If you’ve been watching the ICC Cricket World Cup, youve definitely seen the PhonePe one too many times. The payments giant paid Rs 150 crore to get these advertising rights. It is the biggest UPI payments company in the country with a 49% of the market share.
But why is a payments giant selling insurance and why health insurance to be specific?
You see, as big as the PhonePe might be, and even with a giant like Walmart behind it, profit margins in the the payments business are pretty slim. And with a possible IPO in the works, PhonePe had no choice but to diversify and so it did.
It launched its insurance vertical in 2020. However, three years have passed now and PhonePe’s insurance business has contributed just 1% to the company’s consolidated revenue for FY2023.
Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
What is Daybreak?
Business news is complex and overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be. Every day of the week, from Monday to Friday, Daybreak tells one business story that’s significant, simple and powerful.
Hosted from The Ken’s newsroom by Snigdha Sharma and Rachel Varghese, Daybreak relies on years of original reporting and analysis by some of India’s most experienced and talented business journalists.