RESEARCH REPORT JAN 2018

research

The state of e-wallets and

digital payments in india
2018
About the Survey
The survey was conducted to assess the usage of e-wallets
and their impact on digital payments in India. This survey was
conducted in Q4 2017 and had close to 1000 respondents
from the top 12 Indian metros - Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Kolkata,
Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur,
Indore, Lucknow, & Ranchi.

All respondents were smartphone users and mentioned that

they use e-wallets ‘at least once a month’. The respondents
were randomly selected by mobile in-app market research app
Unomer (Android-only) based on age, gender and location;
they received micro-credit from Unomer for participating in
the survey.

Executive Summary
The e-wallet market had witnessed rapid growth over the
last one year. e-wallet usage is addictive, about 4/5th of the
monthly users, use them weekly. Usage is driven by ease of
use, discounts, and sheer ubiquity of the e-wallets. Mobile
bill payment and online shopping are the biggest spend
categories for e-wallets. People spend INR 4,286 per month
on an average through their e-wallets.

Paytm corners 3/4th of the market by value and volume,

leaving other players -- FreeCharge, PhonePe and MobiKwik
-- far behind. Paytm has a chance of being category-defining
(like Xerox in copiers), with 96% of all e-wallet users having
installed the Paytm app. There is not much difference in usage
or market share by metro, age or gender.

Metros like Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Ranchi, which

have been slower in adopting digital spending, are jumping
on the e-wallet bandwagon faster, with a larger proportion of
digital spending on e-wallets.
// The e-wallet market has witnessed rapid growth and
expanded the digital payments usage by over 33%. Of the
total e-wallet user base, 30% of the users didn’t use any other
digital transaction method. If not for the explosion of e-wallet
usage (most likely brought about by the November 2016
demonetization), a majority of these 30% users wouldn’t be
using any form of digital payment at all.

// While e-wallet itself has become a powerful new digital

channel, e-wallet users’ preference of other payment channels is
not very different from non e-wallet days. Amongst e-wallet users,
debit card was the most used, followed by internet banking,
credit cards and BHIM (the RBI’s e-payment app). Keeping in
mind that most bank users automatically get a debit card and net
banking access, it is no surprise that these take the top two slots.

Indians’ preference for using debit cards over credit cards

continues among the e-wallet users. Net banking is also popular
ahead of credit card. In a sense, India’s traditionally low credit
card penetration has been overcome with a generation of users
jumping to e-wallets without using credit cards.

BHIM is the least-used payment channel, highlighting the need to

market it.

60% Debit card

45% Net Banking

35% Credit Card

09% BHIM

User Preference: Digital Payment Channels

// e-wallet usage is frequent, with 80% of the total users using it
more than once a week and 33% using it daily.

80%
Once a week

33%
Daily

// e-wallet usage is driven by ease of use, discounts and

ubiquitous payment. Interestingly, safety was the least prominent
driver of e-wallet usage.

23% 19%
Ease of use Discount

19% 13%
Ability to pay everywhere Safety

// Paytm is the most used e-wallet in terms of value as well as

volume of transactions, by a wide margin. 77% of respondents
rated Paytm as their most transacted e-wallet by value. The others
were far behind. PhonePe was second at 13%, MobiKwik at
7% and FreeCharge at 2%. Citrus, Ola Money and Oxigen
had negligible shares. The story is not too different by volume of
usage.

// 96% of all e-wallet users have installed the app, clearly

indicating the success of Paytm’s mass media outreach. 40%
of the respondents had installed PhonePe; 30% MobiKwik. Tez
by Google is fast catching up with 24% having installed it.
FreeCharge was installed in 23% of the respondents’ phones
and Jio Wallet in 15%. BHIM installations were quite low at 14%
behind the 6 private plays - Paytm, PhonePe, MobiKwik, Tez,
FreeCharge, Jio Wallet.
// High frequency users of e-wallets (those who use
e-wallets daily):

Use Paytm (81%) vis-a-vis Spend INR 5,937 per month

75% of all user on e-wallet (about 28% more
than the average user)

// Age, gender and location had little impact on e-wallet market

share. The only exception was Kolkata. Everywhere else Paytm is
6x its nearest competition, whereas in Kolkata, it is 3x.

