PhonePe continues to maintain its dominant position as the top player in the unified payments interface (UPI) ecosystem, holding a market share of nearly 49% in April 2024 across both person-to-merchant (P2M) and person-to-person (P2P) transactions.
Having led the overall UPI transactions for over 40 months since November 2020, PhonePe’s stronghold remains evident. According to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), PhonePe facilitated 6.5 billion transactions via UPI out of a total of 13.3 billion transactions last month. This translates to approximately 48.87% market share within the UPI ecosystem, which includes other major players like Google Pay and Paytm.
In April, there was a slight decline in UPI transaction volume, dropping by 1% to 13.3 billion from 13.44 billion in March. Similarly, the total transaction value decreased by 0.7% to Rs 19.64 trillion from Rs 19.78 trillion in the same period.
While PhonePe and Google Pay maintained their transaction volumes at 6.5 billion and 5 billion respectively from March to April, Paytm experienced a decline from 1.21 billion to 1.11 billion transactions during the same period. As of April, Google Pay and Paytm controlled 37.5% and 8.3% market share respectively in the overall UPI ecosystem encompassing both P2M and P2P transactions.
In terms of transaction value, PhonePe held close to 51% market share, followed by Google Pay and Paytm with 35% and 5% respectively. The decline in Paytm’s UPI transactions can be attributed to compliance concerns that led to restrictions imposed by the RBI in January, resulting in a sharp decrease in active users for the fintech giant led by Vijay Shekhar Sharma. However, Paytm later received permission from NPCI to participate in UPI through a third-party application provider (TPAP) under the multibank model.
In April, CRED emerged as the fourth-largest UPI-enabled app processing 138 million transactions, followed by Amazon Pay and Fampay with 64.33 million and 46.64 million transactions respectively. Government-promoted BHIM recorded 25 million transactions, while WhatsApp reported over 34 million transactions for the same period.
Reportedly, NPCI is considering a review of its decision to implement a 30% cap on the market share of UPI apps by the end of 2024.