High growth Indian gift card market expected to attract foreign players; Stellr India introduces prepaid gift card network

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International prepaid payment service provider, Stellr, headquartered in Singapore, has introduced the concept of Prepaid Gift Card Mall which allows distribution of gift cards from domestic and international brands to retail outlets and e-commerce platforms. This will enable cash purchases of digital services of these brands. Currently, Stellr is focusing on channelizing gift cards in fashion, fast food, travel and entertainment segment by end of 2016. Brands such as BookMyShow, Hungama, Cleartrip, Google Play and Intel Security have already partnered with Stellr for the service.

Prepaid gift card market in India is majorly dominated by Qwikcilver which holds around 90% market share. It has customer engagements in more than 100 brands across 20 categories. It is backed by Amazon and processes 50 million transactions each year in physical, digital and mobile card segment. In September 2016, it introduced a gift card exchange platform which enables users to convert unused or partial gift cards to cash along with regular purchase and selling on its Woohoo app.

Stellr has partnership with 4,000 top tier retail joints that include Reliance Digital, Croma, Vijay Sales and such like, more than 15000 general trade stores, various e-commerce platforms and mobile wallets. Last year, it undertook the task of Google Play gift card distribution across various retail stores and an e-commerce platform. It is also listed in Amazon India as a seller. In India, gifting industry is worth USD 1.15 billion and gift cards are expected to contribute significantly to the industry in coming 5 years. The market is still not very competitive. PayNXT360 believes that given the medium to long term high growth potential of gift card segment, the Indian market is expected to see entry of global players both from developed and other emerging markets. Innovating to target specific consumer segment according to regional behavior is going to be critical to gain market share.

To know more and gain deeper understanding of prepaid gift card industry in India, click here.