April 15, 2021 Focus on chasing growth and huge marketing costs are two major reasons India's most-valued edtech firm BYJU'S, which was targeting $150 million in net profit, has not been able to achieve it despite being backed by the onrush of 25 million-plus new users on its platform in pandemic-struck 2020. The start-up has grown its registered student user base from 70 million -- 4.5 million annual paid subscriptions-- last October to 80 million registered students-- 5.5 million annual paid subscriptions-- at present. Focus on chasing growth vs profitability, huge investments in marketing, increasing its penetration into tier 2, tier 3 and tier 4 towns, heavy investments in office space, and high price points of its annual subscriptions are some of the reasons that may have come in the way of BYJU’s achieving its net profit target.