Paytm is launching hotel bookings in the next update of the Paytm iOS and Android apps. The company will offer over 20,000 hotel listings across the country in the first phase of the rollout, however, it’s not clear when this app update is to be expected. Note that just last week Paytm said it would enter the hyperlocal services vertical, starting with food ordering, table bookings, cinema tickets and deals in the user’s neighbourhood. However, as of now, none of these services seem to be live. The company had also said last month that it would add movie and entertainment tickets on its platform within a week, although even this doesn’t seem to be live. We wonder if the company plans to launch all these features together during the next app update. Overall, it looks like Paytm has been preparing to enter the hyperlocal vertical for quite sometime now. In July, the company invested $50 million along with investors SAIF Partners and Tiger Global Management for establishing an online to offline app-only marketplace called Little. The ‘Little’ app would basically act as a discovery platform for customers while letting offline merchants sell online to users in the area. Earlier this month, Paytm also started offering 2 hour mobile phone deliveries in partnership with The MobileStore. In April, the company had also launched an app called Zip which was to connect local offline and online grocers, as its foray into hyperlocal grocery services. However, the app was pulled within 2 months of launch.…
