Paytm: The Lucky Lifafa Campaign

Abstract

The Indian digital payment market was estimated to grow to around USD 700 billion - USD 1 trillion by 2022. A number of players had entered the market to challenge Paytm which aimed to maintain its prominent position in the Indian mobile wallet space. To increase its user base and use-cases, Paytm introduced the Lucky Lifafa campaign to provide Indian users a novel way of sending money as a gift. The campaign bore similarities to the Red Envelope campaign used by WeChat to garner a wide user base in Chine. In spite of gift-giving being an integral part of Indian culture, the acceptance of Lucky Lifafa among Indian users was significantly different from that of the Red Envelope among Chinese users. The case describes the Lucky Lifafa campaign and the context in which it was executed, thus highlighting the differences in the way gifts are given in Chinese and Indian societies. Additionally, the case also provides details of existing and upcoming players in the mobile wallet market space in India.