Google said Thursday that it would distribute the SoundPod, a portable speaker that immediately validates and announces successful payments, to small businesses in India over the next few months. Google Pay’s growth in India, where it leads the mobile payment industry, comes as the company closes certain U.S. payment applications.
The company’s limited SoundPod experiment last year generated great reviews and helped shops shorten checkout times. Google Pay VP of Products Ambarish Kenghe blogged.
Small jukeboxes, known as “soundboxes” in India, have become popular, allowing merchants to receive payment and dispute bogus claims.
Paytm dominates the soundbox business, while PhonePe is booming. Over 20 million shops use these boxes, according to industry insiders, who estimate their cost to be between $18 and $20. (Paytm is “fighting for its survival” under regulatory clampdown.)
The soundbox was created for tiny Indian retailers that couldn’t afford POS machines yet accepted UPI. (UPI, a payments network developed by a partnership of Indian retail banks, is the most common method Indians use to trade.) With more users than Visa, Mastercard, and Amex combined, the gadgets led the payment giants to consider methods to capitalize on their reach last year.
As players charge merchants for subscriptions, it has become a profitable subscription model. According to one industry source, the soundbox’s main appeal goes beyond its aural alerts: it gives deep information about merchant behavior, enabling credit offerings.
Google Pay sells the SoundPod for $18 for a year or $6.06 a day for 25 days. The startup stated merchants that make 400 payments in a month using SoundPod would earn $1.5 back.
“To be able to play a role in India’s digital payments story is a matter of deep pride for us, providing invaluable lessons on how digital transformation happens in tech-forward societies, and we continue to stay deeply invested in this journey for the long term,” said Kenghe of Google.
Eltrys stated that Reliance, India’s biggest company by market valuation, tested a comparable gadget at its campus last year. In a later earnings call, the business verified the product and announced its debut.
Google Pay is expanding its QR soundbox to small retailers in India after a successful trial period.
