Paytm leads in UPI usage, Google Pay & PhonePe follow

Paytm led in Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions in January, closely followed by Google Pay and PhonePe, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
As UPI gains further ground, the field is competitive--Paytm clocked more than 221 million transactions, while Google Pay and PhonePe were at about 220 million, said the people cited above. PhonePe, however, told ET across all payment modes it had 225 million transactions worth Rs 30,000 crore in January.

While the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) issues overall UPI transaction numbers, ET has sourced the individual split of the top three largest payment players from multiple sources. Overall, UPI clocked around 672 million transactions last month, up from 620 million in December. Google Pay did not provide specific numbers and Paytm didn’t respond to queries.

Even as the number of transactions has jumped, peer to peer (P2P) transactions still dominate.

“As per internal calculations, the total number of merchant transactions is not more than 100 to 120 million per month,” said a senior banker on condition of anonymity. “However, merchant payments are growing as nonbank entities are pushing those transactions. Even the number of UPI payments for cab rides is recording almost 2 million per month, growing at a considerable pace.”


The government-promoted Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) has been losing steam over the past few months as more transactions are flowing through private nonbanking applications. As per the latest numbers shared by NPCI, BHIM reported 14 million transactions in January, down from 17 million in December 2018.

A closer look at the number reveals that the amount of funds settled per BHIM transaction is still the highest in the industry, which means that people are using the application because they choose to and not because of incentives, which have dwindled. In January, the average amount per transaction on BHIM stood at Rs 4,436. It’s been hovering in that range over the past three months.

The average ticket size of a UPI transaction is about Rs 1,600. ET’s calculations show that the number could be hovering around Rs 1,907 for Paytm, Rs 1,300 for PhonePe and around Rs 1,200 for Google Pay.

“These figures show that a large chunk of the UPI transactions could still be incentivised ones but with hardly any special incentives on P2P payments on BHIM, the numbers tend to be higher,” said one of the bankers cited above. “Besides the nonbanking applications, even bank apps are showing some strong adoption. State Bank of India, Axis Bank and a few others are showing rapid adoption.”

SBI didn’t comment. In its latest disclosures to shareholders, the bank said more than 87% of the bank’s transactions are taking place on “alternate channels.”