WhatsApp is adding prepaid phone recharges in India in a move to get more users transacting within the app, even as it struggles to gain meaningful ground in a payments market dominated by PhonePe and Walmart-owned Google Pay.
On Thursday, WhatsApp announced that it is partnering with fintech PayU to develop prepaid recharge phones in India, allowing users to renew mobile numbers for major carriers including Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea directly within the messaging app. The feature will be available to all WhatsApp users in the country over the next two weeks, PayU confirmed to TechCrunch.
Despite the fact that more than 500 million users in India and launching payments in 2020, WhatsApp remains a fringe player in the country’s digital payments space, driven by its government-backed unified payments interface. The messaging app processed more than 130 million transactions in March, according to the latest statistics by the National Payments Corporation of India, far behind rivals like PhonePe and Walmart-owned Google Pay, which processed more than 10.5 billion and 7.5 billion transactions, respectively, in the same period.
The gap remained even after the NPCI lifted integration limits on WhatsApp Pay in late 2024, allowing the service to expand to its full user base in India after years of a phased rollout.
However, the use of WhatsApp payments has increased since early 2025, after boarding restrictions were lifted. Its UPI transactions more than doubled from around 61 million in January 2025, according to NPCI data. During the same period, Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay grew by around 30% and 20%, respectively, while continuing to account for the largest volume of UPI transactions.
The latest release adds to WhatsApp’s broader push to expand in-app payments and services in India, where users can already pay bills, book metro tickets and access a range of government services through chat-based interfaces, as the Meta-owned company looks to deepen engagement beyond messaging.
WhatsApp has also introduced a rupee (₹) icon on its home screen to make it easier for users to access the payments section, alongside features like mobile recharges and peer-to-peer transfers.
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Ravi Garg, director of business messaging at Meta India, said the updates are aimed at making everyday transactions simpler on WhatsApp as the company aims to bring more utility to the app.
The move underscores Meta’s push to deepen engagement beyond messaging, even as it continues to lag behind established digital payment players in growing transaction volumes.
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