There’s no denying the popularity of mobile wallet platforms like Apple Pay or Google Wallet or any of a host of others.
But it’s a whole different matter when your mobile wallet platform can count 50 million users among its ranks, and that’s an accomplishment recently achieved by the folks at Paytm. While that alone would be a major achievement for just about any company, Paytm expects this milestone to be short lived, and little more than a way station to a much bigger milestone.
The 50 million wallets point was substantial enough, but it actually joins a series of others to recently emerge from the company. Paytm proper averages around 60 million transactions per month, with each user averaging about one transaction a week, or roughly four per month. There are variances in there, of course, but the average shows that there’s a lot of room for regular and casual users alike.
But Paytm is hardly resting on its laurels; the company has plans in the making to clear the 100 million user mark by the end of this year. Yes, by the time the ball drops into 2016, Paytm wants to have 100 million users in place.
That’s a major feat, especially given that there are around 1.25 billion people total in India, representing around eight percent of the population to sign on with Paytm by the end of the year.
Paytm’s CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, offered up a note of commentary around the news, saying “It is a matter of great pride that over 50 million Indians have trusted us with their money, and one-third of them transact on Paytm on any given month”.
Indeed, it is a matter of great pride to account for that many users on any platform, let alone the huge number of users that Paytm counts to its credit.
It’s clear that the mobile payments market is really taking off the world over, and if Paytm can actually pull 100 million users to its credit by the end of the year, that’s no mean feat.
Better yet, if Paytm can keep up the transaction averages for 100 million users, that means somewhere around 120 million transactions per month. Assuming even just a dollar in transaction fees, that means a nine-figure income for Paytm on a monthly basis, and gives the company a lot of room for future growth.
This is also likely good news for Alibaba, who at last report owns 25 percent of the company. A major growth opportunity might mean extra cash for Alibaba to put to work in other expansions, possibly in the United States, where Alibaba has had a presence since, by some reports, June 2014. It could also possibly make a move on the European market, even though the Euro is still having a bit of trouble by some analysts’ figuring.
Still, the key takeaway here is one of options. With that kind of user count going on, and those transaction numbers, there’s a lot of potential for big gains to come. Only time will tell what those gains look like, but there’s likely to be no shortage of material to work with if these numbers hold up.
