After a good funding, PhonePe goes the offline way now!

PhonePe to capture the offline market. Read on!

In a prudent strategy to make a mark in the offline market, Flipkart’s payment arm PhonePe launched a low-cost point-of-sale device. The handheld device which doubles up as a calculator, will elevate PhonePe’s current offline daily transactions of around 10,000 to one million, according to Sameer Nigam, PhonePe’s chief executive.

Here’s are the salient features in a nutshell:

• Any device with a bluetooth will be piloted with 5,000 merchants in Bengaluru before a roll out across top 10 cities in the next three-four months.
• PhonePe is available for a security deposit of Rs 699(the cost to manufacture the device), it hopes to deploy multiple devices at a single merchant too
• ‘We want to go city by city since this requires merchant education’, added Nigam.
• This was for those who believe that QR codes don’t work due to some recent wallet-specific guidelines
• The in-house designed POS device, resembles a calculator and could be implemented using the consumer’s PhonePe application.

With PhonePe slowly entering the offline market, do you think Paytm will have to develop a smarter strategy to survive in the market?

Awaiting your reply.

Excerpts from The Economic Times