SmartSpeakers

“Namaste Guru Garu, Nenu Mahesh Babu”: PhonePe SmartSpeakers rope in actor Mahesh Babu for its celebrity voice feature

February 26, 2024 TeluguSuperNews Leave a comment

Telugu super news,February 26th,2024: PhonePe, today announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind celebrity voice feature on its SmartSpeakers in collaboration with the Superstar of Tollywood, actor, Mahesh Babu. This new feature will allow PhonePe SmartSpeakers to validate customer payments in Telangana film industry’s iconic actor Mahesh Babu’s distinct voice, in both Telugu and English across India.

The PhonePe SmartSpeaker was launched a year ago, and since then, more than 4.8 million devices have been used by merchant partners across 90% of the postal codes in the country. On average, PhonePe SmartSpeakers validate 10.9 crore monthly transactions in Telangana, demonstrating its widespread adoption in the state. Using famous celebrity voices from different regions will make the payment experience for customers as well as merchants even more interactive.

Speaking on this new and distinctive offering, Yuvraj Singh Shekhawat, Chief Business Officer – Merchant Business at PhonePe said, “Our extensive network of over 3.8+ crore merchants is spread across different regions in India, each with its unique linguistic needs for payment validation. Through partnerships with various renowned celebrities, we are adapting and tailoring our services to meet such distinct needs of our merchants in a creative way. This ensures the efficient use of our devices while also boosting the appeal of the PhonePe SmartSpeaker among both merchants and customers.”

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how merchants can enable this new feature from their PhonePe for Business app.

1) Open the PhonePe for Business App

2) Go to the SmartSpeaker section on the home screen

3) Under ‘My SmartSpeaker’, click on ‘SmartSpeaker Voice’

4) Choose the desired celebrity’s voice in the preferred language

5) Click on ‘Confirm’ to activate the voice

6) The device gets rebooted with the updated language in the chosen celebrity’s voice within a few hours

PhonePe also recently launched the celebrity voice feature on its SmartSpeakers in collaboration with the iconic Indian actor, Shri. Amitabh Bachchan in Hindi and English with plans to roll this out in more languages in the future. Some of the other features that make PhonePe SmartSpeakers stand out in the market include portability, a best-in-class battery, great audio clarity even in the noisiest of environments, and the compact and versatile form factor which allows merchants to use it even in the most congested counter spaces. Earlier merchants using feature phones relied heavily on SMS, but now with the PhonePe SmartSpeakers, their payment validation experience has been significantly eased. PhonePe SmartSpeakers provide voice payment notifications in multiple Indian languages, with up to 4 days of battery life, dedicated data connectivity, a dedicated battery level LED indicator for ease of use, audio alerts for low battery levels, and a dedicated replay button for the last transaction. By offering such convenience to merchants, PhonePe is seeing the successful adoption of PhonePe’s SmartSpeakers in the market, thus enabling an increase in digital payments.

PhonePe SmartSpeakers Offer Voice Payment Notifications in Telugu

June 7, 2023 TeluguSuperNews Leave a comment

Telugu super news,Bengaluru, 7 June 2023: PhonePe, today announced the launch of voice payment notifications for its SmartSpeakers in Telugu. With the introduction of vernacular voice notifications, merchants can now validate customer payments instantly in the regional language of their choice, without having to check the customer’s phone screen or wait for the payment confirmation SMS from the bank, especially during peak business hours.

PhonePe SmartSpeakers are currently being utilized by merchant partners across 19,000 pin codes (covering over 90% of the country), to enable voice payment notifications. In Telangana alone, PhonePe has successfully digitized 21 lakh merchant partners, who are actively utilizing its QR codes and other solutions. With the addition of voice payment notifications in Telugu, they can now access PhonePe SmartSpeakers in their preferred language within the PhonePe for Business app, without incurring any extra charges. On an average, PhonePe SmartSpeakers validate 6 crore transactions per month in Telangana, demonstrating its widespread adoption in the state.

