Vol: 7, Issue: 4 2017

Page: 107-124

An In-Depth Analysis of the Leveraging of the 2016 Indian Demonetisation - Paytm Establishing itself as a Dominant Player in the Digital Payment Industry

Aditya Gupta

Received Date: 2017-11-06

Accepted Date: 2017-11-20

Published Date: 2017-12-12

There is a recent increase in the smartphone penetration in the Indian market. According to Analysis firm Canalys1, India is now the World’s second-largest smartphone market, overtaking the USA, second only to China. This is a massive paradigm shift which shows how fast Indians are adopting new technology. In November 2016, India experienced demonization where all 500 and 1000 rupees notes were no longer an accepted form of currency. This was done to curb the inflow of fake currency from various sources. But this also caused a big shortage of cash in the following days. People had to look for other means for their daily transaction and the solution came in the form of Mobile payment systems. Mobile wallets are apps that can be used to pay and receive money, after an initial amount is added to them. There were many players in this market, growing slowly. But demonetisation forced a lot more people to go forward and adopt the various options available in the economy. These ranged from Paytm, Free charge to phone brand solutions like Apple Pay. Notably, the biggest market capitalisation was of Paytm, which will act as the subject of this entire research.

References

• LiveMint: India becomes the World’s second largest smartphone market (27 October 2017) http://www.livemint.com/Technology/Dml7WqfGXIjhpQobNjBtnN/India-overtakes-US-tobecome-second-largest-smartphone-marke.html
• “A study on usage of Paytm” Abhijit M. Tadse, Harmeet Singh Nannade http://puneresearch.com/media/data/issues/58e27a12c24c4.pdf
• Jawed Anwer - November 23, 2016 in India today http://indiatoday.intoday.in/technology/story/after-demonetisation-e-wallets-strike-it-richwhile-india-runs-out-of-cash/1/817932.html
• Business Insider India - November 21, 2016 http://www.businessinsider.in/Thanks-todemonetization-Paytm-is-making-Rs-120-crore-per-day-achieves-target-before-deadlinecrosses-5-billion-GMV/articleshow/55541691.cms
• Itika Sharma Punit - December 25, 2016 in Scroll https://scroll.in/article/824991/afterdemonetisation-dream-run-paytm-is-paying-a-price-for-its-sudden-stardom
• “Mobile Wallet: Present and Future” Prof. Trilok Nath Shukla http://ssijmar.in/vol5no3/vol5no3.6.pdf
• Article published in LIVEMINT during Nobemeber 2016 http://www.livemint.com/Industry/qauzUZqgYFhwhPnt18CgIM/Demonetisation-and-thedigital-economy.html
• Pranjal Dixit, Ashu Prakash, Tushar Tiwari from IIT, Kanpur, on 4th April, 2017, have presented “Heuristic Analysis of ‘Growth of PayTM’.” https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ashu_Prakash/publication/316042098_Heuristic_A nalysis_of_Growth_of_PayTM/links/58ee227daca2724f0a287d1f/Heuristic-Analysis-ofGrowth-of-PayTM.pdf
• Mugdha Variyar’s article published in The Economic Times https://m.economictimes.com/etreporter/author-mugdha-variyar-479245129.cms