Google announced on Thursday that it will gradually provide the SoundPod, a portable speaker that can immediately verify and announce successful payments, to small businesses over the India. While the business is closing down some of its payment apps in the United States, Google Pay is expanding in India, where it is one of the leaders in the mobile payment market.
The business, which started a limited trial of SoundPod last year, had good feedback from testers and helped shops in cutting down on checkout times. Google Pay’s Vice President of Products, Ambarish Kenghe, stated in a blog post.
Small jukeboxes, known as “soundboxes” in India, are very popular. They allow merchants to make any illegal claims and take a break when they receive payment.
The market leader in soundboxes at the moment is the financial services company Paytm, although PhonePe is also steadily growing its product line. Industry insiders estimate the cost of production for these boxes to be between $18 and $20, and over 20 million businesses worldwide currently utilize them. (Paytm, incidentally, is “fighting for its survival” right now as it gets past regulatory restrictions.)
The soundbox was created to help small Indian businesses who took UPI payments but could not afford standard point-of-sale equipment. (The most common method of payment for Indians now is through the UPI, a payments network developed by an association of retail banks in India.) The devices, which are now more widely used than Visa, Mastercard, and American Express put together, forced the payment giants to consider methods to capitalize on their popularity last year.
As different players charge merchants subscription fees, it has also developed into a profitable subscription model over time. One industry source claims that the real attraction of the soundbox goes beyond its audible notifications; it offers priceless insights into merchant methods, making it easier to provide loans based on this information.
The SoundPod is available from Google Pay for a very low price. It will cost you $18 for a year, or $6.06 a day for 25 days in a month. According to the firm, merchants who make 400 payments in a month with SoundPod would receive $1.5 in cash back.
Google’s Kenghe continued, “We continue to stay deeply invested in this journey for the long term. Being able to play a part 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.”
A similar device was also tested on campus by Reliance, the biggest company in India based on market value, as TechCrunch previously revealed. In a later earnings call, the business confirmed the device and stated that it will soon be available for purchase.
