NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Mobile wallet companies are growing by leaps and bounds and are hot among investors, but doubts have emerged about whether the numbers on usage and transactions being touted by different sets of players do reflect the reality in terms of business.

While there is no reliable data from regulators, consultants, companies and investors are peddling their own data to substantiate claims which often lead to conflicting claims.

Market leader Paytmhas pegged the total number of users of its wallet at 135 million, which some analysts say may be too high.

“When we did due diligence on these companies we found a substantial overlap of the total users. As per our estimates, 63 per cent of the total wallets are active,” said Ashvin Parekh, managing partner of consultancy Ashvin Parekh Advisory Services. The industry has grown in three waves — mobile recharges, utility bill payments and online shopping.”Now the density checks (to calculate actual usage) reveal that the actual number of mobile wallets in use are far lesser than the numbers shown.”