Digital payments Platforms PhonePe and Google Pay continue to lead the game in a unified payments interface (UPI) ecosystem, marking 75% of all the transactions in the first month of new FY 2021-22. The duo combined touched 2 Bn transactions out of the total 2.64 Bn transactions that occurred last month.
Both the platforms cumulatively facilitated the transaction of around INR 4.24 Lakh Cr which is 86% of the total transactions worth INR 4.93 Lakh Cr reported in April.
While Walmart-owned PhonePe’s market share grew from 43.91% in March to 45% in April, Google Pay’s market share saw a marginal fall from 35% to 34.3% for the same period, as per National Payments Corporation of India or NPCI data.
Phonepe recorded 1189.89 million transactions amounting to Rs 234,023.33 crore whereas Google Pay has submitted the mark of 905.96 million transactions worth Rs 190,106.71 crore.
In total, UPI recorded 2.64 billion or 264 crore transactions worth Rs 4,93,663 crore in the last month.
Paytm Payments Bank stood in third place in the race of UPI ecosystem, its market share stood at 12.14% in April with 320.78 million transactions worth Rs 36,859.2 crore.
Amazon Pay and Yes Bank Apps followed the race with a 1.85% and 0.86% market share respectively. Government-promoted BHIM owns 0.84% market share, however, the total transactions facilitated by this app is far ahead of the transactions done by Yes Bank Apps.
On the other hand, WhatsApp, which NPCI allowed to have UPI payments feature for 20 million users in November 2020, has failed to gain any grip in the past six months. This instant messaging app recorded a mere 0.54 million transactions worth Rs 47.62 crore in April and also failed to touch even the number of 1 million volumes since November.
Overall, UPI transactions witnessed a fall of 3% from 2.73 Bn transacted in March. The transaction worth also fell by another 2%, from INR 5.04 Lakh Cr in April. The surge in Covid cases in India can be seen as a reason behind this dip, as many states have announced lockdowns, curfews and other restrictions to curb the virus.
UPI witnessed the first dip in April 2020, after the Indian government had imposed a strict lockdown in the last week of March to control the situation. The fall came due to the closure of major services including travelling, dining out, e-commerce or offline transactions. But, it also had the fastest recovery and came back to track.