Amazon Acquires Tapzo, Boosts Amazon Pay

Competition increases on the Indian market for digital payments and the US Big Four are among contenders. Just like Facebook and Google, both aiming to attract Indian users, Amazon highlights their interest in entering this ecosystem, too. The e-commerce leader would have bought out the personal assistant platform Tapzo for $40 million to boost Amazon Pay.

The Indian start-up Tapzo was founded in 2010 to focus on aggregating mobile apps, such as Swiggy, Zomato, BillDesk and even Uber, via a single interface. Their “All-in-One” tries to solve a serious issue as uninstallation rates in this country reach roughly 80% within 90 days.

With this buyout, Amazon could improve Amazon Pay’s adoption rates in India, and may even hope that, in the medium term, it might become the default payment option for Tapzo’s 5 million users. This start-up’s team will be joining the American group and helping them scale up their services.

So far, no details have been disclosed as to how Amazon will be relying on Tapzo to boost their wallet. Yet, Tapzo’s range of customised services seem to match the group’s strategy perfectly. For instance, loyalty points could be added for access to discounts when ordering rides with Ola or Uber from the app.

Comments – India: a vibrant and coveted market

Digital payment solutions currently constitute a market of roughly $200 million in India, and Crédit Suisse Groupe AG deems that it will be worth $1 billion in 2023. Considering this huge market potential, it makes sense that Amazon should focus on this emerging country.

As they try to win market shares, this e-commerce specialist –with 150 million users in India already– even translated their website into Hindi. Amazon also launched a new solution called Bill Payments, enabling Indian users to pay utility bills.

These rollouts occur as Paytm just bought out Balance.Tech to expand their range of offers with the addition of a PFM services. Google, for their part, introduced new sets of features via their local service Tez (now rebranded to Google Pay) to appeal to Indian merchants. Amazon could rely on Tapzo to face this increasing competition on this highly coveted market.