On 4 April, Indian digital payments and financial services company, PhonePe Pvt. launched Pincode, which is a hyperlocal e-commerce discovery platform built on top of the government-backed Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC).
PhonePe Pvt. Launched Pincode
Presently, the app is live only for customers in Bengaluru and will be launched to other cities later.
In a press note, the company said, “The Pincode app will promote local shopkeepers and sellers and hopes to digitally connect each city’s consumers with all their neighborhood stores that they usually buy from offline, with the convenience of online ordering, great discounts and instant refunds and returns.”
While unveiling the app, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer Sameer Nigam said, “Pincode is built on the ONDC network, which allows us to generate demand for merchants digitized by various seller platforms in an inclusive manner,”.
Further added that all sellers will be listed democratically on the platform.
“All stores will be listed on the basis of user generated content. We’re not here to decide who the winner is. We want to enable choices for the consumer. We will also not be touching pricing at all,” Nigam said.
Not Competing In The Ecosystem
Interestingly, Pincode seems to be only the second consumer-facing app built by PhonePe.
Nigam explained that they will never compete with anyone in the ecosystem.
Adding, “We will never open a cloud kitchen, a dark store or a logistics company. We won’t be a bank, or an NBFC. We will play our own role in the ecosystem,”.
While talking about the future aspect, Nigam set a target to get to one lakh orders a day on the Pincode app by December.
Further explained, “If we get there, we’ll go hammer and tongs and expand across the country.”
At present, PhonePe is valued at about $12 billion and is in the middle of a $1 billion fundraising effort.
So far, it has raised about $650 million of the sum.
Besides ONDC-based shopping, it has also expressed intent to scale new businesses like insurance, wealth management, lending, stockbroking and account aggregators.
It appears that the PhonePe has changed its domicile to India and fully separated from Flipkart.
These moves are synonymous with a company looking to list in India.
According to a December 2022 report by Bloomberg, PhonePe’s IPO is slated to take place 18 to 24 months after the completion of the current round of fundraising.
