PhonePe remains number one payment app on UPI, extends lead over Google Pay

PhonePe, the digital payment app has captured a little over 40 percent market share of the unified payments interface (UPI) market as the number one player for the month of January 2021, and continues to maintain its lead against its fierce rival Google Pay, even as WhatsApp Pay struggles to show any significant growth.

The data put out by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) shows the volume of transactions on UPI recorded by PhonePe for the month of January stood at 968.72 million, while it was 853.53 million for Google Pay.

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The total volume of UPI transactions in the month of January stood at 2.3 billion. UPI transactions have been consistently hitting over two billion per month, and its growth has accelerated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fact, the gap between PhonePe and Google Pay has actually widened over the last two months. Comparing the volume of UPI transaction between the two players, PhonePe was ahead of Google Pay by 47.54 million for the month of December 2020, and this has now increased to 115.19 million in the month of January 2021.

On the value of UPI transactions, PhonePe continues to maintain its status as the market leader, recording Rs 1,91,973.77 crore for the month of January, while it was Rs 1,77,791.47 crore for Google Pay.

The number three player in terms of market share for UPI market has been Paytm Payments Bank. which recorded a volume of 281.18 million and value of Rs 33,909.50 crore in the month of January.

Amazon Pay, which stands in the fifth place, reported a volume of 46.30 million and value of Rs 4,044.38 crore for the month of January 2021.

However, the surprising part of these monthly UPI transactions has been the performance of WhatsApp Pay. It received the approval to start its payment service in November last year.

At the end of January 2021, WhatsApp Pay recorded transactions of 0.56 million, and in fact, this was lower than 0.81 million it had registered in December 2020.