Electronic e-commerce company Flipkart’s arm PhonePe has launched a low-cost point-of-sale device as a part of company’s strategy to tap into the offline market. Now it is directly competing with Paytm, which has a strong offline presence through its QR codes.

About the Device

The handheld device will elevate PhonePe’s current offline daily transactions of around 10,000 to one million in the next 12 months, said PhonePe’s chief executive Sameer Nigam. The device is integrated with a bluetooth and doesn’t require internet connection. The POS device powered by AA batteries resembles a calculator and can also be initiated using the consumer’s PhonePe mobile application.

It will be piloted with 5,000 merchants in Bengaluru before moving across top 10 cites in next 3-4 months.

Planning to Deploy Multiple Devices

This device is currently available for a security deposit at Rs 699, which is the cost of the manufacture of the device. PhonePe hopes to deploy multiple devices at a single merchant as well.

“We want to go city by city since this requires merchant education,” said Nigam, who believes that due to the recent guidelines wallet-specific QR codes will not work. “They will have to be interoperable QR codes. Our POS solution fits better.”