Paytm has history of expanding to different verticals and not stick to only payment app. Due to UPI they don't even earn much from money transactions that is why there is Paytm mall, and other products. But now they are trying to grab on to bigger opportunity.
Story starts from a fight between a game played my millions of children and adults, and most valuable company in the world. So lets start from the company which had enough "courage" to ditch headphone jack and don't think their tablet pc is a computer. That company is Apple.
Apple became most valuable company with 2 trillion dollar valuation in July 31 2020. Reason for this valuation is not only their hardware product sells but it also their software. Apple reported on June 15, 2020 that their platform had generated $61 billion dollars in digital goods and $45 dollars in-app advertising. Out of this revenue they took 15% to 30%. That's a lot of money.
In June 2019 Apple has experienced plateau of iPhone sales and since then they are transitioning from hardware to software focus business model. That is why app store tax is important for apple.
Ok so enough about Apple. Now listen who challenged this tech tycoon?
It was Fortnite. Its a PUBG ripoff. It was Fortnite due to which Paytm got their inspiration and I will explain you how. It is more of Epic Games then Fortnite who is responsible for of all this. Epic Games is parent company of Fortnite.
Fortnite is a very famous game in USA. Despite being PUBG ripoff it's digital good in app purchase model is very successful. They pay 30% tax to Apple for in-app digital good payment. Realistically speaking it does not take as much efforts to scale digital good in game. It could be as much as gamer wants to buy. Still they want to earn more and to do so they want their own app store. So they can have their own in-app purchases and advertising revenue from game developer. But Apple won't allow that to happen. As their future will be app store revenue.
Apple does not allow other payment gateway other than their own but still Fortnite got ahead and added custom payment gateway. Not just that but gave gamers discount if they use custom payment gateway for buying digital goods instead of what Apple provides. This broke Apple's policy and that is why they banned Fortnite from their platform. Fortnite more so Epic Games had option to remove custom payment gateway and get unbanned but they had a plan.
Apple and many big tech companies were going through anti-trust hearing. They were trying to explain boomers that how there business is safe for user or how they does 'not' crush any competition. Epic games wanted to use this opportunity and show the government that Apple is unfair. So they can get their own App store. Which kind of back fired a little as they are happy to pay Sony Playstation and Xbox 30% of payment but not to Apple.
So how did this inspired Paytm you ask?
It is very clear Paytm also want their own app store but their focus is more on Android Play Store than Apple app store. This is because in India their are more Android users than iPhone users.
When Fortnite got banned it was not only Apple who banned it but there was also Google who also who banned Fortnite from android. Paytm first got itself banned from google by introducing cricket gambling feature. It is not sure if they did this intentionally or not but in few weeks they advertised their own app store. So I think it was definitely a plan.
How this also supports current situation?
India is going through change and banning Chinese apps to retaliate Chinese invasion at LAC. Indian government is also thinking of introducing their own App store. And who could ban a country? I don't think even Apple cannot reject freaking government with second largest population with growing economic, not at the moment but definitely in the near future. As they would only have option of getting banned from the government. I kid you not, no matter what, Indian government is really good at banning things.
Amazon and other companies also have their own app store but have you ever used it? Anyways, now Paytm will also try to enter into this business but only future will decide how successful they will be.
So this was entire story of how so many companies are desperate for earning more and more.