Paytm started by offering mobile recharge and utility bill payments and today it offers a full marketplace to consumers on its mobile apps. In a short span of time Paytm has scaled to over 7 Mn orders a month. The mobile commerce marketplace that it had launched earlier this year, brings over 250 merchants with over 1,00,000 items for users on one mobile platform.
We caught with Deepak Abbot, AVP, Paytm for quick chat on the current market size of online recharge in India, how is Paytm’s recently launched mobile only marketplace is doing and his views on mobile commerce.
Inc42: Online recharge is a booming market. Please walk us through the market size of online recharge in India and globally. Also share some stats on Indian players in this domain and Paytm’s position?
Deepak: Overall mobile recharge market (offline) is about 100,000 crores annually. 5% of this is happening online. Online mobile recharge is provided by aggregators like Paytm, Banks Websites & Operator’s own website. Paytm commands 30% overall market-share for online recharges. Here is the snapshot of our competition
Inc42: Paytm has launched an e-wallet. So is it another product One97 will focus on extensively or simply a marketing tool. Also please share some insights on types of e-wallets and their working in Indian market.
Deepak: Paytm Wallet will be an independent product which is also at the core of its mobile commerce journey. Paytm Wallet is one of the payment options on Paytm and it would also be available across other online & offline merchants making it into a virtual currency. There are operator driver wallets like Airtel Money or mPesa or neutral wallets like Paytm. Operator wallets are locked to the users of a particular operator which makes our wallet interoperable. Here is a quick snapshot of all the operator neutral wallets available in the market
| S.No. | Features | Paytm | Mobikwik | Pay U Money | Citrus pay | Benefits |
| 1 | Consumer brand | √ | √ (less than 10% of Paytm’s consumers) | × | No | Consumers are more comfortable transacting online with brands they know about and they transact with |
| 2 | RBI approved semi closed wallet | √ | √ | × | √ | RBI had given us mandate for operating a semi closed wallet. This shows the trust even regulator has placed in us |
| 3 | Can consumers Save credit card details? | √ | × | √ | √ | Saving cards enable faster and error free txns. Consumers save their cards only with players they trust |
| 4 | Already existing saved cards | √ | √ | √ | √ | Paytm has 2.5mn saved cards. This means that you benefit from the existing cards stored on Paytm |
| 5 | Can do complete txn through money in wallet | √ | √ | × | √ | Since consumers can store money with Paytm, they can transact using this money as well. This means Paytm acts as a source of fund as well |
| 6 | Existing no. of saved credit/debit cards | 25 lakh | less than 10% of Paytm | less than 10% of Paytm | less than 10% of Paytm | One of four cards getting transacted online across India is stored voluntarily on Paytm |
| 7 | User basic KYC | √ | √ | × | √ | We have already verified mobile numbers and email Ids of these users |
| 8 | Saved Money | 7 crore | less than 10% of Paytm | × | less than 10% of Paytm | This is the money users have kept with us |
| 9 | Time taken for Transactions | 10 sec | 10 sec (if the money is in the wallet) | 15-20 sec | 20 Sec | Shows that transactions on our platform are far more smoother than any other payment platform in India |
| 10 | Number of banks integrated | 30+ | 15 | 30+ | 30+ | Almost all banks are integrated directly on Paytm |
| 11 | Ability to provide value adds like deals/offers to consumers along with txns | √ | √ | × | × | This provides extra value to consumers |
| 12 | Merchant marketing to consumers | √ | √ | No captive consumers | No captive consumers | Paytm has 1.2 mn customers who have transacted on the site in last 2 years. This is the biggest online consumer base across all online sites in India |
Inc42: Why a mobile only marketplace that too on the Paytm app. How many downloads, active daily users, orders per day?
Deepak: Paytm is a mobile commerce platform which started with mobile recharge as its first category. Mobile recharge is a far bigger category than shopping and it got us huge traction. We have over 13mn registered online paying users acquired through recharges which becomes a funnel for us to serve these users further by enabling more services and selling products directly. Mobile only access is far bigger in India and soon mobile only shoppers will start making a difference to the overall ecommerce story. We have over 6mn app installs and our active base is over 4.5mn. We are currently doing overall 3 lakh orders a day (we can not provide category wise i.e. recharge & shopping split).
Inc42: What’s the hottest category that the marketplace has currently and how many products and categories are you offering currently?
Deepak: Hottest category is Fashion followed by computer accessories. We have several product categories under Men, Women, Home, Gifts, Electronics and Sports. Currently we are offering 2 lakh products across 40 sub-categories.
Inc42: What’s the contribution of mobile in overall Paytm’s traffic (in% and number):
Deepak: Paytm gets over 1.5 lakh transacting users daily on mobile and we do over 53% orders on mobile
Inc42: Paytm is coming up with a number of offers and promotions for its DTH Services, what’s the reason behind that? Is it only to create awareness or the market is heating up?
Deepak: DTH users are fast shifting to online payment modes. They have realized the convenience of paying online. From Paytm’s perspective, DTH is growing rapidly and it is contributing significantly to our overall numbers. Hence we are going aggressive behind attracting more DTH users to Paytm.
Inc42: Can you give us category wise revenue for Paytm. I mean DTH services, mobile recharge, from M-commerce (other than recharge)?
Deepak: We do not provide individual categories numbers. DTH is the 2nd biggest category for us after mobile recharges. We are growing DTH user base 30% MoM. We also have extremely high return rate of 70% for DTH users
Inc42: Lastly, shed some light on the future of Mobile commerce in India?
Deepak: Mobile commerce is already booming with almost every large ecommerce claiming to achieve between 20-50% orders from Mobile. Currently its attracting Desktop+Mobile base i.e. users who have experienced a service on desktop are shifting to mobile. However mobile only internet user base is going through the roof. According to rough estimates, there are 40mn mobile only internet users. All of them do not shop online yet plus this number is growing exponentially. Current run rate for mobile commerce is about $2.5bn but I expect it to tough $10bn within 2 years.
Paytm is consumer brand of mobile internet company One97 Communications. One97 investors include SAIF Partners, Intel Capital and SAP Ventures.
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