India’s economic story is increasingly being shaped beyond its biggest cities. Consumption is expanding across tier-two and tier-three towns, neighbourhoods and rural clusters, opening new opportunities for businesses looking for their next growth market. But where should a retailer open its next store? Which localities are seeing greater consumer activity? And what is driving growth in one market over another?
In a conversation with NDTV’s Saurabh Gupta, Karthik Raghupathy, Head of Strategy at PhonePe, explained how PhonePe Pulse Pro is attempting to answer such questions by turning aggregated digital transaction data into actionable market intelligence.
“PhonePe Pulse Pro is a best-in-class market intelligence platform that enables businesses to make very actionable decisions using enterprise-grade data intelligence,” Ragupati said.
For Raghupathy, the distinction lies in turning large volumes of information into intelligence that can address specific business needs. “Just data alone is typically not enough. You need intelligent data that marries itself to a business problem,” he said.
Pulse Pro draws on PhonePe’s ecosystem of more than 700 million consumers and over 50 million merchants, with coverage across 99% of India’s postal codes.
“99% postal code coverage means that we are where every post office is,” Raghupathy said, adding that the scale provides access to economic activity across the country.
That reach allows businesses to go beyond broad national or state-level trends. Pulse Pro offers “hotspots”, location intelligence and category growth trends that can help companies assess where to expand distribution, open stores or identify areas matching their target consumer profile. The platform can provide insights at the pin-code level and, in some cases, across areas as granular as 250 metres by 250 metres.
Another differentiator is the two-sided nature of PhonePe’s network. “When there is a consumption, you have a buyer and a seller. We see both sides of the network,” Raghupathy said, explaining that this provides greater context around consumption patterns.
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From Consumer Intent To Actual Transactions
That also separates Pulse Pro from traditional survey-led market research. Surveys typically capture what consumers say they may do; transaction data reflects what they are actually doing. As Raghupathy put it, market research can indicate “what the customer might do”, while Pulse Pro looks at “what the customer is doing.”
With such granular data comes the question of privacy. Raghupathy said both Pulse and Pulse Pro have “privacy by design”, with datasets aggregated and anonymised so insights cannot be attributed to an individual consumer or merchant.
As businesses look deeper into Bharat for growth, the challenge is no longer simply identifying where consumers are. It is understanding where they are transacting, how those patterns are changing and what that means for the next business decision.
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