PhonePe SmartSpeakers feature celebrity voice to enhance payment experience

By Gloria Mathias

PhonePe has announced the launch of a celebrity voice feature on its SmartSpeakers in collaboration with famous Indian actors Mammooty, Kichcha Sudeep, and Mahesh Babu across Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, respectively.

This new feature will allow PhonePe SmartSpeakers to validate customer payments in the respective region’s celebrity voice. It is available across India in English and the respective regional languages; Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu. PhonePe had previously also launched the celebrity voice feature on its SmartSpeakers in collaboration with the Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan in Hindi and English.

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. Using celebrity voices from different regions will make the payment experience for customers as well as merchants even more interactive.

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

Some of the other features that make PhonePe SmartSpeakers stand out in the market include portability, a durable battery, 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 last transaction.