NE BUSINESS BUREAU
BANGALORE, JUNE 7
India’s fastest growing fintech start-up Khatabook on Monday announced that it is digitally enabling micro, small and medium businesses (MSMEs) in Gujarat to operate seamlessly and ensure business continuity amidst COVID-induced curfews and subsequent disruptions.
MSMEs are increasingly adopting digital platforms to manage all their workflows from accounting and collection, sales, inventory management to staff and salary management. Khatabook, which offers all these solutions as a part of its end-to-end digital portfolio comprising Khatabook, Pagarkhata, MyStore, and Biz Analyst apps, witnessed a steady increase in digital adoption in the state across all the solutions, says a senior officer of the company.
Gujarat hosts over 2.96 million MSMEs (merchants) on the Khatabook platform. Combined, these MSMEs have amassed Rs 1,318 billion in recorded amounts on the Khatabook platform to date. Even though Khatabook has almost two times more platform users in Gujarat than last year, the drop in business during the second wave of COVID in 2021 is significantly lower than the previous year due to the MSME ecosystem’s reliance on digital. Gujarat experienced a 25% drop in business as per Khatabook platform insights during COVID second wave in 2021 compared to close to almost 40% drop in 2020.
The successful adoption of digital technology by MSMEs has been encouraging. Khatabook has identified Gujarat as one of the core growth markets for the coming months. Staying true to uplifting lives and easing business operations for millions of MSMEs across the country, Khatabook will focus on empowering the small businesses in Gujarat with digital offerings.
Commenting on this, Ravish Naresh, CEO, and Co-founder, Khatabook, said, “In the current scenario, digital is the need of the hour for running a business. It is humbling to see Gujarat’s ever thriving business community is adopting Khatabook’s digital offerings to stay robust during these rather difficult times. While Gujarat is one of the largest user bases for Khatabook, we intend to reach millions of store owners and small businesses and empower them with new tools so that they can manage their business more efficiently.”
Khatabook is available in 13 regional languages. 40% of the total user base of Khatabook in Gujarat uses the app in the Gujarati language. However, English is the most preferred language in Gujarat, with a whopping 43% of customers using the platform in the language. Hindi comes a close third, with 12% of users opting for Hindi and 3% preferring Hinglish, closely followed by other languages like Marathi and Bengali in the state.
The top categories for MSMEs in the state using the digital platform, Khatabook, include Food and Groceries; Textile, Apparel, and Footwear; Mobile and communications stores; Services and agencies; and Agriculture
The largest user base of Khatabook in Gujarat comes from these top 5 cities – Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, and Palanpur.
