Paytm Planning To Enter Online Content Space Soon

Digital payments player Paytm is now looking to introduce content, news, short videos, and live television on its platform by September this year.

Elaborating on the plans, the company's senior vice president Deepak Abbot informed that, the company witnessed 100 percent q-o-q growth in the user engagement through Paytm Inbox where it offers news, cricket store, and videos.

He also emphasized that for the next phase of growth, Paytm will acquire and engage new users in small cities and towns.

Furthermore, the company has also signed deals with smartphone manufacturers including Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi where users will get the Paytm application built-in.

"Since 55-60 percent of them are first-time smartphone users we are hoping to capture that section of the market once they get the app," the company informed.

Paytm also hopes to add more customers to its platform through the new offerings. According to the company, they are currently seeing 27 million customers logging into the Paytm inbox and they expect it to grow the figure multiple times.

Also, Paytm is working on adding a few more payments, like municipal taxes and traffic fines collected by the police, etc. into its payment mode. This will be another way to expand the reach of the app.

On the other hand, Flipkart is planning to come up with its own free video streaming service before Diwali. The company is planning to partner with international and production houses for the content.

Our Thoughts

Both Paytm and Flipkart entry comes at a time when Netflix has announced its cheapest plan, which is restricted to single device usage. So it would be interesting to see the competition in the content space.

However, Hotstar is leading this segment as the company provides free content.