PhonePe processes 835 Mn transaction on UPI in Oct; G-Pay slips to second spot

Digital payments platform PhonePe has registered 835 million transactions on Unified Payments Interface or UPI in October, controlling a market share of more than 40% in the month, said the company in a press statement.

According to data released by NPCI, UPI has recorded 2,071.62 million or 2.07 billion transactions in October and PhonePe has emerged as the leader in terms of market share in the UPI ecosystem.

While NPCI doesn’t provide UPI breakup numbers, Entrackr’s sources revealed that Google Pay has slipped to the second position with 819 million UPI transactions in October. Google Pay has been dominating the UPI ecosystem. It’s worth noting that Google has slipped to the second spot for the first time in the past 12-15 months.

“Paytm and Amazon Pay remained at third and fourth spot with 245 million and 125 million transactions respectively whereas other players have collectively registered around 47 million transactions via UPI in October,” said a source on the condition of anonymity.

As per the last available breakup figures, Google Pay had recorded 541 million transactions in May followed by PhonePe with 444 million and Paytm with 124 million.

One of the major reasons behind Google Pay’s slipping to the second position is its weak penetration on the merchant side. Paytm, BharatPe and Amazon have been strong among the merchant ecosystem through their QR codes. A recent blogpost by Deepak Abbot also highlighted that Google Pay lags behind in acquiring offline merchants (via QR codes). Also,  recharges of mobile and DTH aren’t popular on Google Pay.

NPCI declined to comment on the story. Entrackr has sent queries to Google Pay. We’ll update the story as and when they respond.

Responding to Entrackr's queries, a Paytm spokesperson said, "Paytm offers a range of funding sources to its customers - Paytm UPI, Paytm Wallet, Paytm Payments Bank account, Debit card, Credit card and net banking. Overall, the transactions through these funding sources have grown over 20% in the month of October. Person-to-merchant (P2M) constitute over 70% of the total transactions."

Paytm is the only app where one can pay using UPI, wallet, cards, internet banking and Paytm Postpaid. Paytm Postpaid today claimed to have 7 million active users. Importantly, the SoftBank-backed firm has the largest share in the P2M segment. It powers 39% of overall P2M transactions. Google Pay and Phone have 25 and 19% market share on the P2M side.

BharatPe has been emerging as the fastest growing players in acquiring merchants on QR Code-based UPI payments system.

Over the last two years, WhatsApp has been trying to get the Indian government’s nod to launch its UPI-based payments service for everyone. The Facebook-owned company is currently available for select users. While there is no clarity about the exact launch of WhatsApp Pay, its full-fledged launch can change the current UPI landscape in the country.