The number of registered PayPay users broke the 40 million mark!
Hello everyone, this is Sota from the PayPay Inside-Out editorial team.
This time, the PayPay Inside-Out editorial department will tell you about the memorable topic that the number of PayPay users has exceeded 40 million!
On June 17, 2021, the number of registered PayPay users broke the 40 million mark!
We are very fortunate to have a third of the population of Japan registered with us in just 2 years and 8 months since we launched our service.
PayPay has engaged in numerous initiatives to let people in Japan, where reliance on paying in cash is deeply rooted, experience and enjoy the convenience of cashless payments.
In this issue, I want to look back on what we did to get to 40 million registered users, and to introduce some of our latest initiatives. Reading this article might let you understand why PayPay grew so quickly, and maybe even turn you into a PayPay expert!
Numerous impactful campaigns! Looking back at past campaigns
Starting with the “10 Billion Yen Giveaway Campaign” that was launched in December 2018 and brought the term “mobile payment” into public awareness, PayPay has been holding one campaign after another. Believe it or not, since the service went live, we had a PayPay campaign each and every month without fail! Let’s look at some representative examples of promotional campaigns held in the past:
-
10 Billion Yen Giveaway Campaign Super-sized campaign with guaranteed 20% cashback and 1 in 10 chance of full purchase amount returned. Launched PayPay into public awareness
- 2nd 10 Billion Yen Campaign A second helping (?) of the 10 billion yen campaign. Another 10 billion project with updated campaign contents to allow as many people as possible to take part.
-
Waku Waku PayPay A campaign providing benefits to PayPay customers purchasing from a different type of merchants (supermarkets, restaurants, pharmacies, etc.) each month.
-
Machikado PayPay A campaign accompanying the government-run cashless payment incentive program, providing additional benefits to PayPay users.
-
PayPay Jumbo Turning shopping into entertainment. A lottery that starts immediately upon making a payment. Winners get cashback worth up to their total transaction amount and 10 times of PayPay Bonus.
-
Support Your Local Town Project A series of campaigns held by local governments and PayPay aiming to revitalize local economies affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
-
PayPay Coupons We have started a service where users can get PayPay bonuses at various stores by getting coupons in advance.
-
Cho PayPay Matsuri A campaign to commemorate the business integration between Yahoo Japan and LINE. As many as 100 other promotions were held simultaneously, turning it into a large-scale event
PayPay has been creating and launching various campaigns to encourage more customers to use our services throughout multiple phases of growth of cashless payments. I believe those campaigns provided an opportunity for a lot of users to start using our services. As a PayPay user, I’m also excited to see what sort of campaigns will happen in the future!
Updated every week? Continuously evolving PayPay app
If you have been using the PayPay app since the service was launched, you probably thought “Wait a second, this is different”. It’s because PayPay UI and UX are constantly evolving. Let’s look at the home screen as an example of what changed between the time we started and now:
At the beginning, the interface was quite simple and focused on payment functions, but today it’s filled with multiple features. PayPay aims to always be user-friendly while adding new functions, and our app has been updated more than 50 times a year and at least once a week! I think the app being this easy to use is one of the reasons why it’s supported by this many users.
By the way, the development of this app is supported behind the scenes by a company culture created by an extremely diverse group of people from more than 45 countries. PayPay Inside-Out gives you a sneak peak behind the scenes of our company – please give the series a read if you’re interested.
Our goal is to turn places accepting cash into ones accepting PayPay
PayPay’s biggest rival is cash. Our goal that we strive to achieve every day is to have all places that accept cash support PayPay.
PayPay has sales teams and offices from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south – 22 locations all over the country! Based in these locations we directly visit stores, and support stores not yet used to cashless payments.
A sales team member told me that lately a lot of people recognize the name “PayPay”, but when the service was first launched, it was pretty exhausting to deal with all the “Pay-what now?” reactions…) It’s quite moving, thinking how far we’ve come in 2 years and 8 months since then.
Putting security first precisely because our service is new. Our safety and security efforts.
As a provider of cashless payments to a lot of users and merchants, PayPay has been very pro-active with regard to safety and security.
In addition to 24/7 manned and unmanned (using AI) monitoring to prevent unauthorized use, we implemented a system to fully compensate losses incurred in an unlikely event that unauthorized use occurs.
On top of that, as a service aiming to ensure safety and security, and to provide systems to alleviate any concerns, we also have a support phone line available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
We want our customers to feel safe when using our services precisely because they are new. One reason we were able to break the 40 million users mark in just 2 years and 8 months is that our initiatives like the ones mentioned above have helped a lot of users to become more comfortable with cashless payments.
Afterword
Did you like the article? It introduced just some of the main initiatives we have undertaken after the launch of PayPay service. PayPay aims to carve out a new future for cashless payment in Japan, and we will continue our efforts.
Finally, the PayPay Inside-out editorial department will introduce you to some of PayPay’s hot topics on an irregular basis. Please look forward to it.
※社員の所属等は、取材当時のものです。
