Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: PhonePe works with companies such as Ola, Myntra, Domino’s Pizza, KFC, Indian Oil Corporation, IRCTC, Swiggy, and more to offer its business solutions including PhonePe Switch, cashless payments at offline stores, online payments, and in-app brand advertisements and rewards.
Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Digital payments company PhonePe on Monday announced that it has acquired freelance platform for micro entrepreneurs GigIndia. The deal amount, however, wasn’t disclosed by PhonePe. According to the company, it would leverage GigIndia’s network of 1.5 million freelancers to help corporates and enterprises acquire more customers and scaleup their distribution channels. GigIndia current has more than 100 enterprises as customers. Gig work or freelancing is essentially referred to on-demand work delivery with negligible or no formal contracting.
“This acquisition will strengthen PhonePe’s offerings and value proposition to its enterprise partners and result in the creation of millions of opportunities for individual freelance micro-entrepreneurs in India. According to reports, India’s freelance community is projected to grow to $20-30 billion by 2025,” PhonePe said in a statement.
“We are excited to welcome GigIndia’s team to PhonePe and leverage their domain expertise to offer value added services to our enterprise partners, helping them scale, expand and grow their businesses,” said Vivek Lohcheb, Head of Offline Business, PhonePe.
PhonePe works with companies such as Ola, Myntra, Domino’s Pizza, KFC, Indian Oil Corporation, IRCTC, Swiggy, and more to offer its business solutions including Switch (which allows merchants to integrate their progressive web apps or mobile sites to PhonePe app), cashless payments at offline stores, online payments, and in-app brand advertisements and rewards.
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The company claimed to have more than 365 million registered users on its app using it to send and receive money, recharge mobile and DTH, pay at stores, make utility payments and also buy and invest in gold and silver. PhonePe is currently accepted at over 27 million merchant outlets across India.
“GigIndia has been a trusted partner for fast-growing enterprises across India and in PhonePe we have found a like-minded partner, who supports our vision,” said Sahil Sharma, CEO, GigIndia.
India’s gig economy, which has gained momentum over the past few years with the success of platform-based companies like Uber, Swiggy, and Urban Company, could potentially serve up to 90 million jobs in the country’s non-farm economy, transact over $250 billion in the volume of work and add 1.25 per cent to the country GDP, according to a joint report by the Boston Consulting Group and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation launched in March last year. The four largest industry sectors viz., construction, manufacturing, retail, and transportation and logistics could alone account for over 70 million of the potentially ‘gigable’ jobs, the report had noted.