Yahoo Cricket reaches new audience of cricket fans with PhonePe partnership, adds interactive features for new normal

BENGALURU, India, Sept. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Yahoo Cricket, a one-stop destination for cricket fans, has partnered with PhonePe, India's leading digital payments platform, to exclusively power the content for PhonePe's cricket hub 'Switch Gully', through the cricket season ahead. Users of PhonePe can now catch all the live action while they transact, with live scores, real-time cricket news updates, and ball-by-ball commentary from Yahoo Cricket on 'Switch Gully,' available on the PhonePe homepage.

With many more Indians turning to digital payments for their utilities and purchases online since the pandemic, cricket fans in the new normal can now track what's happening on the field while they continue to transact on PhonePe. Yahoo Cricket will be available on PhonePe Switch even after the completion of the upcoming Premier League.

"This partnership uniquely positions Yahoo Cricket to deliver the latest scores, useful content and an interactive experience to many more cricket fans at scale. PhonePe's vast, diverse user base and phenomenal reach will enable fans across the country to enjoy updates of the latest cricketing action from the league with Yahoo Cricket. For fans, this partnership creates a seamless way to connect to their passion, without pausing what they need to get done on PhonePe," said Nikhil Rungta, India Country Manager, Verizon Media.

Commenting on the partnership, Rituraj Rautela, Head of PhonePe Switch, said, "We are excited to have Yahoo Cricket as a partner onboard PhonePe Switch. Yahoo Cricket will also be an important offering for our users on 'Switch Gully', our dedicated hub for cricket this season, where we have partnered with multiple brands for a variety of services across food, gaming and shopping. With this partnership, our 230 million users can now catch all the live cricketing action on the PhonePe app itself. With over 220 partners on PhonePe Switch currently, our effort has been to build a comprehensive ecosystem offering users a  convenient way to engage with multiple apps without downloading them individually. In doing so, we also enable faster customer acquisition at lower costs and drive higher engagement for our partners." 

New fan experience for the new normal

Yahoo Cricket has also upgraded its mobile app experience for fans, making sure the excitement is 'always on' and more interactive. Now with a reduced app size, fans can stay updated with live cricket scores, intensive ball-by-ball commentary and all the cricket news as it happens, besides enjoying the game with a slew of brand new, innovative features:

Uninterrupted experience:

• Keep track of live scores via 'Sticky' Scorecard: Following a nail-biting match when one suddenly needs to check another app on their phone? Now, don't miss a minute with Yahoo Cricket's new, unique "Sticky Scoreboard". Available for Android users, this innovative feature allows  users to continue to track live scores via the Yahoo Cricket app while using other apps on the phone.

• A cricket widget (Android) allows users to track live scores even when their phones are locked.

Fast-track to Fantasy research

• For a Fantasy Cricket fan who wants an unfair advantage, Yahoo Cricket has sorted this with its comprehensive 'Fantasy Research' section. Loaded with stats related to players and teams, it has the ultimate data fans need by match and player, so they can create their best team yet.

Interactive, fan-centric features

Even if one can't be in the stadium this year, Yahoo Cricket draws the user into the game, making it easier, more fun, and bringing fans together to enjoy matches:

• Real-time polls and quizzes: Yahoo Cricket has match-specific polls integrated within the commentary. Fans can also dive into daily cricket quizzes.
• Bringing users into the conversation: Manually curated user comments are incorporated in the ball by ball commentary -- no social distancing required to join the discussion.
• Dark Mode for mobile app (iOS and Android apps) and Web
• Smaller app on Android, which does not clog your phone memory

The Yahoo Cricket App is available for download on Google Play and the App Store.

About Verizon Media:

Verizon Media, a division of Verizon Communications, Inc., houses a trusted media ecosystem of premium brands like Yahoo, TechCrunch and HuffPost to help people stay informed and entertained, communicate and transact, while creating new ways for advertisers and media partners to connect. From XR experiences to advertising and content technology, Verizon Media is an incubator of innovation and is revolutionizing the next generation of content creation in a 5G world.

Media Contacts

Tanushree Mahanty | [email protected] | +91-9899195348
Ishani Bhattacharjee | [email protected]  | +91-9874404195

About PhonePe

PhonePe is India's leading digital payments platform with over 230 million registered users. Using PhonePe, users can send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, data cards, pay at stores, make utility payments, buy gold and make investments. PhonePe forayed into financial services in 2017 with the launch of digital gold providing users with a safe and convenient option to buy 24-karat gold securely on its platform. PhonePe has since launched Mutual funds and Insurance financial products like tax-saving funds, liquid funds, international travel insurance and Corona Care, a dedicated insurance product for the COVID-19 pandemic. PhonePe also launched its Switch platform in 2018, and today its customers can place orders on over 220 apps including Ola, Myntra, IRCTC, Goibibo, RedBus, Oyo etc. directly from within the PhonePe mobile app. PhonePe is accepted at over 12 million merchant outlets across 500 cities nationally.

Media contacts:

Priya Patankar | [email protected] | +91-9886675772
Alok Dash  | [email protected] | +91-9980984903