India's Favorite Online Payment Processors: PhonePE and Google Pay

PhonePE and Google Pay continue to dominate the online payments market in India. The two companies account for the lion's share of payments processed through the internet in India despite the fact there are plenty of other options for people to use.

Let's take a look at how PhonePE and Google Pay are so far ahead of the competition.

 PhonePE

According to the latest data to have been released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), PhonePE processed more than 902 million transactions in December 2020.

This works out at Rs 182,126.88 crores and gave PhonePE a market share of over 40 percent during that period, demonstrating just how dominant they are in their sphere.

It was in November 2020 when PhonePE moved out in front when it came to total monthly transactions in India. With the company has passed the mark of two billion transactions in 2019, it is clear that usage of PhonePE is still growing at a rapid rate in India.

Founded six years ago by Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari, PhonePE has grown rapidly into an industry giant, recording US$6.0 million in revenues in their latest financial figures. Now part of parent company Flipkart - which is majority-owned by US retail behemoth Walmart - more than 218 million people use PhonePE to manage their online payments.

PhonePE is used for a range of purposes. For example, it is the top platform for buying digital gold and is used as the payment processor for a lot of online casinos in India as well. Popular casino guide NoDepositWorld has curated a list of sites that offer PhonePE and the number of operators allowing their customers to use this payment option is expanding all the time too.

There are no fees when depositing with PhonePE, which is one of the top benefits of picking the payments processor when making deposits into Indian online casinos and other operators. All in all, more than 10 million offline and online merchant outlets have PhonePE access now.

Due to the fact that PhonePE is also regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, it is considered to be among the safest and secure online payment options that can be used in the country.

Google Pay

The main rival to PhonePE in India's competitive online payment processor industry is Google Pay, which was first launched in September 2015 under the original name Android Pay.

Google Pay changed its name in January 2018 and has gone from strength to strength since, with this option available to be used in a massive number of countries, as well as India.

Data from NPCI for the month of December 2020 shows that Google Pay saw 854.49 million transactions during the period, which accounted for Rs 176,199.33 crores.

Google Pay, therefore, saw its market share stand at 38.2 percent, slightly lower than that of rival PhonePE, with the two sites combining for a total market share of more than 75 percent.

While Google Pay works particularly smoothly with Android devices for obvious reasons, it is also available to be used on iOS devices in India, albeit with some limited functionality.

At first, Google Pay in India ran under the name Tez, but this was changed in August 2018 with the Google name becoming a lot more popular in the country.

Other online payment processors in India

While the world of online payment processors in India has two dominant figures in the form of Google Pay and PhonePE, they are not the only major operators within this sector.

Many Indians also like to use the Paytm Payments Bank App, which has a market share of over 11 percent after recording 261.09 million transactions during December 2020.

In the same month, the fourth-most popular online payments provider was shown to be the Axis Bank app, though it is B2C transactions that account for the majority of the 90 million transactions that were made on the platform.

Completing the top five online payment processors in India during December 2020 was Amazon Pay. Despite having under two percent market share, Amazon Pay is expected to become a more popular option for online payments in India during the next few years.

WhatsApp Pay is a name to keep an eye on too. Usage of this payment option in India doubled during December 2020, which is impressive given it was only launched a few weeks earlier.

The dominance of Google Pay and PhonePE in India could be under threat in the near future.

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