Paytm eyes 3X growth in train ticket bookings this year

Digital payments platform, Paytm today said it expects to clock over 3X growth in number of train tickets booked through its platform this financial year.

The company is also strengthening its overall travel vertical and will hire more people over the next two quarters.

"Paytm is booking over one million train tickets in a month and has become India's largest platform for train tickets booking, after IRCTC," it said in a statement.

The Alibaba-backed company had launched online train ticket bookings in partnership with IRCTC in October last year.

"Paytm is now targeting 3X growth this financial year," it said.

Currently, 90% of the train ticket bookings on Paytm are done through the mobile platform.

"We are extremely overwhelmed by the response received for train ticket bookings on Paytm in the last six months. Emerging as the country's largest platform in train ticket bookings is a definitive step towards our goal of building the country's largest travel booking platform," Paytm Vice-President Abhishek Rajan said.

Paytm has witnessed exponential growth in its travel vertical with more than 10 million tickets sold in FY17.

The travel marketplace team is headquartered in Bengaluru and has scaled up to over 150 members in the last 12 months.

Paytm is looking to ramp this up to 250 people in next two quarters, the statement said.