UPI In December: PhonePe, Google Pay Lose Market Share For The Seventh Consecutive Month

The top two UPI players — PhonePe and Google Pay — continued to lose market share for the seventh straight month, even as monthly UPI transactions hit an all-time high in December 2025.

Although IPO-bound PhonePe continued to lead the UPI race, with its transaction count growing sharply to 980.1 Cr transactions worth INR 13.61 Lakh Cr. Despite the growth, its market share gradually declined to 45.30% from 46.15% in the previous month. This is the seventh consecutive month when PhonePe has lost market share. 

Its closest competitor, Google Pay, has also seen an erosion of market share since April. While month-on-month (MoM) transaction count for the company increased 5% to 749.7 Cr transactions worth INR 9.58 Lakh Cr, its market share declined to 34.6% in the month under review from 34.8% in November.

Meanwhile, Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm, which had shown signs of recovery in the UPI race recently, also pared with some market share in December. While the fintech player was gaining market share in the past few months, it saw a slight decline to 7.6% share in December, from 7.7% in the previous month. However, transaction count also jumped 5% to 165.4 Cr transactions worth 1.76 Lakh Cr in the month under review. 

While the top three players bled some market share over the month, the fourth largest player, Navi, market share increased to 3.1% from 3%. The platform 67.8 Cr transactions, up 11% MoM, worth INR 35,929 Cr during the month.

The transaction counts for other UPI players below the top four — super.money, FamApp, BHIM, CRED — also registered some growth on a MoM scale. However, barring BHIM, their market share remained similar.

While Amazon Pay’s transaction volume grew 3% to 9.2 Cr transactions in the month under review, it was overtaken by WhatsApp and Kotak Mahindra Bank. 

Amazon Pay is far away from its competitor super.money, Flipkart-backed fintech startup. The latter recorded 28.7 Cr transactions in the month, growing from 26.5 Cr transactions recorded in November. 

Over the course of 2025, UPI continued to scale at a rapid clip, clocking more than 22,000 Cr transactions worth INR 299.76 Lakh Cr. Despite the sharp expansion of the ecosystem, the top three players managed to retain their leadership positions, highlighting the increasing consolidation at the top of the market.

Beyond transaction growth, the year also saw the UPI ecosystem experiment aggressively with new use cases — ranging from global rollouts and AI-driven customer support systems to pilots such as UPI Reserve.

Looking ahead, NPCI is reportedly in discussions with lenders to enable small-ticket loans of up to INR 5,000 on UPI, offering users credit-card-like interest-free periods. Separately, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is expected to allow subscribers to withdraw provident fund balances via UPI on the BHIM app, with an initial per-transaction cap of INR 25,000.

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