performance that, while cleaning out a significant part of its cash hoard, takes it closer to profitability and bigger things. The sportswear and fitness equipment business however, will remain a worry, considering the even more muscled up player in the market, French multinational Decathlon.