Google Pay continues lead over Paytm and PhonePe in UPI transaction value

Google's UPI-based payment app Google Pay has witnessed a remarkable growth ever since its launch in 2017 in India. In about 20 months, it has achieved a stellar growth giving its main rivals PhonePe and Paytm a run for their money.

According to transaction data of April, Google Pay did transactions worth Rs 49,700 crore way more than its competitors PhonePe and Paytm. PhonePe was at second number with a transaction value of Rs 42,610 crore whereas Paytm registered transactions worth Rs 35,500 crore.

All three together accounted for about 90% of the Rs 1.42 lakh crore worth transactions reported last month. Govt-backed BHIM accounted for merely 15 million transactions worth Rs 6,600 crore during the same period.

This is almost 14% rise in Google Pay transactions in comparison to transactions value in March, as per Bloomberg report.

Interestingly, Google Pay recorded UPI transactions worth Rs 43,000-Rs 45,000 crore in March. Both PhonePe and Paytm are said to have done transactions worth Rs 31,000-32,000 crore each.

However, in terms of volume of transaction, PhonePe leads with 258 million transactions. Google Pay and Paytm are estimated to do transaction between 230 million to 240 million.

As per the last figure provided by Google Pay in March, it has about the user base of 45 million. PhonePe and Paytm have not revealed their exact user base. Earlier, in a tweet, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said there are about 94 million KYC wallets and 371 million total users on its platform.

Meanwhile, the actual numbers of active users and transactions volume are still unknown.

As per observers in the payment space, Google Pay chat enabled payment service is easy to use. And its promotional and cashback offerings have helped it attract more users in very less time.

Currently, Google Pay is accepted at over 2,000 online merchants such as foodtech, travel, movie or event tickets, including trading, and investments.

It has also been testing new products in wealth management space and collaborated with Pine Labs to boost its offline transaction.

As per Sensor Tower data, Google Pay had claimed a top slot in terms of downloads recorded by fintech apps globally. It was downloaded over 327 million times, with over 6X lead from second most downloaded fintech app.

In the last few months, global payer like Amazon has also been betting big to get major share in India payment space. With reports of WhatsApp Pay to be launched in about in next two months, the payment space in the country is poised to witness a dynamic change.

Who will be at forefront or winners in this payment battle, is a matter worth observing.