In its latest exit from India’s crowded online retail market, Walmart-backed fintech giant Phonepe plans to wind down its Pincode e-commerce app and shift its business to B2B services for offline sellers.
Sameer Nigam, founder and group CEO of PhonePe, said on Thursday that running the consumer-facing quick commerce app was a distraction from the company’s core focus on small retailers. The company instead wants to focus on helping stores “operate more efficiently, increase profit margins and increase visibility,” which he said is a key objective.
PhonePe launched Pincode in April 2023 in a major push into e-commerce, building on the Indian government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). The hyperlocal app offered groceries, medicine, food, electronics, and home decor items from neighborhood stores. It was first rolled out in Bangalore and later expanded to other cities.
Just over a year after its launch, Pincode has exited most categories except food. Earlier this year, the app moved to a quick-commerce model, offering delivery within 10 minutes through local kirana shops and retailers in cities like Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Pune. In April, the company expanded the service to 10-minute drug deliveries in Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune.
PhonePe’s Pincode leveraged local stores and retailers for quick delivery. This is in contrast to rivals like Swiggy, Zomato-owned Blinkit and Zepto, which rely on dark stores. This transition did not help Pincode establish itself in a crowded segment and led to PhonePe scaling back its services.
Pincode was not PhonePe’s first foray into e-commerce. In 2019, the company launched Switch, a super app layer within its payments app that provides access to food, grocery, shopping, and travel services.
PhonePe has now shut down the Pincode app and redirected the website to PhonePe’s main site. Going forward, the company said it will focus on collaborating with offline retailers by expanding its B2B services. In July, PhonePe announced that it has digitized over 1,000 local stores in Bangalore, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Varanasi through Pincode, providing access to digital storefronts, inventory tools and last-mile delivery services.
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“As part of this strategic decision, we will be focusing the resources of the entire Pincode team towards building and accelerating the scale-up of a suite of B2B business solutions for offline businesses across India,” Pincode CEO Vivek Lohcheb said in a prepared statement.
PhonePe already offers inventory management tools, order management tools, and other ERP software for small and medium-sized businesses, and also offers direct sourcing and replenishment services in some categories.
The changes come as PhonePe prepares to go public in India, nearly three years after it was separated from Flipkart. The company filed draft documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India in September through a confidential pre-filing route and aims to list in mid-2026. PhonePe is also exploring ways to grow beyond its position as the country’s leading payment app on the unified payment interface.
PhonePe did not respond to detailed questions about Pincode’s performance or the timing of app shutdowns.
