Freecharge to invest Rs 1,000 cr on marketing, promotions this year

Snapdeal-owned mobile transactions platform FreeCharge plans to spend Rs 1,000 crore in the next 10-12 months as the company aims to position its wallet services as a preferential mode of making payments.

FreeCharge, which had launched its mobile wallet last month in partnership with private sector lender YES Bank, has two million users of the service.

“FreeCharge’s mobile wallet has seen a great response from the public and we have crossed the two-million user mark... In the next 10-12 months, we will invest Rs 1,000 crore for marketing and promotional activities to drive adoption and usage of our wallet service,” FreeCharge Chief Operating Officer and Snapdeal Chief Strategy Officer Govind Rajan said. He added a major chunk of the investment would be made during the festive season.

Mobile wallets are increasingly becoming a preferred mode for making payments to cab services and other 'app'-driven services like utility bills and e-commerce purchases.

According to analysts, despite the hassle of periodically refilling the mobile wallet, customers are also worried less about card losses and hacking as the amounts tend to be substantially less than credit card limits.

Some of the major mobile wallet players include PayU, Paytm and MobiKwik.

Recently, FreeCharge had announced that it will adopt Aadhar as the primary KYC tool for opening and upgrading wallets.

Consumers enrolling for its mobile wallet with Aadhaar authentication would get their balance limit enhanced from Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh.

Founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, FreeCharge also offers recharge and payments for telecom services, DTH and electricity bills. It has received funding of over USD 120 million in the last 4 years.

In April this year, Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge in one of the largest acquisitions in the consumer Internet space in the country.

FreeCharge, as a platform, has 27 million registered users making more than five transactions per month per user.