UPI In October: PhonePe, Google Pay’s UPI Lead Softens Amid Record High Volumes

The onset of the festive season and the rollout of GST 2.0 gave India’s digital payments landscape a strong boost in October, pushing monthly Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions to a record 20.7 Bn. But even as overall volumes hit an all-time high, the dominance of the top two UPI players — PhonePe and Google Pay — softened marginally.

According to NPCI data, PhonePe processed 941.2 Cr transactions worth INR 13.06 Lakh Cr in October, with its market share slipping to 46.3% from 46.4% in September. 

With 716.5 Cr monthly transactions, Google Pay’s market share slipped to 35.2% from 35.4% in September.

This mirrored September’s trend, when both players had also ceded small slices of market share. However, overall UPI transactions were down in the previous month. In contrast, October delivered expansion across the ecosystem, allowing smaller and mid-tier apps to gain traction even as volumes surged at the top.

Meanwhile, the third-largest UPI app Paytm saw its market share inch up to 7.5% with 152.3 Cr transactions worth INR 1.67 Lakh Cr, accounting for 7.2% of total UPI value.

Beyond the big three, several mid-sized UPI players benefited from festive spending and increased digital merchant activity. Sachin Bansal-led Navi processed 57.4 Cr transactions worth INR 30,618 Cr, nudging its market share to 2.8% from 2.7% in September. BHIM UPI recorded 12.6 Cr transactions worth INR 19,416 Cr, pushing its share to 0.6%.

Flipkart-backed super.money saw negligible change month-on-month with 26.5 Cr transactions valued at INR 10,964 Cr, while FamApp logged 14.6 Cr transactions worth INR 1,901 Cr.

CRED continued to stand out in the high-value segment. Despite a smaller transaction volume of 158 Cr, its transaction value hit INR 62,438 Cr in October — nearly double Navi’s — highlighting the widening divergence between volume share and value share among UPI players.

Despite the fact that PhonePe and Google Pay remain the dominant forces, this marks the second consecutive month where their market shares have declined slightly. This decline suggests that smaller, specialised apps are steadily carving out space. 

The month also coincided with the Global Fintech Fest (GFF), where NPCI and industry stakeholders outlined the next phase of UPI’s growth — from wider credit-on-UPI penetration to cross-border corridors and enhanced security layers. 

Together, these developments point to a market that remains highly concentrated at the top but is gradually broadening as new-age platforms chip away at the incumbents’ lead.