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WhatsApp adds prepaid phone recharges in India as its payments usage still lags

WhatsApp partners with PayU to launch prepaid recharges in India, but remains 80x behind PhonePe's 10.5B monthly UPI transactions with just 130M.

Thursday, April 23, 2026 12:00 PM UTC2 MIN READSOURCE: TechCrunchBY sys://pipeline

WhatsApp is launching prepaid mobile phone recharges in India via a partnership with fintech PayU, aiming to boost engagement in payments. Despite 500+ million users and years of operation, WhatsApp remains marginal in India's UPI market—processing 130 million transactions in March versus 10.5 billion for PhonePe and 7.5 billion for Google Pay. The feature rolls out over two weeks as WhatsApp seeks to narrow a widening competitive gap.

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