With the Reserve Bank of India’s crackdown on Paytm Payments Bank on January 31, for not complying with regulations, downloads of rival payment apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, and MobiKwik have seen double-digit growth, while Paytm has seen a decline of 32%.
According to data from app intelligence platform AppTweak, Walmart-owned PhonePe has so far been the biggest beneficiary of the uncertainty which has gripped merchants and consumers. Its downloads jumped 40% post-January 31.
Between February 1-6, the app saw 3.75 million downloads across Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, compared to 2.68 million downloads in the six days prior to the notice.
PhonePe has even said that its seeing a surge in inbound requests from merchants for QRs and SmartSpeakers – a device that was originally introduced in the Indian market by Paytm to give voice alerts for every transaction.
Similarly, downloads of the Google Pay app rose 14% in the period post-January 31 to 1.27 million, compared to a similar period prior to that, while that of smaller rival MobiKwik nearly doubled to 280,588 downloads. Meanwhile, Paytm’s downloads fell 32% to 998,301 after January 31, compared to 1.48 million downloads before that.
Besides these private players, National Payments Corporation of India’s BHIM UPI app also saw a 40% surge in downloads. Between February 1-6, the app saw 2.11 million downloads, compared to 1.50 million downloads in the six days prior to the notice.
Paytm has issued several social media posts and in-app advisories to merchants to debunk any misconception around the recent restrictive actions by RBI, while its field sales executives are reaching out directly to merchants.
Over the weekend, its field sales executives reached out to merchants to migrate QR codes from their existing PPB accounts to accounts with other banks. However, the QR code, soundbox or card machine will not require any physical changes, the company had confirmed.