When WhatsApp Pay, WhatsApp's digital payment system, was launched last November, three lakh users used it in the initial month. In December, the transactions went past the eight lakhs mark. However, it didn't go much further. According to the new statistics published by National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), only five and a half lakh transactions happened in WhatsApp Pay in January this year.
WhatsApp Pay didn't receive the expected response in India, its largest market. The main reason is the migration caused by WhatsApp's new privacy policies. When users migrated to alternate messaging apps, it affected WhatsApp Pay too.
Another reason for WhatsApp to lose ground is the presence of other UPI apps. People hesitated to move from PhonePe, Google Pay or Paytm to the new entrant. As per the NPCI's statistics for January this year, 79.13 per cent of total online transactions are through PhonePe and Google Pay.
In January 2021 alone, PhonePe made 968.72 million transactions and transferred 1.91 lakh crore rupees making it the most preferred UPI app. Forty-two per cent of the total transactions in the UPI economy are through PhonePe, and it received 7 per cent growth in transactions in January, reads the statistics. The value of total transactions increased by nearly 5 per cent.
Google Pay is the second largest UPI app in the country. Google Pay did 853.53 million transactions and transferred 1.77 lakh crore rupees in January this year. Thirty-seven per cent is the market share of Google Pay in UPI economy.
The Indian origin Paytm app stands at third place. Paytm transferred 33,909.50 crore rupee through 281.18 million transactions in January 2021. With 4044.38 crore rupees transferred through 46.30 million transactions, Amazon Pay stands at 4th place. Compared with December 2020, other UPI apps recorded an increase while WhatApp Pay crashed down to 30 per cent negative growth.