Walmart-owned PhonePe digitises 25 mn merchants, kirana stores across India

The company said that offline merchant transactions on its platform have shown 200 per cent growth since last year

Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe, said that it has digitized 25 million small merchants and kirana stores in India. The company also said that offline merchant transactions on its platform have shown 200 per cent growth since last year. PhonePe attributed this phenomenal growth to the rapid expansion it has seen in offline merchant acceptance across geographies, with a 1,25,000 strong field force who have been instrumental in driving and supporting the company’s merchant acceptance network across Bharat.

PhonePe competes with players such as Paytm, Google Pay and Amazon Pay.

“PhonePe has emerged as India's largest digital payments platform, and we are leading the industry on all key metrics which includes value and volume of transactions, registered users as well as merchant coverage,” said Sameer Nigam, founder and CEO, PhonePe. “Earlier this year we undertook the target of digitizing over 25 million kiranas across India, and we have achieved this milestone in record time, due to our relentless focus in making payments accessible to the last mile, and our strong execution capabilities.”

The Bengaluru-based firm now has a merchant network across 15,700 towns and villages, constituting 99 per cent pin codes in the country. The company had previously announced its plans to hit the 25 million number by the end of 2021, and has achieved this target weeks ahead of schedule.

The firm processed over 2 billion transactions on its platform in October this year. PhonePe said it is the market leader in UPI transactions, driving the highest number of peer-to-peer(P2P) and merchant transactions in the country. It said it also has the pole position in Recharge and Bill Payment transactions via Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS). PhonePe had crossed the 1 billion monthly transaction mark in February this year, and in November this year, it said that it had now hit the 2 billion milestone in just 8 months, cementing its position as India’s leading Fintech platform.

PhonePe now has over 335 million registered users. It is also accepted at over 22 million merchant outlets across India. Using PhonePe, users can send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, pay at stores, make utility payments and also buy and invest in gold and silver. PhonePe forayed into financial services in 2017 with the launch of gold providing users with a convenient option to buy 24-karat gold, and recently also launched silver on its platform. It has since introduced several Mutual Funds and Insurance products like tax-saving funds, liquid funds, international travel insurance, life insurance, and insurance for the Covid-19 pandemic.