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In today’s newsletter:

• Flipkart's super.money pips Cred in UPI ranking
• Narayana Murthy slams AI hype in India 
• IN-SPACe chief rejects Starlink competition concerns

Programming note: Wishing all our readers a Happy Holi. There will be no edition of MCTech3 on March 14 and we’ll be back in your inbox on Monday (March 17)!

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The UPI battlefield is shifting, and Flipkart Group’s super.money has dethroned Cred to become the fifth-largest UPI app.

• An achievement that puts it in the same league as Sachin Bansal’s fintech venture, Navi—in terms of growth curve

While February typically sees a dip in UPI transactions due to fewer days, both super.money and Navi defied the trend.

• super.money: Launched in July last year, it clocked 140 million transactions in February

• Navi: After rolling out cashback incentives a year ago, Navi processed 260 million transactions last month

• In contrast, Cred's transaction volume has remained stagnant for over a year, hovering around 130 million monthly transactions

IPO-bound PhonePe continues to dominate UPI payments, with 47.5% of the market share. Search giant Google’s UPI app Google Pay retained around 36% volume market share and 35% value market share. 

• Third-placed Paytm had around 6.7% volume share and 5.3% of the value

Thanks to these newer apps, on March 1, the UPI transaction value crossed Rs 1 lakh crore in a single day for the first time. It had come very close to this milestone on February 1 as well.

• UPI payment values fluctuate wildly, ranging from Rs 50,000 crore to Rs 1 lakh crore per day

The first and last days of the month see high transaction value and volume, likely driven by salary credits and rent/bill payments.

Dig deeper

Infosys founder Narayana Murthy has a message for India’s tech industry: Stop slapping the AI label on everything.

Speaking at TiE Con in Mumbai, Murthy called out companies for branding even “silly old programmes” as AI. 

“It has become a fashion in India to talk of AI for everything,” he said.

He emphasized that true AI models rely on deep learning and neural networks that process unsupervised data to mimic human behaviour.

Murthy also urged business leaders to embrace “compassionate capitalism”—a balance between economic growth and social responsibility.

• Treat employees as human beings
  
  
• Reduce the gap between the lowest and highest salaries
  
  
• Prioritise long-term value over short-term profits

This comes after Murthy's call for young people to work 70-hour weeks to boost India's global standing.

“Compassionate capitalism is capitalism in mind but socialism at heart,” Murthy said. 

Go deeper

Elon Musk’s Starlink is trying to beam its way into India, but the country’s space industry isn’t losing sleep over it. 

What SpaceX is doing, no Indian company is doing, says IN-SPACe chairman Pawan Kumar Goenka, making it clear that Starlink’s entry is more of a telecom shake-up than a space sector disruptor.  

• Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel recently signed deals with SpaceX

Once it receives government approval, Starlink will offer satellite-based internet as an alternative to traditional providers.  

Also read: Starlink’s high prices likely to keep India a niche market for satellite broadband

During an interview with us, Goenka also dispelled any concerns regarding any detrimental impact of the US trade war on India's space ecosystem.

“India is not imposing large tariffs in space. So, if it is reciprocal one-to-one, then the space industry does not have to worry about it,” he said.

In the recent budget, the government reduced customs duties on satellite and rocket launches.

The IN-SPACe chairman also said that Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have signed deals to build dedicated space manufacturing parks, with Karnataka likely to follow

• States will develop infrastructure, lowering costs for space startups

• IN-SPACe will provide technical expertise but leave execution to the states

Go deeper

• State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, is setting up a unit to manage project financing solutions for “new age industries” such as artificial intelligence, e-commerce, and fintech.
  
  
• Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh said that the state government has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to train two lakh youth in AI and advanced skills.

We live in an era where data is king, but what happens when the very systems designed to help us actually hurt us? 

• Cathy O'Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction delves into the algorithms that increasingly control our lives—often without our knowledge or consent

Check it out

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