Paytm clocks 65% of offline transactions this festival season

Alibaba-backed Paytm witnessed a sudden surge in offline transactions during this festival season, between September 20 and October 30. The digital payment platform clocked around 65 per cent of the total offline transaction this festival season, compared to below 20% during the last festive period.

Paytm claimed that it processed $1.6 billion worth of transactions during the festive month, which is a 3.5x increase in volumes over last year, even surpassing the highs seen during demonetisation. The number does not include transactions from Paytm Mall, the company said.

“Offline growth has happened in the last one year after demonetisation, with Paytm acquiring over 5 million merchants with QR code acceptance in one year,“ said Kiran Vasireddy, COO, Paytm.

He added that it’s encouraging to see that a majority of growth in offline payments is from smaller towns and cities. This has resulted in over $1.6 billion worth of transactions in a month, making this the largest Diwali for mobile payments in India.

The platform also witnessed 60 per cent of growth coming from tier-II and III cities. The company had earmarked over Rs 250 crore for payments during the period for marketing and promotions.

Besides, the digital platform is also focussing on the e-commerce business and claims to have got some pie this festival season.

Paytm Mall: An enabler to Paytm biz

After the just-concluded online festival season sales, when industry experts were assessing the winner between Flipkart and Amazon, recently-overhauled Paytm Mall claimed to have garnered a market share of 15-20 per cent during the sales.

The company achieved 40 per cent of the total sales through online-to-offline (O2O) model and hit gross merchandise value (GMV) to an estimated $300 million and GMV run-rate of approximately $4 billion, a target that was set for March 2018.

“People shop less post-Diwali season, but that will not impact our business since it is a horizontal platform selling products with repeat purchases as well,” said Amit Sinha, chief operating officer, Paytm Mall talking to ET.

“Moreover, our O2O model will lead to a month-on-month increase in retailers on board, thereby causing an increase in acquisition of customers.” While majority of the ecommerce platform customers were existing users, the company claims to have witnessed a six-fold increase in new consumers.

In July, to enable its offline retailer partners to setup online stores, Paytm Mall decided to invest Rs 32 crore and help them to enhance their retail potential.