Whenever it comes to UPI payment, there are only a few names that come to mind first such as Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay. According to data from National Payments Corporation of India, the combined UPI market share of Phone Pay and Google Pay was 79 percent in May 2026.
The combined dominance of these two big companies has fallen below 80 percent. This is a historic change as it is the first time since NPCI started releasing app specific transaction data. However, there are only six months left for the deadline to implement the 30 percent market cap rule for a UPI app. The gradual decline in market share shows that the grip of the top two players on the country’s popular payment platforms is loosening. These two players account for about 86 percent of all digital transactions in the country.
NPCI’s success
NPCI is focusing on creating a level playing field between big and new third-party app providers (TPAPs) or UPI apps. For this, many measures are being taken, such as relaxing the rules related to features and rolling out special or initial features for small apps, so that apart from the top players, the participation of other apps can also increase.
UPI apps like NPCI’s BHIM, Sachin Bansal’s Navi, Flipkart Group’s Super.Money and WhatsApp Pay have also made significant progress, winning NPCI’s various efforts to strengthen smaller UPI apps. The market share of PhonePe and Google Pay was 80 percent in 2021, but their share increased to 86 percent in May 2024. UPI processes more than 23 billion transactions every month, whose total value is about Rs 30 lakh crore and is the world’s largest real-time inter-bank payment system.
Market share of new apps is increasing
BHIM and WhatsApp have benefited the most in the last two years. NPCI is investing in BHIM and the market share of this app has increased five times to 1 percent in two years. Navi and super.money started work only two years ago and together have achieved 5.5 percent market share.
Talking about the top three apps, Phone Pay, Google Pay and Paytm together processed 95.2 percent of all UPI transactions in January 2024, which has reduced to 87 percent in May 2026. However, these changes have not significantly reduced the risks associated with the system and are still far away from NPCI’s target of reducing the market share of any one UPI app to less than 30 percent. On December 31, 2024, NPCI extended the market cap rule for two more years, perhaps because of challenges in implementing its policy.
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