Alibaba are venturing into the offline mobile retail space by entering their mobile wallet firm Paytm into the Indian restaurant market.
India’s largest mobile wallet service is specifically targeting quick service restaurants (QSRs) such as Domino’s pizza and café coffee day which are located throughout India. The expansion follows Alibaba’s acquisition of One97 communications, the developers behind Paytm.
‘‘We are now foraying into the offline space. We have partnered various QSRs covering 7,000-10,000 outlets in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad,’’ said Amit Lakhotia, vice president of Paytm.
This transition into the restaurant sector is just one of many attempts made my parent company Alibaba to expand Paytm.
In April the mobile wallet firm announced that they were entering the e-commerce market, in order to directly compete against firms such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal.
By expanding into other markets, Paytm expects its revenue stream to increase dramatically. The mobile wallet giants are expecting its revenue stream to more than double from $1.5bn to $4bn by the end of the year. Paytm expect to be operating in QSRs by mid-June.
‘‘Mobile wallet usage is definitely growing in the country. On our platform alone, about 66 million people are using the wallet services and the number will cross 100 million much before the year ends,’’ continued Lakhotia.
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