The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) partnered with digital payments Fintech platform Paytm announcing them as the Official Umpire Partner of the VIVO Indian Premier League for the next five years in 2018. A recent addition to the unicorn club, Paytm is also the Title Sponsor of India Cricket. Cricket has played a key role in the development of Paytm’s brand expanding its reach across the country and increasing their user base.
Paytm, Cricket and IPL
In July 2015, Paytm acquired the title sponsorship rights for India’s domestic and international cricket matches at home for a period of four years starting in August 2015. This included sponsor branding of the series with the title sponsor logo, designation as the title sponsor of the series, visibility at the stadium, broadcast sponsorship rights and all BCCI domestic matches in India like the Ranji Trophy. Paytm also acquired sponsorship rights during the 8th season of Indian Premier League. It has also served as an associate sponsor on Sony TV network and was the official partner of the IPL team Mumbai Indians. Currently, they are the Official Umpire Partner of the VIVO Indian Premier League.
Growth Prospects for Paytm in the next 5 years
The IPL is one of the most-attended cricket leagues in the world and was ranked sixth by average attendance among all sports leagues in 2014. With such high viewership, Paytm has had the opportunity to tap into an extensive network of users across the country and the globe.
Going forward, Paytm plans to focus on SME and merchant sectors to make its brand more inclusive and expand its client base as the SME sector is a vast market. They also plan to invest around ₹10,000 crore over the next three years to expand financial services especially their offline merchant base.
Paytm aims to add around 10 million merchants to their platform over the next 12-18 months in addition to their current network of over 16 million merchants.
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With 450 million registered users, 130 million active users, 60 million bank accounts, 220 million saved cards, Paytm has a daily average of 5 million transactions with an average of 18 weekly transactions per user.
The new all-in-one payment gateway and business solutions as well as an Android-based point of sale (POS) machine has made the brand more client friendly and convenient.
As the payment gateway market is gradually booming, with government initiatives helping enhance the digital payment space, the economy is moving to become a cashless landscape. Paytm has already become a pedestal platform, and strives to tap more into the digital payments market.
With 450 million registered users, 130 million active users, 60 million bank accounts, 220 million saved cards, Paytm has a daily average of 5 million transactions with an average of 18 weekly transactions per user. Monthly transactions via Paytm average to over $4 billion and the number is only increasing. They witnessed a 3.5X growth amidst the pandemic as the brand shifts its focus to scalability and customer loyalty.
Post pandemic, several individuals are in need of credit and several companies are recovering and rebuilding. This would increase the credit side exposure of Paytm by at least 10 fold in 2021 according to Paytm. The unicorn is flying high and aims to fly higher in the near future, for as they say, the sky’s the limit.
