After Oxigen Services, Paytm has now taken the decision to hive off its online businesses, which includes its digital wallet and mcommerce into separate apps.
The current app will be morphed into an ecommerce app focusing on shopping and will prompt users to download the independent app for wallet use. However, the company will continue to offer wallet option for some time on the current app.
For now, Paytm is running the second app for digital wallets on pilot, which will be launched in January next year.
Founder and CEO of Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma said that the payments market has reached the long-tail of Indian consumers, where the app requirements are different from that which urban english speaking customers needed. He added, “Paytm is the default payments app for many, and its use case needs to be simplified even when we as a company expand our horizon by adding commerce. By this method, we can make both the users happy.
Paytm has been extending itself in cashless payment space and ecommerce. It has partnered with relatively large amount of businesses for its digital payments which include auto rickshaw aggregator and hyperlocal delivery startup Jugnoo, cab hailing service Uber, QSR chains like CCD, Vaango and others, college and institutions and more.
Besides, the company has also forayed in hotel booking business, bus ticketing and hyperlocal business.
According to Sharma, Paytm’s increasing commerce business that includes goods, bus tickets, hotel bookings and more, have made the app heavy and the co-existence with payments has complicated the payments use case. He felt that many rural customers will be put off by a heavier app and it makes sense to give them a simple light app for payments.
Paytm, presently claims to have has more than 100 Mn registered customers on its platform.
Paytm’s investor Alibaba, which has pumped more than $600 Mn into Paytm, follows a similar model with Alipay app for payments and Tmall app for commerce business.
Just two days back, payments company Oxigen Services had made similar announcement stating to hive off its digital wallet into a separate entity known as Phi Enterprises. Oxigen’s deputy managing director Sunil Kulkarni had said that the company had planned to de-merge the online business as part of its payments bank licence application.
Apart from Oxigen, there have been other companies who have taken the bold move to have separate apps for different vertical business. Flipkart launched a separate app for grocery purchases by the name Flipkart Nearby. Ola too has different app for food delivery by the name Ola Store. Following the acquisition of Freecharge, Snapdeal also has a separate wallet app.
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