SKS Continues Aggressive Growth with 171%
Increase in Number of Members
Hyderabad
- March 31st, 2007
SKS Microfinance continued its impressive growth rate, increasing
the number of members by 171% from last fiscal year. This rate is an
increase from last year�s Compound Annual Growth Rate of 161%.
SKS Founder and CEO, Vikram Akula, directly attributes this
achievement to the July 2006 geographic expansion of the
organization, when SKS pushed northward to start operations in 6
northern states. �Our focus on rapid geographic expansion has proved
to be successful strategy. SKS now has a strong foothold in many
northern areas, and will continue to expand within these states. I
am confident next year�s growth rate will eclipse this year�s.�
In 1998, SKS launched operations in the drought-prone Deccan region
of Andhra Pradesh. As of March 31, 1999, SKS had 190 clients. From
1999 to 2004, SKS focused on perfecting its systems and processes in
its core market, Andhra Pradesh, where it had scaled to over 30,000
clients with a cumulative disbursement of 31.5 crores and 99%
repayment rate by 2004. In April 2004, SKS expanded to 4 new markets
� Karnataka, Maharasthra, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh � simultaneously
� a move unprecedented in microfinance in India. By March 31st,
2006, SKS members totaled 201,493 with a cumulative disbursement of
252 crores, averaging annual growth rate of 160%.
More recently, SKS saw another phase of expansion in July 2007 to
the northern states of Rajasthan, Utter Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar,
Jharkhand and Chaatisgaargh. This move marked another unprecedented
move in the microfinance industry in India and led to fiscal
year-end figures of 603,933 clients and a cumulative disbursement of
$163,284,616.
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