PhonePe claims that it has processed over 2 million transactions in offline organized outlets in August, and would like to increase this number to 10 million by December. This, according to the company, is a 20x growth in payment transactions in the last 6 months. PhonePe has been building its offline payments business to expand its customer base. To this effect, the company acquired Zopper Retail, a hyperlocal point-of-sale platform for small and medium businesses. PhonePe also developed its own PoS device based on Bluetooth technology and QR payments, which can do transactions without being connected to the internet. It has also tied up with several retail chains including Mother Diary, Café Coffee Day, Metro Cash & Carry, Apollo Pharmacy, Barista, Spencer’s, KFC, FoodWorld, Pai International and Goli Vada Pav etc. The company claims that it is focused on organised retailers due to the visibility and access they get. PhonePe numbers PhonePe claims that it accounts for 6 -10% of all non-cash transactions at ‘large organised chains’. The company also attributes a large part of its growth to an increase in the usage of its products in fuel stations, where it claims that POS and QR payments account for 50% each. The POS devices are now being rolled out to fuel pumps across multiple cities, it said. Going forward, however, PhonePe plans to tap the unorganised retail segment, and will deploy manpower to increase its presence, according to its co-founder Rahul Chari. It will also deploy an additional 50,000 POS devices across the country by…
