PhonePe launched PulsePro on July 30, a paid enterprise platform that packages aggregated, anonymized transaction data from its 570+ million users into market intelligence for businesses. The move turns a byproduct of running India's largest UPI app into a standalone revenue stream, one the company expects to become "meaningful" as it prepares for a public listing.
"PhonePe serves both consumers and businesses and PulsePro fits right in as an enterprise data intelligence offering. Over time, we anticipate this to become a meaningful revenue vertical," Karthik Raghupathy, PhonePe's strategy head, told Inc42.
What does PulsePro actually sell?
PhonePe Set To Move Beyond Payments With PulsePro Launch | India Today Impact Feature
PulsePro answers operational questions that require transaction-level insight: where to open the next store, which districts offer expansion opportunities, how to optimize distribution networks, whether local economic activity justifies entering a new market. The data comes from PhonePe's network of over 70 crore users and 5 crore merchants.
The platform ships three modules. Category & Growth Intelligence tracks consumer spending patterns across more than 200 retail categories and 100 market signals. Retail Network Intelligence focuses on expansion planning and distribution optimization. Hyperlocal Intelligence provides district and PIN code-level data for site selection and catchment analysis, including metrics like quick commerce penetration.
PhonePe is targeting large enterprises in FMCG, retail, and D2C sectors. The pricing model is not standard SaaS; the source indicates commercial terms are customized rather than published.
Why launch a data business now?
The timing is not accidental. PhonePe reported a 62% year-over-year widening of its net loss to ₹2,792 crore in FY26, even as operating revenue rose 12% to ₹7,920.5 crore. The company filed for a public offering but deferred it, citing market volatility. Translation: the path to profitability needs more than UPI volume.
UPI itself generates zero MDR (merchant discount rate) on person-to-person and most person-to-merchant transactions. Every tap-to-pay costs PhonePe money to process but earns it nothing directly. The company has pursued merchant lending, advertising, and insurance distribution to build revenue. PulsePro adds a fourth vertical that extracts value from what PhonePe already collects.
Context on recent fintech product launches and funding activity in India
From open data experiment to paid product
PulsePro is a commercial extension of PhonePe Pulse, a free open-data platform the company launched in 2021. Pulse made aggregated transaction trends available to startups, researchers, policymakers, and academics studying India's digital economy. According to Raghupathy, the inbound demand for deeper, customized intelligence after COVID made the upgrade inevitable.
"Especially, post-Covid, we started receiving inbound requests from organisations for deeper and more customised intelligence that can help them form their growth strategies," Raghupathy said. "PhonePe PulsePro is our response to that demand."
Logicity's Take
PhonePe is betting that owning the transaction graph is more valuable than processing transactions. If PulsePro gains traction, expect Google Pay and Paytm to follow with their own enterprise data plays. The harder question is whether enterprise buyers will pay enough to move the needle on a ₹2,792 crore loss. Retailers already use location intelligence from tools like [Salesforce](https://logicity.in/r/salesforce) or specialized geospatial platforms. PulsePro's edge is that its data shows what people actually bought, not just where they walked.
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What this signals for fintech
PhonePe is not the first payments company to commercialize transaction data. Visa and Mastercard have run consulting arms built on spending analytics for years. But in India, where UPI rails are open and MDR is zero, data monetization may become the primary way payment apps justify their existence to investors.
If PulsePro succeeds, it validates a model other fintechs can copy. The question for PhonePe is whether enterprise sales cycles and custom pricing can scale fast enough to matter before the IPO window reopens.
Need Help Implementing This?
If you're evaluating market intelligence platforms or building data products from your transaction logs, reach out to the Logicity team for implementation guidance and vendor comparisons.
Source: Inc42 Media / Anjali Jain
Manaal Khan
Tech & Innovation Writer
Produced with AI assistance and reviewed by the Logicity editorial team. Learn more in our Editorial Policy.
