On Wednesday, Google launched its digital wallet in India with local integrations, two years after the app was relaunched as a digital wallet platform in the United States.
As first reported last month by TechCrunch, Google Wallet will coexist in India with the current Google Pay app, which will remain the company's payments app in that country. In February, Google swapped in its Pay app for Wallet in the U.S.

Google Pay is not going anywhere. "Google Pay is our flagship payments use case, Ram Papatla, general manager and India engineering lead for Android at Google, said at a press conference in New Delhi. "Wallet is specially designed keeping in mind the non-payment use cases."

Google Wallet shall enable Android users in India to store and access their boarding passes, gift cards, event tickets, and loyalty passes. Add all of this through a QR code, barcode or link shared through Gmail, or even by making use of a dedicated Add to Google Wallet button available on partner apps.

Also, the app will store transit tickets, and you will have the ability to create passes from any image having a barcode or QR code, such as airline boarding passes, luggage tags, or parking receipts.

Google Wallet will be available initially with 20 brands, including PVR Inox, Flipkart, Air India, MakeMyTrip, Pine Labs and Ixigo. The company has also enlisted local transport operators such as Kochi Metro, Hyderabad Metro, VRL Travels and AbhiBus. The company has also collaborated with system integrators Wavelynx and Alert Enterprise to let users store and access their corporate badges.

India is the world's second largest smartphone market, and in that, Android was the leading smartphone platform with a market share of 93% during the last four years, said new data from Counterpoint that was shared with TechCrunch. While some 152 million smartphones shipped in the country in 2023, 140 million were running Android, added the market research firm, which noted that smartphone penetration rate for the year was at 70%, up from 66% in 2021.

All this gives Google a solid reason to launch Wallet in India. But it would still compete with Samsung Wallet, which the South Korean company offers as a one-stop digital wallet and payments app. Apple also has its Wallet app for iPhone users in the country, though that app doesn't have many local integrations. Instant messaging app WhatsApp also provides the ability to get virtual boarding passes and transit tickets from platforms like MakeMyTrip and state metro train operators.