Paytm hits 100 million downloads on Google Play Store

Paytm claims to be India’s first payments app to cross 100 million downloads on Play Store.

Paytm becomes first payments app in India to achieve this feat. (Saumya Khandelwal/HT PHOTO)

Paytm on Wednesday announced that its app has gone past 100 million downloads on Google Play Store. The company says it is India's first payments app to achieve the feat.

"We are overwhelmed with the 100 million downloads mark, reaching this milestone is a testimony to the efforts of the incredible team at Paytm," said senior vice president Paytm, Deepak Abbot in a blog post.

"This achievement will offer us a strong boost as we work towards our goal of making India a digital-first economy," he added.

Paytm is charting the next chapter of its growth from being a pioneer in mobile payments to becoming a mobile-first financial services company, which offers banking, lending, insurance, and payments. The platform allows users to do online recharges and bill payments, book movie tickets, do travel bookings among others.

Paytm has become the most preferred payments app in the country today, allowing users to scan its QR and pay at large merchants, grocery and kirana stores, milk-booths, local taxi/autos fares, petrol pumps, multiplexes, restaurants and more.

Apart from payments, Paytm this year also forayed into instant messaging segment to take on the likes of WhatsApp and Hike messenger. Paytm's Inbox allows users to chat with their friends and families as well as send and receive money. Also, Inbox users can share live location and recall messages, recently added features on WhatsApp.