// In terms of average spend, PhonePe and OLA Money had the

highest average monthly spends of INR at 6,500 each. MobiKwik
had INR 5,623 and Paytm had the lowest of the four at INR
4,264. A huge majority of the new users, who tend to spend less
than average, would be beginning their ePayment journey with
Paytm, pushing down the average spends.

// e-wallet usage is driven by offers. 57% of the Paytm users

attribute offers as the driving force behind them using e-wallets.
However other companies are even more dependent on offers-
MobiKwik at 80% and PhonePe at 85%.
// Mobile bill payment is the most frequent activity on
e-wallet apps. Online shopping and bill payment are next
at about 66% each. Buying movie tickets, ordering food and
transferring money (nearly 50% each) are also big usage
categories for e-wallets. Cab payment, flight/rail bookings
are also made by a large proportion of users (nearly 40%
each).

// When it comes to spending by value, mobile payment

(28%), online shopping (21%) and utility payment (16%) are
the biggest spend areas. Private money transfer (8%), movie
ticket purchase (7%) and food payment (6%) are a few other
usages.

bc Online Shopping - was

#1 in Bangalore,
Chennai, Hyderabad

h
ai
jk
Mobile bill payment was
#1 across most other Indian
cities - Ahmedabad, Indore,
Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow,

lrn
Ranchi, NCR
// e-wallets account for 48% of total digital spends. The
average user spends INR 4,286 per month through e-wallets
and INR 9,583 through e-wallets and other digital payment
methods. Average spend of men at INR 5,286 per month was
nearly 1.7 times of women at INR 3,200 per month.

Average Monthly Spends - Digital Payment Methods

4,286 9,583
e-wallets Only e-wallets + Other Digital
Methods

Gender Wise Monthly Digital Spends

5,286 3,200

Men Women
// Towns like Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Ranchi,
which have traditionally been low digital spenders, have
increased their digital spends after the introduction of e-wallets.

Chennai, Pune, NCR and Jaipur spend the most digitally, on

e-wallets as well as other traditional digital payment methods.

Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Ranchi relatively spend

less digitally.However these towns are allocating a bigger
chunk of their digital spend to e-wallets, leapfrogging older
digital payment methods.

Proportion of spend on Average Digital Payment per

eWallets of total Digital spend person per month in the city

a 66% b 52% c 46%

Ahmedabad Bengaluru Chennai
5,262 8,900 14,208

h 41% i 66% j 52%

Hyderabad Indore Jaipur
11,686 7,739 11,731

k 45% L 63% m 49%

Kolkata Lucknow Mumbai
6,185 6,416 8,490

n 47% p 35% r 68%

NCR Pune Ranchi
13,226 16,513 5,288
 About the Researchers

Nimish Vohra
SVP, Principal Analyst

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimishvohra
https://twitter.com/VohraNimish

Nimish’s research focuses on customer success management,

predictive analytics, mobile enablement and other emerging
trends that help customers leverage technology as an enabler of
marketing and business outcomes.

Kingshuk Hazra
Adivisor

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kingshuk/
https://twitter.com/kingshukhazra

Kingshuk Hazra heads LeadStrategus – a Go To Market

consulting firm. Kingshuk calls himself the ‘original pipeline
builder’ using any & all tools & techniques – old & new - to build
high ROI powerful sales pipeline. His past stints have been with
AWS, SAP, Gartner, Oracle, Pluralsight and naukri.com.
 About Regalix Research
Regalix Research focuses on helping organizations across the
globe to augment their marketing, customer satisfaction and
retention initiatives. Headquartered in Mountain View, California,
the organization boasts an extensive network of top business
executives. It employs practitioners for in-depth analysis of industry
data for meaningful insights that answer the ‘whens’ and ‘whys’ of
disruptive trends.

The research methodology employed by Regalix filters scores of

data sets, making them insightful and enables industry leaders to
arrive at impactful business decisions.

About Unomer
Unomer provides a mobile platform and in-app survey technology
to power market research. Unomer partners with brands, market
research agencies and app publishers to gamify targeting,
sampling and incentivization for collecting data and gathering
insights through mobile apps.

About Leadstrategus
LeadStrategus is a Go To Market consulting firm. We work with SMBs
& Startups in improving their Sales & Marketing effectiveness with
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