by Suman Gupta
Paytm, India’s leading payments and financial services company and the pioneer of QR and mobile payments, continues to solidify its position as the leader in offline payments making digital transactions accessible across the length and breadth of India. Recently, the global brokerage firm BofA conducted offline primary checks across 50+ merchants and retail chains across Mumbai to better understand Soundbox utility. In its findings, Paytm appears to dominate the Soundbox market in Mumbai with more than 85% merchants using the device.
“Soundbox is a popular product with smaller shops. These merchants don’t mind paying Rs 100-150 per month as they’re happy with Paytm,” the report said. Merchants said in their feedback that they are happy with quality, battery, and reconciliation. Most retailers are paying Rs 125-150 per month subscription rental, and few merchants, who are early adopters, got free devices and are not paying monthly fees.
Paytm was the first to launch audio-based confirmations with Soundbox. The company remains the market leader in merchant payments with the number of merchants paying subscription for payment devices has reached 79 Lakh as of June 2023, an increase of 4 Lakh devices in the month and 11 Lakh devices in the quarter.
BofA also mentioned that most of the devices were installed in small Kiranas, sweet shops, kiosks, salons, small mobile merchants, and bigger shops. A common theme was these outlets had fast shopper intensity at a limited store size or area.
“During peak load hours, it became easy for shopkeepers to keep a tab on payments. Not many were savvy in using mobile phones and hence preferred this,” it added. Paytm is India’s leading digital ecosystem with 90mn MTUs and 33.5mn+ merchants. The report also iterated that most merchants said these devices were installed without an initial setup fee. “Retailers are now paying only monthly rental. Also, all daily transactions are bunched up and reflected in the bank account on the next day,” it added.
BofA noted that the lending business provides an upside optionality to Paytm giving it room to scale up subject to execution. “Paytm’s business model continues to show good traction and cross-sell helps improve profitability,” the global brokerage firm said.
