According to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm processed 94% of India’s UPI payments in March 2023. The three apps accounted for nearly 96% of all UPI transactions by value, with about 841.91 crore transactions worth INR 13.44 lakh crore between them. PhonePe was the top UPI app, processing 407.63 crore transactions worth INR 7.07 lakh crore, followed by Google Pay with 305.44 crore transactions worth INR 4.83 lakh crore, and Paytm with 128.84 crore transactions worth INR 1.54 lakh crore. Meanwhile, CRED remained in the fourth spot in terms of transaction value, accounting for UPI transactions worth INR 21,056.31 crore, or about 1.5% of the total transaction value.
These statistics indicate that peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions are still the majority in terms of transaction value, while peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions are more common in terms of transaction volume. It is interesting to note that most of the P2P transactions were for amounts over INR 2,000, indicating that UPI is being used for larger transactions between individuals. On the other hand, P2M transactions are more common for smaller amounts, such as payments at grocery stores, restaurants, and for utility bills. According to the data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), groceries, supermarkets, restaurants, and digital goods were the high transacting categories on the UPI platform. Wallet top-ups, utilities, and bars were tagged under medium transacting categories.