Mobile payment and commerce company Paytm which is backed by the world’s largest e-tailer, Alibaba Group, has announced an investment of Rs 900 to 1,000 crore over the next 6-8 months, to boost margins in the sector dominated by Flipkart and Amazon.
“Our GMV has increased from Rs 2,500 crore in 2014 to around Rs 9,500 crore now, and we hope to touch Rs 10,000 crore by month-end,” Paytm CEO and founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said.
The company that offers apparels, home appliances, car accessories, toys and books, among other things, is looking for a change. It started a bus ticket marketplace earlier this month and claims to be doing around 20,000 bus bookings daily. It also plans to start airline and train ticket bookings in the coming months.
Next, it will initiate a marketplace where one can book hotels. It will partner with other online and offline travel firms as well as aggregators to offer the service. While Sharma refused to divulge further details on the launch plans, sources said the hotel booking service could go live as early as next month.
From 20 million users last year, the mobile wallet now boasts of a database of 90 million users, and has 70,000 sellers on its platform.
