Mobile phone maker Micromax aims to get 15 million customers carrying out cashless transactions on Udio, its mobile wallet by the end of this year. Being the largest smartphone maker based in India, Micromax will launch devices that will have in-built wallet by the end of April. This will make payments and services a crucial part of its growth.
The second largest brand in the country has signed a three-way deal with Visa, the digital payment provider to enable mobile payments using QR code scans and PIN at the retail stores all over the country. TranServ, a Mumbai based payment technology platform will provide the mobile wallet for Micromax.
Vikas Jain, the Co-Founder of Micromax stated that there are around 30 million smartphone users who have access to applications. And, they expect 50 percent of these users to use the wallet by the end of this year. He added that they are exploring some plans to roll the wallet Udio in the countries such as Russia within this year.
The Indian and global brands are facing a great challenge in the rapidly growing Indian smartphone market. The increasing competition and the foray of new Chinese smartphone brands at affordable prices have heated the fight further. The latest entrants are sensing the trend and brands such as LeEco have started establishing their content delivery centers in the country to provide localized content.
Micromax is trying to differentiate itself from the crowd in addition to creating future growth paths. The mobile wallet will become the default payment layer to the services that the Around Yu platform offers. This will be the strategy for growth in the future.
The firm will provide deals to the customers who start using the wallet and it can be used for entertainment, travel, and car rides available on the Around Yu platform that will increase the stickiness of the customers.
Micromax is a considerable late entrant in the segment of mobile wallet that is dominated by the independent bank offered and telco backed wallets that have already gained traction in the market with their established presence. There are players such as Freecharge, Paytm, Oxigen and Mobikwik in the wallet space that are aggressively adding customers. Micromax aims to grow in this segment by providing the wallet as an add-on feature in the new phones as these will include the Udio mobile wallet app.
