Amazon has invested ₹230 crores ($33.5 million) in Amazon Pay, its digital payment arm. This investment comes from Singapore-based Amazon Corporate Holdings and Amazon.com.incs, according to RoC filings.
It had recently invested ₹195 crores ($30 million) in Amazon Pay just a couple of months back in March. The total investment in Amazon Pay has been close to ₹1,000 crores since it was first launched in India back in 2016.
With the latest investments, the company is looking to expand its digital payment wallets outreach by offering cashbacks on its e-commerce platform for payments using Amazon Pay. Amazon’s Prime Day that was just launched is a smart way to gain customers along with increased traction for Amazon Pay.
This move is targetted towards Paytm and Flipkart‘s digital wallet and payments arm, PhonePe. Amazon is looking to penetrate into the Indian market as it competes with the local giants.
Amazon is also looking to push Amazon Pay beyond its platform to third-party online merchants, along with extending it to offline touchpoints. This will enable Amazon Pay to expand its outreach to not only its own customer base but also other platforms. Amazon had recently invested $5 million in digital payments company ToneTag to further its goals. ToneTag is set to roll out new payment modes for Amazon in the coming few months.
Considering the growth and outreach of Paytm in the local Indian market, Amazon has a long way to penetrate the market the way Paytm has done. Paytm has been able to capture the regional market using the regional languages that have been a key factor in its growth recently.
There is a stiff competition among all three giants Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm with no clear winner in sight but Paytm is clearly ahead in the digital payment space and is looking to expand aggressively.
In related developments, Paytm has crossed the mark of 50 lakh transactions in a year, and PhonePe has acquired Zooper Retail to strengthen offline presence.