Revenue from the software and services segment, which comprise the provision of software, virtual credits and payment-related services, grew 79 per cent to US$64 million. Total user accounts for software increased 42.8 per cent to about 100 million, with monthly active users surging by over 45 per cent, driven by strong growth across all software offerings.
Gross profit margin improved slightly to 22 per cent from 21.2 per cent as a result of a higher contribution from the services business. It lent almost 30 per cent to the company's gross profit and had a gross profit margin of 45.9 per cent. This was partially offset by the increase in freight costs to facilitate surges in demand for Razer's products.
Operating expenses fell 9.8 per cent to US$115.5 million, representing 23.9 per cent of net revenue. The decrease was driven by falls in research and development expenses, and general and administrative expenses. Razer recorded a decrease of US$2.2 million in employee benefits after it exited the loss-making mobile handset business, and a fall in share-based compensation expense of US$11.1 million.
The Covid-19 lockdowns boosted Razer's fintech business. The group, which is gunning for a digital banking licence in Singapore with a consortium, generated a 114.3 per cent increase in total payment volume to US$1.8 billion for H1. As a means of comparison, TPV for the whole of FY2019 was US$2.1 billion.