WhatsApp adds prepaid phone recharges in India as its payments usage still lags

WhatsApp is adding prepaid phone recharges in India in a move to get more users to transact within the app, even as it struggles to gain meaningful ground in a payments market dominated by Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay. On Thursday, WhatsApp said it is partnering with fintech firm PayU to roll out prepaid phone recharges in India, allowing users to top up mobile numbers for major operators including Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea directly within the messaging app. The feature will be made available to all WhatsApp users in the country over the next two weeks, PayU confirmed to TechCrunch. Image Credits:WhatsApp Despite having more than 500 million users in India and launching payments in 2020, WhatsApp remains a marginal player in the country’s digital payments space, driven by the government-backed Unified Payments Interface. The messaging app processed over 130 million transactions in March, according to the latest statistics from the National Payments Corporation of India, far behind rivals such as Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay, which processed more than 10.5 billion and 7.5 billion transactions, respectively, over the same period.