WhatsApp has been trying to set foot in the UPI sector to compete with the likes of Google Pay and PhonePe in India. It recently got the approval to double the userbase, following which it started offering cashback offers to onboard new users. It seems like these efforts are finally proving profitable as sources now suggest that WhatsApp Pay has seen a significant rise in daily transactions.
WhatsApp Pay Becoming Popular?
A recent report by The Economic Times, citing sources familiar with the matter, suggests that WhatsApp has seen an increase in daily transactions after it started offering Rs 33 cashback for every Re 1 sent using the service to users. The daily transactions reportedly increased from a few hundred thousand a day to 2-3 million per day, which is a significant rise.
“There is a noteworthy spike in transactions recently and they (WhatsApp Pay) are activating various cashback campaigns for existing and new users. This has had a clear impact on transaction volumes,” one of the sources said in a statement.
However, considering the popularity and market share of the competition, the question of whether or not WhatsApp Pay will be able to retain its growth in the future remains. As of April this year, Google Pay and PhonePe held around 47% and 34% of the total market share, respectively, in India. WhatsApp, on the other hand, remained with 0.04% of the market.
Hence, it would be interesting to see if users continue to use WhatsApp Pay without any cashback offers or benefits. Nonetheless, WhatsApp aims to invest more to scale its digital payment service in India. The company is also reportedly focusing on merchant payments to garner high volumes of transactions from new and existing users.
“We are running a campaign offering cashback incentives in a phased manner to our users as a way to unlock the potential of payments on WhatsApp. Offering safe, secure, and easy-to-use digital payments is an important part of scaling India’s digital economy, and we’ll continue to drive awareness of payments on WhatsApp as part of our broader efforts to bring the next 500 million Indians onto the digital payments ecosystem,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told The Economic Times.
So, do you think WhatsApp will be able to make its name in the UPI segment in India? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
