Paytm mulling business split into e-wallet, ecommerce apps

The current app will be morphed into an ecommerce app focusing on shopping and will prompt users to download the independent app for wallet use,inc42.com reports. However, the company will continue to offer wallet option for some time on the current app.

For now, Paytm is running the second app for digital wallets on pilot, which will be launched in January, 2015. The founder and CEO of Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, said that the payments market has reached the long-tail of Indian consumers, where the app requirements are different from that which urban english speaking customers needed.

Paytm has been extending itself in cashless payment space and ecommerce. It has partnered with relatively large amount of businesses for its digital payments which include auto rickshaw aggregator and hyperlocal delivery startup Jugnoo, cab hailing service Uber, QSR chains like CCD, Vaango and others, college and institutions and more. Besides, the company has also forayed in hotel booking business, bus ticketing and hyperlocal business.

According to Sharma, Paytm’s increasing commerce business that includes goods, bus tickets, hotel bookings and more, have made the app heavy and the co-existence with payments has complicated the payments use case. He felt that many rural customers will be put off by a heavier app and it makes sense to give them a light app for payments.

Paytm, presently claims to have has more than 100 million registered customers on its platform. Paytm’s investor Alibaba, which has pumped more than USD 600 million into Paytm, follows a similar model with Alipay app for payments and Tmall app for commerce business.