Speaking on the new offerings, Vivek Lohcheb, Head of Offline Business at PhonePe said, “As we take digital payments into the Indian heartlands, our aim is to actively solve for the numerous challenges that merchants currently encounter, thus ensuring the optimal utilization of our SmartSpeaker devices. Addressing the challenges that come with varying lingual needs is a step in that direction. With the growing demand for payment validation, our objective is to make our devices accessible to every merchant in India by localizing and customizing our services to cater to their specific needs.”

Here’s the step-by-step guide for merchants to download and select the regional language of their choice on the PhonePe SmartSpeaker:

1) Open the PhonePe for Business App

2) Go to the SmartSpeaker section on the home screen

3) Under the Language bar, choose your preferred language from the multiple options available

4) The selected language gets downloaded on the device

5) Device gets rebooted with the updated language

PhonePe had launched SmartSpeakers last year, to provide reliable and convenient payment tracking at stores. Some of the features that make PhonePe SmartSpeakers stand out in the market include portability, a best-in-class battery, great audio clarity even in the noisiest of environments, and the compact and versatile form factor which allows merchants to use it even in the most congested counter spaces. Earlier merchants using feature phones relied heavily on SMS, but now with the PhonePe SmartSpeakers, their payment validation experience has been significantly eased. PhonePe SmartSpeakers come with up to 4 days of battery life, data connectivity, a dedicated battery level LED indicator for ease of use, audio alerts for low battery level, and a replay button for the last transaction.

PhonePe deploys over 10 lakh SmartSpeakers within 3 months of launch

November 5, 2022 TeluguSuperNews Leave a comment

PhonePe, India’s leading fintech platform today announced that it has deployed over 10 lakh SmartSpeakers to merchant partners across India. The company has also processed over 100 crores (1 billion) transactions via the devices, within just 3 months of launch. This has enabled the company to further strengthen its offline merchant payments across the country. Introduced earlier this year in August for reliable and convenient payment tracking at merchant locations, the company has received phenomenal feedback from merchants on the device performance. As a result, the demand for SmartSpeakers has surged amongst new merchant partners, across the urban and rural markets.

PhonePe has been a pioneer in enabling end-to-end payment solutions and building new offerings for merchant partners to make it easier for them to run and grow their business. The company was first to launch the interoperable QR codes, making it extremely simple for merchants to seamlessly accept digital payments from any UPI enabled apps; and the first to also launch Photo QR codes– addressing the need for personalization and safeguarding businesses against fraudulent transactions. Keeping up with the evolving needs of its merchant partners, PhonePe introduced SmartSpeakers in August this year for efficient payment tracking at the retail outlets.

The volume of digital transactions made to businesses has been increasing at a rate of 175% during covid owing to the extensive consumer adoption of digital payments. This has further amplified the demand for stronger payment validation mechanisms, especially in instances where it is challenging to keep track of several transactions carried out during peak hours at various QRs. PhonePe’s SmartSpeakers address this need, saving merchants a lot of time and effort in tracking transactions. The SmartSpeaker has a host of features like instant payment alerts, and a very high level of reliability, enabling merchants to no longer worry about any unauthorized transactions in their absence. The ease of receiving payment notifications in English and 10 Indian languages, and the high sound clarity also makes payment validation easier in the noisiest of environments, making it a preferred choice amongst merchants.

Speaking on the milestone Vivek Lohcheb, Head of Offline Business at PhonePe said, “Digital payments are now ubiquitous in India as they have helped eliminate various issues pertaining to cash transactions. PhonePe’s SmartSpeaker is a big step in providing cutting-edge payment services to our merchant partners, especially in the mass market, and this has opened up a new channel for engaging with our vast merchant base. Deploying more than 10 lakh devices in less than 3 months, marks a significant milestone given the speed & scale at which retailers have embraced this value added offering from PhonePe.’’

The PhonePe SmartSpeaker comes with dedicated data connectivity and is easy to operate without requiring any configuration, and it gets automatically linked to all the QRs in the merchant’s store. It also has a dedicated battery level LED indicator for ease of use, along with audio alerts for low battery level, a dedicated replay button for the last transaction, and supports multiple languages.