Google, Apple, and Samsung optimistic about mobile payment business in India

Google, Apple and Samsung, all are known names in the field of smartphones in India. However, another product they have in common here in India is the business of mobile payments.

With Google's latest launch, a payment API, one can apprehend the growing importance that smartphones have as the primary platform for digital transactions, which has grown even more after India's move to a less-cash economy.

Samsung too has launched Samsung Pay in March while Apple Pay is soon to be launched; both specific to their respective devices. Other players in this field are Paytm and MobiKwik, with Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular, with these telcos trying to tap the potential offered by digital payments.

"Solutions like Google Payments API or even Android Pay can be important for bringing users on board for making cashless payments and may even help in generating critical mass in countries like India, given Google's reach," Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, told ET.

Smartphones meet all the four key requirements that online payments business demand, viz., seamless experience, infrastructure, security and most importantly, behaviour change from cash to non-cash.

These points "have been further helped by large-scale data connectivity by Reliance Jio and free data at their disposal," said Sanjay Razdan, director of Samsung Pay Business.

The key barriers, however, remain the basic need of Indians to deal in cash and the worry about their financial security.

Analysts at Deloitte India predict that within this year itself, mobile and digital payments will displace physical card payments to become the predominant non-cash payment mode.

(Image source Ground Report)