PhonePe Broadens Gap for Google Pay in UPI Transactions, NPCI Data Shows

PhonePe has continued to dominate the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) app ecosystem in India and expanded its market share to 46.04 percent in June, according to the data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The Walmart-owned platform saw a 0.77 percent increase in its share over the 45.28 percent reported in May in terms of transactional volume of all 50 apps (resulting 2,807.51 million transactions). The growth of PhonePe has forced Google Pay to continue to sit on the second position, which it first received in December after losing its leadership to PhonePe.

The data posted by the NPCI shows that PhonePe carried 1,292.71 million transactions worth Rs. 2,62,565.88 crores in June that were 142.87 million more from the 1,149.84 million it made in May, which were worth Rs. 2,34,123.57 crores. The increase in the transaction volume helped the platform to not just continue its lead but also broaden the gap for Google Pay.

In comparison with PhonePe, Google Pay saw a marginal drop of 0.04 percent in its share in June that came to 34.63 percent, down from 34.67 percent in May. The NPCI statistics show that the Google platform initiated 972.26 million transactions of worth Rs. 2,07,287.73 crores in the month — showing an increase of 91.67 million from 880.59 million transactions worth Rs. 1,87,136.95 crores recorded in May.

Paytm Payments Bank came third with 326.53 million customer-initiated transactions worth Rs. 40,614.09 crores. It saw a 0.18 percent increase in its market share of 11.63 percent from 11.45 percent reported in the month earlier.

After Paytm Payments Bank, Amazon Pay stood fourth with 51.34 million transactions worth Rs. 4,814.74 crores. Yes Bank apps and the government's BHIM UPI app came at the fifth and sixth positions, respectively. Yes Bank captured 24.72 percent share with a transaction volume of Rs. 5,227.04 crores, while BHIM's market share came at 22.84 percent with transactions worth Rs. 7,319.77 crores.

Top five UPI apps in June (as per the NPCI data)

Interestingly, the data provided by NPCI shows that WhatsApp Pay, the payments service launched last year by the Facebook-owned company, saw a decline in both its transaction volume and value. The app, however, maintained its 0.02 percent of market share.

UPI transactions overall in the country grew 10.55 percent to 2,807.51 million in June that were worth Rs. 5,47,373.17 crores.